Vatican City, Nov 25, 2024 / 17:40 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis presided over a solemn event Monday at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Argentina and Chile that settled a border dispute between the two countries.
The pontiff denounced the hypocrisy of some countries “where there is much talk of peace” but “the highest yielding investments are in the production of arms.”
This pharisaical attitude, he continued, always leads “to the failure of fraternity and peace. May the international community make the force of law prevail through dialogue, for dialogue “must be the soul of the international community.”
The agreement between Chile and Argentina resolved the crisis caused by a territorial dispute over the Beagle Channel and sovereignty over several islands. The Vatican played an essential role in this peace agreement after St. John Paul II sent Cardinal Antonio Samorè as mediator, who worked out the agreement between both nations, avoiding an armed conflict.
Speaking before the authorities and the diplomatic corps of both countries, among whom were the Argentine ambassador to the Holy See, Luis Pablo Beltramino and the Chilean foreign minister, Alberto van Klaveren, Pope Francis praised the papal mediation that avoided the conflict that was “about to set two brother peoples against each other.”
In his speech, the Holy Father proposed this agreement as a model to imitate, while renewing his call for peace and dialogue in the face of current conflicts, where “recourse to force” prevails.
Mediating role of St. John Paul II
He recalled in particular the mediation of St. John Paul II, who from the first days of his pontificate showed great concern and demonstrated a constant effort not only to prevent the dispute between Argentina and Chile “from degenerating into a disgraceful armed conflict,” but also to find “the way to definitively resolve this dispute.”
The pontiff noted that after receiving the request of both governments “accompanied by concrete and stringent commitments,” St. Pope John Paul II agreed to mediate the conflict with the aim of proposing “a just and equitable, and therefore honorable solution.”
For Pope Francis, this agreement deserves to be proposed “in the current world situation, in which so many conflicts persist and degenerate without an effective will to resolve them through the absolute exclusion of recourse to force or the threat of its use.”
The pope recalled the words of Benedict XVI on the 25th anniversary of the treaty, who said that the agreement “is a shining example of the power of the human spirit and the desire for peace in the face of the barbarity and senselessness of violence and war as a means of resolving differences.”
For the Holy Father, this is “a most timely example” of how it is necessary to persevere at all times with ”firm determination to the final consequences in an endeavor to resolve disputes with a real desire for dialogue and agreement, through patient negotiation and with the necessary compromises, always taking into account the just requirements and legitimate interests of all.”
In conclusion, Pope Francis described what is happening in Ukraine and Palestine as “two failures” of humanity today where the “arrogance of the invader prevails over dialogue.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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“In conclusion, Pope Francis described what is happening in Ukraine and Palestine as “two failures” of humanity today where the “arrogance of the invader prevails over dialogue.”
Dear, dear Pope Francis, how about those invading our country over both our Northern as well as our Southern border? Bet that in his book, those invaders don’t count.
He’s right on this one. For example, nations we associate with democratic, secular humanistic polity are among the highest. Stats: US 44% of worldwide arms sales, France, Russia 10% category, followed by China, Germany, Italy in the 5% bracket. Russia and China expected arms purveyors are outmatched or equaled by the traditional peace advocates.
Arms sales and purported peace advocates US, France, Germany, Italy are de facto purveyors of war capacity. Rationale is that the arms provide weaker nations with protection capacity. However, the example of Ukraine seems to contradict that. It’s been openly stated by Western players that the Russia Ukraine war was preconceived as a means to weaken Russia, Russia drawn into an unexpected conflict with a highly Western trained, technically equipped Ukraine. A justified war, like the proverbial good man, is hard to find.
That war in Ukraine seems to have no end and is escalating toward nuclear conflict. Whatever argument we may give in favor, the facts on the ground point toward worldwide disaster. We must do better. The election of Trump may have beneficial effect on this, since he may be able to arrange a viable compromise. Christ came into our world to promote peace between persons and nations, to accept compromise when there’s conflict rather than respond with killing. Poland and WWII seems the only truly justified conflict, although followed by an endless series of politically rather than justice motivated conflicts.
Actually, Poland was not justified by literal just war theory. There was zero chance of success. But, about the Polish resistance, which in total lasted only three weeks, St. Pope John Paul II later wrote:
“…while the Western democracies deluded themselves into thinking they could achieve something by negotiating with Hitler, Poland chose to accept the war, despite the clear inferiority of her military and technological forces. At that moment the Polish authorities judged that this was the only way to defend the future of Europe and the European spirit” (“Memory and Identity,” 2005).
The prelude was Munich in 1938. Likewise, today, how to recognize the slippery slope, and then early to act with clear resolve and possibly even prevent the death spiral? As just another pilgrim in a fallen world, yours truly asks: “what was it about signals from the West that led Putin to predict that his tank invasion into Ukraine would be a done deal in just two weeks?”
What John Paul said has merit. Nevertheless, justice is not always defined by a conceived just war theory. Definition is among the most difficult of determinations. An example of a just cause to resist an intolerable evil by any means would be knowledge of Nazi Germany’s murderous intent for Poland and the Slavic people, as well as Jews, which by all indications in Hitler’s speeches, writing, and that of Nazi philosopher ideologue Alfred Rosenberg was liquidation.
The noble cry of a voice in the wilderness, but also not sure, here, whether the relatively benign fine-tuning of a “territorial dispute over the Beagle Channel and sovereignty over several islands” is equivalent to Putin’s worldview and the tank invasion of Ukraine/eastern Europe, or to Middle East complexity roiled by proxies to Iran and its premodern Islamic worldview.
A worldview which predates by a full millennium the overlaid 17th-century idiom (and expedient?) of sovereign “nation-states” and compromise. Nation-states as with the culturally similar Chile and Argentina, dating together from the recent 19th Century.
Still—and beyond backstop deterrence through strength—we surely would like to see early and mediated solutions to flash-point threats universal human freedom in our post-Christian and even postmodern world. Attached as so much of this world is, yes, to territory, but also to power and visceral ideologies, and to playing chicken with military Armageddon.
“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace” – Mahatma Gandhi