In the message with which he launched the first “World Day of Peace”, way back to 1967, Pope Paul VI spoke of the need of “a new training [that] must educate the new generations to reciprocal respect between nations, to brotherhood between peoples, to collaboration between races, with a view also to their progress and development”.
Educating young people in justice and peace is the productive result to counter war, injustice and violence.
Society is duty bound to instil in its future leading members a spirit of peace, justice and communion. In his message marking the celebration of the “World Day of Peace” of this year, Pope Benedict XVI said that “attentiveness to young people and their concerns, the ability to listen to them and appreciate them, is not merely something expedient; it represents a primary duty for society as a whole, for the sake of building a future of justice and peace”. Society must help the young generation to appreciate “the positive value of life and of awakening in them a desire to spend their lives in the service of the Good”.
Whose responsibility is this? The Holy Father frankly admits that “this is a task which engages each of us personally”. Obviously, the first on the list is the family from which true education in justice and peace should start. In the family, the “children receive one of the most precious of treasures: the presence of their parents. This presence makes it possible to share more deeply in the journey of life and thus to pass on experiences and convictions gained with the passing of the years, experiences and convictions which can only be communicated by spending time together”.
Next on the list come educational institutions. The dignity of the trainees in these institutions is genuinely respected and appreciated if the educational environment becomes an open place where the student is opened both to vertical and horizontal relationships. If the educational setting becomes “a place of dialogue, cohesiveness and attentive listening, where young people feel appreciated for their personal abilities and inner riches, and can learn to esteem their brothers and sisters”. It is the Pope’s hope that the “young people be taught to savour the joy which comes from the daily exercise of charity and compassion towards others and from taking an active part in the building of a more humane and fraternal society”.
Political leaders must guarantee that, “no one is ever denied access to education and that families are able freely to choose the educational structures they consider most suitable for their children”. Due to the intimate connection between the world of education and communication, education of young people occurs through communication, which influences, for better or worse, their formation as people. Finally, young people are greatly accountable for their own education, particularly if they “make good and wise use of their freedom” especially in their education in justice and peace.
In this massive educational endeavour it is essential to provide the right understanding of freedom and justice. Freedom is crucial in the propagation of justice and peace. The appropriate employment of freedom implies “respect for oneself and others, including those whose way of being and living differs greatly from one’s own”. On the other hand, this attitude brings forth those features that are basic to justice and peace such as “mutual trust, the capacity to hold constructive dialogue, the possibility of forgiveness, which one constantly wishes to receive but finds hard to bestow, mutual charity, compassion towards the weakest, as well as readiness to make sacrifices”.
Justice lies “within the horizon of solidarity and love”. It is truly achieved not just by relationships of rights and duties, but, as the Pope outlined in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, “to an even greater and more fundamental extent by relationships of gratuitousness, mercy and communion. Charity always manifests God’s love in human relationships as well, it gives theological and salvific value to all commitment for justice in the world” (§ 6).
The Pope concludes his message by exhorting young people to realise that by encountering Jesus Christ they “are an example and an inspiration to adults, even more so to the extent that [they] seek to overcome injustice and corruption and strive to build a better future”.
Mario Attard OFM Cap