«The planet is marked by conflicts and divisions, and even more so you are united by a strong and courageous” no “to war and from” yes “to peace and fraternity. As Pope Francis taught us, in fact, war is not the right way to get out of the conflictthe. At the “Business of the wars”, an economy that arises from the care, the gift, mutual trust must be opposed. “
It is the appeal that Pope Leone XIV He addressed the organizers of the third edition of the World Meeting on human fraternity organized by Basilica of San Pietro, from the Fratelli Tutti Foundation, by the Be Human Association and the Saint Peter For Humanity I Foundationn program Friday and Saturday. An event with 15 thematic tables and comparison workshops, with the participation of internationally important personalities. Among them, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of the Basilica, vicar general of the Vatican city and president of the San Pietro factory; Graça Machel Mandela, activist and politics, co-founder of The Elders, reality committed to promoting peace, justice, human rights and environmental sustainability; And Maria Ressa, Nobel Prize for Peace 2021. The Pope received the organizers at the hearing on Friday morning in the Vatican by addressing them a speech in Italian and English: «Your presence testifies to this wisdom, which unites cultures and religions, that silent force that makes us recognize brothers and sisters, despite all our differences “.
Then he mentioned the biblical story of Cain and Abele. “That first murder must not lead to conclude: “It has always gone like this”. However ancient, however widespread, Cain’s violence cannot be tolerated as “normal”. On the contrary, the rule resonates in the divine question addressed to the culprit: “Where is your brother?”. Our vocation, the rule, the canon of justice is in this question. God does not take revenge on Abele with Cain, but asks him a question that accompanies the whole path of history, “said Pope Leone. Always in the wake of the biblical story of Cain and Abel the Pope asked this question: «brother, sister, where are you? Where you are in the business of wars that destroy the life of young people forced to smear weapons; Tire defenseless civilians, children, women and the elderly are aimed; Do cities, countryside and whole ecosystems devastate, leaving only rubble and pain in their passage? Brother, sister, where are you among the migrants who are despised, imprisoned and rejected, among those who seek salvation and hope but find walls and indifference? Where are you, brother, sister, when the poor are blamed with their poverty, forgotten and discarded, in a world that enhances profit more than people? Brother, sister, where are you in a hyperconnex life where solitude corrodes social ties and makes us even unrelated to ourselves? ».
Pope Leone stressed that “The answer cannot be silence. The answer is to choose a different direction in life, growth and developingor”. Recognize a brother or sister in the next free from two logic, according to the Pope: the “fiction of believing us unique children “and that of the” members “, who have only specific interests in common. In fact, it is not the latter “to make us live together”. The most mature spiritual traditions and critical thinking have taught to overcome exclusively ethnic or blood ties: those “brothers” that recognize the “similar”, denying the “different”.
Finally, Leone XIV recalled that, in the Bible, the most recent texts paint a fraternity based on “common humanity”, beyond the “ethnic borders of the people of God”. This was testified by the stories of creation and genealogies: one is the origin of the different peoples – even of enemies – and the earth, with its goods, is for everyone, not for some. The Pope then invoked “an alliance of the human” and asked to “identify local and international paths, which develop new forms of social charity, of alliances between knowledge and solidarity between generations. They are popular paths, which also include the poor, not as recipients of help, but as subjects of discernment and speech. We need an extended “Alliance of the human”, founded not on power, but on care; not on profit, but on the gift; Not on suspicion, but on trust. The care, the gift, the trust “are” pillars of an economy that does not kill “.
