The 38th World Day of Peace: for a new political culture
On the occasion of the 38th World Day of Peace, celebrated January 1 each year, John-Paul II asks for “a greater international mobilization”, alluding to areas of war and misery in the world. “The good of humanity requires a true international cooperation, to which each nation must bring its participation. A new political culture has become necessary, especially in the domain of international cooperation”, wrote the pope in his message, published on December 16. “How can we not think of the dear African continent? How can we not evoke the dangerous situation in Palestine, where they have not succeeded in bringing together the threads of mutual understanding, broken by a conflict fed every day in a more and more troubling fashion by attacks and revenge? And what can we say of the tragic phenomenon of terrorist violence, which seems to push the entire world toward a future of fear and anguish? Finally, how can we not notice with bitterness that the Iraqi drama is unfortunately dragging out in a climate of uncertainty and insecurity for all?”
“It is indispensable that we promote a great undertaking of education of consciences, which will teach goodness to everyone, above all to the rising generations”, counseled the Sovereign Pontiff. “This responsibility falls particularly on the political authority, at all levels of its exercise”, he explained, deploring the fact that “visions that minimize human reality transform the common good into a simple socio-economic well-being, deprived of any transcendent end”.
John-Paul II underscored that “the good of peace must be seen as closely linked with the new goods coming from scientific knowledge and technical progress”. He hoped international commercial relations would be founded on the principle of equity. In this regard, “a new impetus must be given to public aid for development”, he added. States must break down “the barriers and monopolies that keep numerous peoples on the margin of development”. And the pope cited the case of the African continent: “May Africa cease being merely the object of aid and become an active mutual participant in the exchange of goods.”
The Holy Father called for new forms of solidarity, both bilateral and multilateral. “Once again, I would like to recall that the failure to respect promises given more than once concerning public developmental aid, as well as the even weightier question of the international debt of Africans, constitutes grave obstacles to peace”. Finally, for John-Paul II, “the common good demands respect for the promotion of the person and his fundamental rights, as well as for the respect of the rights of nations. Belonging to the human family confers on each person a sort of world citizenship, giving him rights and duties: it suffices for a child to be conceived for him to have rights”.
