Practically in the same hours in which Pope Leo called for a “disarmed and disarming” peace, recalling that Jesus “overcame hatred and enmity with the merciful love of God” and that “nothing comes from the exhibition of force”, Donald Trump promoted a massive attack on Nigeria by writing on The Pentagon, Trump continues, “has carried out numerous perfect attacks.”
And therefore, while the Pontiff, without ever mentioning the American administration, says of Christians: “We do not serve an overbearing word – they already resonate everywhere – but a presence that inspires good, knows its effectiveness, does not claim a monopoly on it” and calls for a missionary Church whose path is “towards the other”, the US president flexes his muscles and promises and implements military attacks in Nigeria as against Venezuela.
If Pope Leo promotes multilateralism and asks us to follow, as Christians, in the footsteps of Jesus, who «identifies with each of us: with those who no longer have anything and have lost everything, like the inhabitants of Gaza; with those who are prey to hunger and poverty, like the Yemeni people; with those who are fleeing from their homeland to seek a future elsewhere, like the many refugees and migrants who cross the Mediterranean or travel the American continent; with those who have lost their jobs and with those who are looking for one, like many young people who struggle to find a job; with those who are exploited, such as too many underpaid workers; with those who are in prison and often live in inhumane conditions”, Trump insists, despite the stop he has received from federal judges, to send troops to Chicago to hunt down migrants. It continues to attack Europe, the United Nations and all international bodies that promote dialogue instead of just an armed response.
Trump applauds the seven, eight, nine – every day he adds one – wars that he would have stopped, but he does not think, as Pope Leo does “of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to the rain, wind and cold, and those of many other refugees and refugees on every continent, or the makeshift shelters of thousands of homeless people within our cities”.
Between the apparent fragility of a newborn baby – who, however, the Pontiff reminds us, gives us the “power to become children of God” – and the bullying of those who also use religion to gain votes and consensus, we hope that, at least at Christmas, everyone knows which path to take to build a non-ephemeral peace that considers, these are always Pope Leo’s words, those who are “stripped of their dignity and reduced to silence”. And which encourages commitment because “human flesh asks for care, calls for acceptance and recognition, seeks hands capable of tenderness and minds willing to pay attention, desires good words”.
