Parolin: No peace without dialogue

By Paolo Ondarza

“While I reaffirm the inalienable right to self-defense, war is always a failure of humanity as a whole and not just of the individual parties involved.”

All wars are in contradiction with human dignity and “are not intended, by their nature, to solve problems, but rather to exacerbate them.”

It is with these considerations that the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, opened the “Peace Table” in Rome.

With him this morning of May 10, were around thirty Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including Rigoberta Menchù Tum from Guatemala, Dmitrij Muratov from Russia, Tawakkol Karman from Yemen, as well as personalities like Machel Mandela, widow of Nelson Mandela , and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. .

The event kicks off the #BeHuman campaign, the second World Meeting on Human Fraternity, organized today and tomorrow by the “Fratelli Tutti Foundation”: twelve thematic tables open to the public and some broadcast live, with the participation of scientists, economists, doctors. , managers, athletes and ordinary citizens. Everyone comes together to look for alternatives to wars and poverty, inspired by the principle of fraternity.

War undermines human dignity

“God created men to live in peace and protect Creation, not to destroy it.”

War, underlines Parolin, by attacking human dignity and positioning itself diametrically opposed to Creation, “attacks not only the dignity of others, but also one's own dignity”.

Reconsider the concept of “just war”

According to the Secretary of State, the very concept of “just war” must be questioned today, because it “was born at a time when conflicts had a relatively limited scope. In contemporary times, with the advent of nuclear weapons and mass destruction, this theory presents itself as very problematic.

The conference

Let diplomacy prevail over weapons

In his speech of greetings, the cardinal referred to the Jubilee Bull of Indiction promulgated yesterday by Pope Francis and stressed that without dialogue, not only is peace not built, but war is unleashed, replacing the voice of diplomacy through that of arms.

The Cardinal then spoke of the three areas of commitment identified by the Pontiff: tackling the causes of injustices, rectifying inequitable and insurmountable debts and satisfying the hungry.

Poverty, a great injustice in today's world

“Liberation from injustice promotes freedom and human dignity” and it is fundamental, according to the Cardinal, to protect “social justice, especially in the current context where the value of the person is seriously threatened by the generalized tendency to rely exclusively on the criteria of utility and possession.

The absence of social justice, underlines Cardinal Parolin, is the premise of poverty, “one of the greatest injustices of the contemporary world” where “those who have a lot are relatively few and those who have almost nothing are numerous “.

This leads to a “lack of education, which often leads to embrace of extremism and fundamentalism.”

Debt and fraternity

In addition to the poverty of individuals, Cardinal Parolin spoke of that of countries which “cannot keep up with the pace of external debt”.

“While reaffirming the principle according to which the debt contracted must be honored”, according to Parolin, we must “not compromise the fundamental right of peoples to subsistence and progress”, rediscover fraternity between nations.