In a new year message, Archbishop Eamon Martin expressed concern that social media may be influencing people to come to conversations and relationships as if “armed for battle”.
He said he is “saddened when I see people of faith online who seem ‘armed to the teeth’, and who persist in ‘othering’ and accentuating difference”.
It was “particularly disappointing when you see this from Christians online who label and dismiss others because of their race, religion or some other perceived difference. This is not of God,” he said.
Quoting from Pope Leo’s message for 2026, the Archbishop continued that “it has become increasingly common to drag the language of faith into political battles, to bless nationalism, and to justify violence and armed struggle in the name of religion. Believers must actively refute, above all by the witness of their lives, these forms of blasphemy that profane the holy name of God.”
He noted how “Pope Leo prefers a disarmed peace, which is not about ‘weaponising thoughts and words’, but about healing, showing mercy and forgiveness, reconciling and bridge-building.”
Archbishop Martin emphasised, “This is one of the ways that religions in general, and Christianity in particular, can continue to play a vital role in the public square - by witnessing and being signs of peace, by holding humanity and the world back from the brink of self-destruction, endless conflict, violent displacement of peoples and death.”
He was “hopeful that even amid what the late Pope Francis called ‘a third world war fought piecemeal’, peacemakers can continue to resist the spread of darkness, standing as sentinels in the night”.
He added: “We must reject the spread of despair, the massive investment in rearmament, and those who would talk up threats and the ‘inevitability’ of war. We do not give up on peace.”