nother year opens up for us. A sign that the good Lord is not yet tired of us, notwithstanding our many shortcomings, and a sign that in His Mercy, He gives us an added chance to seriously engage in listening to Him and walking in His ways of peace.

or many years now, January 1st is celebrated by the Catholics as "World Day of Peace", and on such occasion, the Holy Father addresses to the world a special message. It is to be a day of intensive prayer and of personal re-commitment to the task of working for the establishment of that peace that the world so much needs and at the same time so consistently disregards.

n this year's message, His Holiness Pope John Paul II recalls the fortieth anniversary of the famous encyclical letter of his predecessor, the blessed Pope John XXIII, entitled "Pacem in Terris" (Peace on Earth). Forty years ago the world was menaced – as unfortunately always seems to be – by the danger of a nuclear confrontation between the ideologies and the powers of East and West. Today, under different forms, the same dangerous situations exist, and many people live in fearful expectation of impending disasters and in sub- human conditions of poverty and oppression.

hat there is serious disorder in world affairs is obvious. Thus the question to be faced remains: "What kind of order can replace this disorder, so that men and women can live in freedom, justice, and security?" The question of peace cannot be separated from issues of moral principles, that is another way of saying that the question of peace cannot be separated from the question of human dignity and human rights. Force and violence cannot bring peace: at the end they can only produce the stillness and silence of graveyards, but that is certainly not peace.

he Holy Father reminds us that peace is, of course, the absence of open hostilities, but that it is much more: it is the re- establishment and the up-keeping of just relationships between peoples and nations. In that sense, peace is both the task of each individual in his or her personal relation with God and with neighbors, as well among nations that must learn to respect each other and enter into cooperation and not into conflict.

n the last decades the international community has successfully worked at defining and establishing a charter of the inalienable rights of the human person, but it generally failed to insist sufficiently on reciprocal duties. To the rights of each individual and of every country, corresponds a series of duties. It is "duty" that establishes the limits within which "rights" must be contained in order not to become an exercise in despotism.

epeating the words of his predecessor blessed John XXIII, the Holy Father identifies the essential conditions for peace in four precise requirements of the human spirit: Truth, Justice, Love and Freedom. Truth will build peace if every individual sincerely acknowledges not only his rights, but also his own duties toward others. Justice will build peace if in practice, everyone respects the rights of others and actually fulfils his duties toward them. Love will build peace if people feel the needs of others as their own and share what they have with others, especially the values of mind and spirit which they possess. Freedom will build peace and make it thrive if, in the choice of means to that end, people act according to reason and assume responsibility for their own actions.

"hese are the lessons that His Holiness Pope John Paul II addresses to all of us at the beginning of the New Year 2003. My wish and my prayer are that each one of us – as well as the leaders of nations – will seriously reflect on them and put them into practice. Then, and only then, we can rightfully express our hope for a happy New Year 2003!

Archbishop Giuseppe De Andrea
1 JAN 2003, Apostolic Nunciature, Kuwait