VATICAN CITY (CNS): Anything that threatens the traditional family threatens peace, because the family “is the first and indispensable teacher of peace”, Pope Benedict XVI said.
In his annual message for the January 1 celebration of the World Day of Peace, the Pope also said the responsibilities learned and the joys and struggles shared within individual families must be mirrored on a global level because everyone is part of one human family.
The Pope chose “The Human Family, A Community of Peace” as the theme for 2008, the 40th anniversary of the Catholic Church’s celebration of World Peace Day.
“The first form of communion between persons is that born of the love of a man and a woman who decide to enter a stable union in order to build together a new family,” the Pope wrote.
“But the peoples of the earth, too, are called to build relationships of solidarity and co-operation among themselves, as befits members of the one human family,” he said.
War and violence, exploitation of the weak, rampant poverty and under-development, destruction of the environment and the arms race are all threatening signs that individuals and nations have not learned to live together in harmony and mutual responsibility, the Pope said.
“Humanity today is unfortunately experiencing great division and sharp conflicts which cast dark shadows on its future,” he said.
Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace president Cardinal Renato Martino presented the message to the press on December 11.
He said Pope Benedict’s concerns about the arms race, both nuclear and conventional, reflected the fact that global military spending reached an all-time high in 2006 and that, in many cases, countries had tried to justify their increased military spending by claiming it was necessary in order to combat terrorism.
In his message, Pope Benedict wrote, “In difficult times such as these, it is necessary for all persons of good will to come together to reach concrete agreements aimed at an effective demilitarisation, especially in the area of nuclear arms.”
