War: a defeat without victors

In his Christmas Day message, the pope described war as a defeat without victors:

“To say ‘yes’ to the Prince of Peace means saying ‘no’ to war, and to do so with courage, to the very mindset of war, an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly. To say ‘no’ to war means saying ‘no’ to weaponry. The human heart is weak and impulsive; if we find instruments of death in our hands, sooner or later we will use them.”

Bread not weapons

Pope Francis also spoke of the puppet-strings of war:

“Today, as at the time of Herod, the evil that opposes God’s light hatches its plots in the shadows of hypocrisy and concealment. How much violence and killing takes place amid deafening silence, unbeknownst to many. People, who desire not weapons but bread, who struggle to make ends meet and desire only peace, have no idea how many public funds are being spent on arms. It is something they ought to know. It should be talked and written about, to bring to light the interests and the profits that move the puppet-strings of war.”

Great suffering

In their Christmas message, the heads and patriarchs of the Churches said:

“Even when Jesus was born, there was ‘the killing of children and military occupation’. At that time, Christ himself ‘was born and lived amid great suffering’ and ‘suffered for our sake, even unto death upon a cross, in order that the light of hope would shine into the world, overcoming the darkness’. Even today, in the time of new disasters that tear entire peoples apart, hope for the whole world will indeed be born once again, beginning in Bethlehem and ‘extending from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth’, to restore light even to those who are now ‘in darkness and ‘shadow of death’.”

 

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)