«War only has a terrible, geometric logic, which once released also affects those who started it, forcing them to do what perhaps they wouldn’t want to do. It is always a defeat when the logic of force claims to replace the patient art of diplomacy.” The words against the war of the Cardinal Matteo Zuppi who, celebrating Vespers in the Collegiate Church of San Biagio di Cento (Ferrara) on the day dedicated to fasting and prayer for world peace desired by the CEI, underlines: «Diplomacy is anything but stalling, postponing, not solving problems. It is not an illusion, rather it is a clear understanding that, if listened to, it can allow us to stop the terrible illusion of strength”.
War, on the other hand, only creates problems «much more serious than previous ones. We get to the point of killing those who are the interlocutors with whom we must or will have to negotiate, an infamous betrayal of any rule of dialogue and respect! How can we subsequently believe in the desire for comparison? To resolve conflicts we need to take lessons from history, to understand the ancient and recent causes, which have often changed but which need to be addressed for it to truly be a just peace.” Quote the «non-application of the Minsk II agreements» which «is an important reason in the conflict in Ukraine, just as the non-application of Resolution 1701 in Lebanon is one of the causes for the non-resolution of the dispute between Hezbollah and Israel. Without negotiation, there will only be an infinite series of wars with the ruthless logic of overthrowing the enemy.”
“But who is the enemy?”, asks the cardinal. «Who defines it as such? Thousands of people have been eliminated, civilians who have nothing to do with the conflictcertainly without their knowledge and without any responsibility a lens, some call them ruthlessly ‘rubbish lenses’‘” And “artificial intelligence does the rest. You insert hundreds of targets into the system and wait to see who you can kill and when.”
The cardinal denounces what is happening, explaining that «we arrive at the praise of tribalism, the drive towards fragmentation and social division accompanied by a contempt for international institutions”. Europe is considered weak because it protects “the rights of the most vulnerable”. But, the cardinal insists, “woe to those who out of convenience, opportunism, ignorance, calculation sow hatred, prejudice, exciting the idea of the enemy instead of seeking what unites!”. And it recalls the role of religions in the search for peace and in the construction of Europe. «The religious spirit can allow us to work for unity», he underlines. «Those Christians who courageously built the architecture of Europe and who did it as Christians for everyone and together with everyoneinspire others to boldly seek solutions to learn how to make peace possible, to build bridges when there is still emptiness and walls to overcome, to prepare dialogue tables to study guarantees and convincing and guaranteed rights and duties, to do so with vision and responsibility. May all religions commit themselves to this, because Peace is the name of God».
The president of the Italian bishops asks that «i nationalisms, in the various editions, and the totalitarianisms that ruin belongings are overcome by the vision of thinking together and not against others.” Pray, the cardinal, so that «God, who reminds us that war is murder because it kills man, suicide because it kills that body of which the killer is part and deicide because it kills the image and its very likeness, help us to feel part of the same human family and to fight the shame and dishonor of a brother who raises his hands against his brother. May God’s judgment inspire us to dominate instinct or calculation, convenience, and help us to be peacemakers starting with ourselves, wherever and wherever the trenches of violence and hatred are dug. Many peace workers will help the architecture for a common home of all brothers.”
