Those who today believe in peace and have chosen the unarmed path of Jesus and the martyrs are often ridiculed, pushed out of public discourse and often accused of favoring adversaries and enemies”. Pope Leo He says this at the Angelus on Boxing Day, after reiterating, also on Christmas Day, to pray in particular “for the tormented Ukrainian people, so that the roar of the weapons stops and the parties involved, supported by the commitment of the international community, find the courage to dialogue in a sincere, direct and respectful way”. A concept reiterated and expanded when he also spoke about the suffering of the Palestinians. «Now the Flesh speaks, it shouts the desire to meet us. How can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed to the rain, wind and cold for weeks, and those of many other refugees on every continent?”.
But, before Leone, another witness (and judge) of our time had thrown his boulders into the stagnant waters of international politics. «War overturns everything, it is pure madness, its only objective is destruction and it develops and grows precisely through destruction and if we had any memory we would not spend tens, hundreds of billions on rearmament, to equip ourselves with increasingly sophisticated armaments, to increase the market and trafficking of weapons which end up killing children, women and old people».
Pope Francis: first pontiff to arrive “on the other side of the world”
Even in this case it was a Pope speaking, a great Pope. Capable of denouncing the atrocities of the powerful, of those who put the sordid interests of a multinational clique of businessmen before the well-being of their people. Pope Francis was direct, almost cutting – the smiling, communicative Pope Francis, the first pontiff to arrive “from the other side of the world”, who left us last April 21st after an extraordinary pontificate that lasted 12 years – and he did it with a precise communication strategy: he was not speaking “only” to his faithful.
No, Bergoglio’s sentences, heavy and sharp like obsidian, were scattered “urbi et orbi”, in all directions. Because they were not expressions of circumstance, contained in documents stamped by the Holy See. They were the bloody reflections of a Pontiff who had spent his entire life fighting in all the trenches of the world. And who, almost freed from the constraint of writing through an official act of the Doctrine of the Church, had entrusted his last great pain to an instant book, from April 2022. Perhaps the most unexpected: seeing the wheat fields of Europe bloodied by a new great conflict.
Be careful, because in «Against war: the courage to build peace», Bergoglio had put the tiara aside, placed the crozier against the wall and forcefully proposed a reflection that became an indictment. Without appeal. «If we had any memory, we would know that the war, before it reaches the front, must be stopped in the hearts. And to do this there is a need for dialogue, negotiation, listening, diplomatic ability and creativity, a far-sighted policy capable of building a new system of coexistence that is no longer based on weapons, on the power of weapons, on deterrence”. Exactly the opposite of what the Napoleons of the Third Millennium are trying to make us believe on a daily basis.
Let’s go back to the words of the two Popes, to their “disarmed and disarming” peace.