Pope Francis

FOCUS OF POPE FRANCIS’ NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE

FOCUS OF POPE FRANCIS’ NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE-55TH WORLD DAY OF PEACE DIALOGUE BETWEEN GENERATIONS, EDUCATION AND WORK: TOOLS FOR BUILDING PEACE
Peace is both a gift from God and a fruit of shared commitment”
Pope Francis has called for a people of the world to work together to build a more peaceful world, “within society and with the environment,” through relationships between peoples and nations but starting from the hearts of individuals and relationships in the family.
“I wish to propose three paths for building a lasting peace,” the Pontiff says selling out three approaches to realizing shared projects though generational dialogue, freedom, responsibility and development through education and full realization of human dignity through labour.
“These are three indispensable elements for making possible the creation of a social covenant”, without which every project of peace turns out to be insubstantial,” says Pope Francis in his celebration of the 55th World Day of Peace on the morning of the first day of new-year, 2022.
A SHARED COMMITMENT
The Pontiff observes that in every age, peace is both a gift from God and a fruit of shared commitment to which institutions of society contribute, and an “art” of peace that directly involves everyone.
He said peace, “which Saint Paul VI called by the new name of integral development,” has remained distant from the real lives of many men and women and the interconnected human family despite numerous global efforts to constructive dialogue between nations and the deafening noise of war.
“While diseases of pandemic proportions are spreading, the effects of climate change and environmental degradation are worsening, the tragedy of hunger and thirst is increasing, and an economic model based on individualism rather than on solidary sharing continues to prevail,” notes Pope Francis in his message adding “the cry of the poor… constantly make themselves heard, pleading for justice and peace.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace”.  The words of the prophet Isaiah speak of consolation; they voice the sigh of relief of a people in exile, weary of violence and oppression, exposed to indignity and death.
Pope Francis says the coming of Jesus Christ as the messenger of peace, meant the promise of a rebirth from the rubble of history, the beginning of a bright future with dialogue between generations building peace in a world still gripped by the pandemic that has created untold problems.
The Pope calls on the people of the universe to learn how to regain this mutual trust in a world where the Covid-19 health crisis has increased peoples’ sense of isolation and a tendency to self-absorption.
The Pontiff says loneliness of the elderly is matched in the young by a sense of helplessness and a lack of a shared vision about the future. Despite it being painful, he says, it has also helped to, during the pandemic for example, encountered generous examples of global compassion, sharing and solidarity.
DIALOGUE ENTAILS LISTENING TO ONE ANOTHER -THE ELDERLY AND YOUNG
“Dialogue entails listening to one another, sharing different views, coming to agreement and walking together. Promoting such dialogue between generations involves breaking up the hard and barren soil of conflict and indifference in order to sow the seeds of a lasting and shared peace. Although technological and economic development has tended to create a divide between generations, our current crises show the urgent need for an intergenerational partnership,” Pope Francis says.
He says social challenges and necessarily peace processes call for dialogue between keepers of memory – the elderly – and those who move history forward – the young such that each must be willing to make room for others and not to insist on monopolizing the entire scene by pursuing their own interests.
“Young people need the wisdom and experience of the elderly, while those who are older need the support, affection, creativity and dynamism of the young. The global crisis we are experiencing makes it clear that encounter and dialogue between generations should be the driving force behind a healthy politics, that is not content to manage the present “with piecemeal solutions or quick fixes”,” he says.
CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME
“Together, we can learn from one another. We need only think of care for our common home. The environment, in fact, “is on loan to each generation, which must then hand it on to the next. We ought to esteem and encourage all those young people who work for a more just world, one that is careful to safeguard the creation entrusted to our stewardship. They go about this with restlessness, enthusiasm and most of all a sense of responsibility before the urgent change of direction required by the challenges emerging from the present ethical and socio-environmental crisis,” Pope Francis says acknowledging teaching and education as drivers of peace worldwide.
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