In his 2023 World Peace Day message, Pope Francis has urged reflection on what lessons can be learned three years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He asks: “What new paths should we follow to cast off the shackles of our old habits, to be better prepared, to dare new things? What signs of life and hope can we see, to help us move forward and try to make our world a better place?”
He feels, “the greatest lesson we learned from Covid-19 was the realisation that we all need one another”. He calls for, “embarking together on paths of peace”.
The World Day of Peace, instituted by St Paul VI in 1968, is celebrated each year on 1 January. The 2023 message is titled, “No one can be saved alone: Combating Covid-19 together, embarking together on paths of peace”.
The Pope highlights that “the widespread problems of inequality, injustice, poverty, and marginalisation continue to fuel unrest and conflict, and generate violence and even wars”.
He feels that “we cannot continue to focus simply on preserving ourselves; rather, the time has come for all of us to endeavour to heal our society and our planet, to lay the foundations for a more just and peaceful world”.
Pope Francis describes the ongoing war in Ukraine as “a setback for the whole of humanity”.
The Pope noted that “while a vaccine has been found for Covid-19, suitable solutions have not yet been found for the war”.
The Pope’s text was presented on 16 December by Cardinal Michael Czerny, the Canadian cardinal who serves as prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
The previous week, Cardinal Czerny celebrated the closing Mass of an international conference in Rome titled “Pope Francis, Nonviolence and the Fullness of Pacem in Terris”.
Concelebrants included Bishop Marc Stenger, co-president of Pax Christi International, Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego in the US, and Archbishop Antonio Ledesma of Cagayan de Oro in the Philippines. The celebration concluded with a recitation of the “Vow of Nonviolence” in many languages.
Sponsored by Pax Christi International’s Catholic Nonviolence Initiative and the Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation Commission of Religious Superiors, the conference drew together Church leaders and local change-makers from nearly 30 countries in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East.
Presenters included Kenyan Sr Wamuyu Wachira, co-president of Pax Christi International, who reflected on those on the peripheries, popular movements, youth and Indigenous peoples being the agents of social change.
Maudilia Lopez, an Indigenous woman from Guatemala who leads Pastoral Defensoras de la Madre Tierra, spoke about resisting destructive practices of the Canadian mining company Goldcorp, and about the violence of the Church in forbidding traditional practices and dress central to the life of her Indigenous community.
Sr Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, contributed to a conversation about synodality as an expression of nonviolence.
Pax Christi International and the International Peace Bureau are calling for a Christmas Truce for Ukraine. They are urging a ceasefire for this year's Christmas and New Year 2022/23, from 25 December to 7 January as a sign of humanity, reconciliation and peace.