Papa Francesco: Contro la Guerra

Francesco: Contro la Guerra

A thorough rundown of what it takes to become a peacemaker is outlined in a recently released book in Italian, "Contro la Guerra. Il Coraggio di Costruire la Pace" ("Against War. The Courage to Build Peace").

Pope Francis introduces the 192-page volume with fresh remarks penned March 29, criticizing the futility of war: "War is not the solution, war is madness, war is a monster, war is a cancer that feeds off itself, engulfing everything!"

But the main body of the book, published by Solferino press and the Vatican Publishing House, compiles the pope's most outstanding commentaries on war and peace over his nine-year-long pontificate.

The brightest highlights taken from his many messages, documents, homilies and speeches all come together to form a comprehensive look at what it takes to build peace.

"Peace is not a document which gets signed and then filed away. Peace is built day by day! And peace is crafted; it is the work of our hands; it is built up by the way we live our lives," Pope Francis told young people in Bangui, Central African Republic, in 2015.

In that speech and throughout the book, Pope Francis' "artisanal path" of peace can be boiled down to five key features:

-- Fraternity and seeing the world as one human family living in one common home.

The stars in the sky shine down on every single person -- from the beginning of time to today -- and learning "to look at the stars" will be "the most effective vaccine for a future of peace," he said in Ur, Iraq, in 2021.

"Anyone with the courage to look at the stars, anyone who believes in God, has no enemies to fight. He or she has only one enemy to face, an enemy that stands at the door of the heart and knocks to enter. That enemy is hatred," the pope said.

"There will be no peace as long as we see others as them and not us," he said. Humanity lives under one heaven, under the gaze of one God who desires his children to be "hospitable and welcoming" to each other on earth.

-- Inclusion, including reconciling with one's enemies and embracing unity in diversity.

The pope told young people in the Central African Republic that the first step toward being a peacemaker was "never hate anyone. If someone wrongs you, seek to forgive."

"We only win if we take the road of love," he said, and, with love, "you will win the hardest battle in life" and find peace.

But "we need to pray in order to be resilient, to love and not to hate, to be peacemakers," and "you must be courageous," he added. "Courageous in love, in forgiveness, in building peace."

-- The difficult art of dialogue and listening, which can sometimes be as hard as building a bridge over an abyss.

Pride and arrogance must be eradicated from one's own heart, he told young people at a congress of the educational project, "Scholas Occurrentes," in 2016. "Our world needs to lower the level of aggression. It needs tenderness. It needs gentleness, it needs to listen, it needs to walk together."

Dialogue is "the capacity to listen, not to argue immediately, to ask," he said. "Everyone wins in dialogue; no one loses" because "it is about agreeing to proposals so as to move forward together."

South Africa, Nelson Mandela and Commission to Forgive, Truth & Reconciliation

... with all imperfections, a long journey in time, not overnight or within days, weeks, months, years ...

Too many wars ongoing are conflicts with origins of hate even centuries ago ... STOP THE WAR
... the so-called by America imposed "security alliance of NATO" works counter=productive and festers hatred of decades passed, even over a century ago. Peace for Ukraine with the neo-Nazi past fighting alongside Nazi Germany committing crimes of genocide, is not building a foundation for peace within the state itself, and even worse against the victors of the Second World War. Stop the bull$hitting in propaganda. You lost by choice of a war in 2014 and repeated in 2022. Joe the war criminal.

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President Obama Speaks at a Memorial Service for Nelson Mandela | 10 Dec. 2013 |

Today we witness the backlash of full grown hatred in America and the blossoming of right-wing fascism ... build on times of slavery, white power establishment in false religion, Ku Klux Klan, shortened Civil Rights movement, election of Donald Trump and today's attrition to opponents of his first term with key support of South African white supremacists, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.

The U.S. Government Had Nelson Mandela on Terrorist Watch Lists Until 2008

My Terrorists, Your Freedom Fighters | ECCHR |

But it's true: Yesterday's terrorists can be tomorrow's heads of state or allies. The clearest example: the case of Nelson Mandela, whose name wasn't removed from US terrorist lists until just a few days before his 90th birthday in 2013, shortly before his death. The USA had added Mandela and his organization, the African National Congress (ANC), to the lists during the 1980's. In the intervening period apartheid was abolished, Mandela was democratically elected president of South Africa and went on to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

[...]

The names on the various lists kept by the UN, the EU and individual states, particularly the United States [and Israel], are not limited to prominent political figures and their organizations. The situation is complicated by the fact that in the USA neither those affected nor the major civil rights organizations such as the ACLU have exact information on who is on what list or why, making it even more difficult to launch a defense.

This is a problem faced by many, many people, including filmmaker Laura Poitras, who is currently presenting her Snowden film Citizen Four at major festivals around the world. A recent publication from research portal "The Intercept" estimates that roughly 680,000 people are affected.

Most recent example ... Jolani in the Syrian (Islamic) Republic

Al Qaeda Roots - Caliphate of the Levant - Part 3 | 23 Dec. 2024 |

Artisanal Construction of Peace

Arts and Building Peace: the Basics and Envisioning the Future

By Cynthia Cohen
Director of the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts Brandeis University

Throughout human history, and in every culture, communities have improved their lives through engagement with creative and expressive forms. Cultural heritage and the arts are resources for marshalling attention to urgent concerns, addressing conflicts, reconciling former enemies, resisting authoritarian regimes, memorializing the past, and imagining and giving substance to a better future. Communities express their deepest values and ethical commitments through aesthetic forms and processes. Humanity dignifies, restores and reimagines itself through creating, performing, interpreting, preserving and revising its cultural and artistic heritage.

Recognition of the contributions of arts and culture to peace is real and growing. It is fueled not only by artist-peacebuilders and cultural facilitators, who are strengthening their practice through documenting, assessing, and critically reflecting upon their work. Interest also is increasing from practitioners of more conventional peacebuilding approaches, such as mediation, facilitation, negotiation, transitional justice, human rights advocacy, and development, who are acknowledging that rational modes of engagement alone are insufficient to engender the kinds of transformation necessary for interrupting the dynamics of violent conflict.

Whether a work, artist, or institution contributes to more just and less violent communities depends upon the creators' skill and the aesthetic and ethical intentions of the artists and producers; the aesthetic and ethical sensibilities embodied in the work and ancillary activities; the resources - sometimes from non-arts groups such as mayor's offices1, truth commissions2 or human rights organizations3 - devoted to extending the reach of an initiative; and, of course, the responses of those who witness and interpret the work.

Cynthia Cohen: Conflict, Creation & Peacebuilding | Episode 102 |

Remembered the Plight Of Palestinians

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"Heart of Compassion" for Palestine: Pope Francis Called for Gaza Ceasefire Until His Final Days

Hatred of the Israelites for any people outside their "biblical cult" ... referring constantly in their daily lives to battles over 2,000 years ago ... total madness ... STOP THE GAZA GENOCIDE NOW

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Women Fight Religious Segregation in Israel

Amalekites

Book of Esther

Gentiles

Gaza animals