«When the word genocide scares us more than children’s coffins, we have lost the compass of our humanity” Don Luigi Ciotti is called to conclude the day of reflection on peace organized by the Toniolo Institute, Catholic Action, Pontifical Lateran University, Fiac. Remember, in the words of Pope Leo, that «structures of injustice must be destroyed with the power of good” and that “peace must be built first and foremost with thought”, with the “strength of kindness”. With a prophecy that means giving a name to things without fear, «because the Church is not an Embassy, but the voice of the voiceless and it must not forget that it was founded by a man condemned to death by the political-religious power of his time.”
Before him, on the topic “Peace be with you all. Towards a ‘disarmed and disarming’ peace”, starting from the message for the 9th World Day of Peace by Pope Leo, university professors, lawyers and scholars had reflected on the role of multilateralism, on negotiation and the certainty of international law, on non-violence as a style, on the arms race, on education for peace.
Education necessary at a time when, as he recalled Carlo Cefaloni, editor of Città Nuova, «Italy, the whole of Europe, is the front line of a possible nuclear war». He adds the numbers, the estimates from Princeton University which predict «the number of deaths on our continent within the first three hours of the triggering of the escalation destined to become uncontainable was 2.6 million“, spending on nuclear weapons which has exceeded 91 billion dollars per year, the latest statement issued on January 27 by American atomic scientists “which warns that we are 85 seconds from nuclear midnight, according to the simulation ofDoomsday Clock conceived in 1947 to mark humanity’s distance from its destruction.” And he denounces that “there is a chaotic and unpredictable dismantling of the entire global arms control architecture.”
Precisely for this reason it is essential to prepare one defense not armed and non-violent which, explains the lawyer Laila Simoncelli, «tell us what we believe in, what we consider so precious that it deserves to be protected»Peace, he adds, “is not a suspension of war, as we have been educated to think”, but is made up of relationships and people. «Where war becomes thinkable the relationship has already been broken and the other is no longer perceived as a face, but as an obstacle”, he explains. True security, on the other hand, forces us to change our outlook, to prevent violence, to build relationships.
Intensive interventions, which can be reviewed on Catholic Action you tube channelwhich analyze reality without discounts. And who, however, do not give in to impotence.
Indeed, precisely in these times it is essential to weave networks and continue to educate in peace, in a language, in commitment to the most fragile. On the other hand, as Don Luigi Ciotti recalls «in front of the greatest mystery, that is, the innocent victims of every war, sometimes we feel a sense of bewilderment and helplessness”. But, quoting the philosopher Norberto Bobbio, who had written in his text On the Paths of Peace «sometimes it happened that a grain of sand raised by the wind stopped a car» he adds: “We too must defeat any form of laziness, discouragement, inertia.” And he concludes: «We must shake our people out of the spiritual drowsiness that characterizes our time and become specks of dust. We are aware that we are small, but we can become grains of dust that refine themselves in that wind that is divine Providence. We don’t know in what ways and at what times, but perhaps the Spirit will use us invisible grains of dust to block the infernal machine and build peace, one grain at a time.”
