“Since there is no peace on earth, let us risk our lives.” Sta Teresa of Jesus
Towards an ‘unarmed and disarming’ peace in a world with wars.
More than fifty wars are raging around the world. This scourge is costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people every year, condemning entire countries to violence as a way of life, devastating entire cities and reducing them to misery, destroying families, and promoting moral and spiritual degradation in societies. Millions of refugees are fleeing war. Pope Francis was right when he said that we are witnessing World War III.
This reality of war is being confronted with very few adequate solutions; unfortunately, most of the responses are false, including those of many who claim to be Christians. Among these is do-goodism, which limits its response to monetary donations to campaigns by various agencies, “No to war!” banners, or numerous posts on social media, serving as a form of anesthesia for the conscience. On the other hand, there is spiritualism, which obscures the sin and responsibility of individuals in the proliferation of evil through a series of prayers, but without any commitment to a culture that rejects not only the current war, but all wars, thus disembodying faith in the face of human suffering and trusting only in messianism. Another false response is the indifference of those in whom all trace of solidarity has disappeared, thinking that wars do not affect them because they have nothing to do with their daily lives or because they are so far from their countries that they have nothing to do with them, which leads to the perversion of the catholicity of the faith. Finally, there is the hypocrisy of those who are selective about which wars they denounce; some wars, yes, others, no. These are pernicious evils contrary to the Christian faith, rooted in superficiality, lack of solidarity, the disembodiment of Christian life, and even contempt for human life.
Not everything is negative: we must also recognize the testimony of thousands of people, mostly Christians, who denounce institutional evil and the responsibility of the powerful in this escalation of violence. They are witnesses who give their lives—bloodlessly and bloodily—who show us that evil cannot prevail and who show us the heart of Christianity: charity, solidarity, and justice.
In the face of a world at war, the Catholic Church continues to promote peace as the only path to reconciliation and coexistence. The gift of peace granted by Jesus, who said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you,” adding, “not as the world gives” (Jn 14:27), because this peace is not merely the absence of war, nor is it purely the balance of opposing forces, nor is it the result of despotic hegemony. Nor is it mere rhetoric that claims peace but is not willing to put life on the line. The peace that Christ has bequeathed to us is based on truth, justice, love, and freedom. It is a peace, as Leo XIV said, that is “unarmed and disarming,” which promotes responsibility and commitment to denounce the causes that generate war, while proposing ways to build true peace.
The Magisterium of the Church has been constant in prompting various ways to make peace: on a personal level, renouncing violence, self-control, respect for the sacred dignity of human life and the stability of peoples, helping and demanding that governments build peace, living the commandment of love through catholicity and solidarity, critical awareness of false hopes and the fight against selfishness; on the social level, a new universal mentality is required regarding war and its consequences for the whole world, an educational effort that values and promotes authentic peace, critical and constructive public opinion, denouncing and fighting relentlessly against the causes of injustice and inequality; in the political sphere, there is a need to experience and promote political charity as a commitment to addressing the causes and not just the consequences of the evils of humanity, in pursuit of an authentic culture of peace, the promotion of the good of all people, the establishment of an international order that ends the impoverishment of peoples through the implementation of the universal destination of goods and international cooperation for disarmament.
As St. Teresa of Jesus said in one of her poems—which gives this magazine its title—in the absence of peace on earth, Christians are called to risk their lives in the constant search for peace on a personal, social, and political level. For this reason, we have chosen to dedicate this issue to the end of all wars and the construction of peace, contributing with various elements that allow us to overcome false pacifism and half-measures in the face of war.
