Terrorism and Arms Race are threats to global peace: Pope

Vatican City – Terrorism and arms race will continue to pose threats to calls for global peace, the Pope Benedict XVI has cautioned.

In his first message for the World Peace Day, observed on January 1, the head of the Roman Catholic Church stressed that “we need to regain awareness that we share a common destiny which is ultimately transcendent, so as to maximize our historical and cultural differences, not in opposition to, but in cooperation with, people belonging to other cultures.”
 
According to the pontiff, peace is not the "mere absence of war," but rather is "a harmonious coexistence of individual citizens within a society governed by justice, one in which the good is also achieved, to the extent possible, for each of them."
 
"The truth of peace calls upon everyone to cultivate productive and sincere relationships," he said. "It encourages them to seek out and to follow the paths of forgiveness and reconciliation, to be transparent in their dealings with others, and to be faithful to their word."
 
The truth of peace is valid "even amid the tragedy of war," he insisted. When war breaks out, "not everything automatically becomes permissible."
 
"To try to impose on others by violent means what we consider to be the truth is an offense against the dignity of the human being, and ultimately an offense against God in whose image he is made," the Pope wrote, quoting a phrase of Pope John Paul II.
 
Denouncing terrorism or fanatical fundamentalism, the Pope said that to remove this plague it is necessary that "consideration should be given, not only to its political and social causes, but also to its deeper cultural, religious and ideological motivations."
 
The other global threat to peace, he said, is the contradiction posed by "those governments which count on nuclear arms as a means of ensuring the security of their countries."
 
"In a nuclear war there would be no victors, only victims," he warned. "The truth of peace requires that all ­– whether those governments which openly or secretly possess nuclear arms, or those planning to acquire them –­ agree to change their course by clear and firm decisions, and strive for a progressive and concerted nuclear disarmament.
 
"The resources which would be saved could then be employed in projects of development capable of benefiting all their people, especially the poor," he suggested.

The message, titled, "In Truth, Peace," was issued for press release by the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Renato Martino.