JUSTICE AND PEACE DAY, Westminster, Southwark and Brentwood.
Regent Hall, Oxford St. 19th Oct 2013
Bruce Kent
‘50 YEARS ON FROM PACEM IN TERRIS‘
I owe a big thank- you to Davina Bolt of the Brentwood Justice and Peace Commission who asked me to speak today. Not that I was too keen to start with. I don’t like too much homework. Spouting from the heart is easy. A written text takes time.But when I set about looking at Pacem In Terris again - after many, many years - I was much cheered up. What a remarkable document itis.
Noone could dislike Pope John XXIII.He was fat, he was jolly and he was kind and gentle with people. Best of all he had a sense of humour. I love the story about the query someone put to him.‘How many people work in the Vatican?’ he was asked. ‘About half!’he replied.
But he was more than fat, kind and funny.As I re read Pacem in Terrisagain I realised what a wise old man he was.
In my CTS version it’s a 51 page document and an easy read. All in all, it is as if you were being spoken to by a kindly idealistic old Uncle who knows both how nice and how nasty people canbe - and who has good ideas about decent collectivebehaviour. Such behaviour, he believed, is the responsibility of everyone wherever they live or whatever religion – or no religion - they profess.
In his vision the people of world are a large family - ‘living members of the universal family of mankind’. A bit of a dysfunctionalfamily no doubt. We can learn, he clearly thinks, to live together without killing each other if we live up to our own ideals and show a bit of common sense. His deep belief clearly is that we all, whoever and wherever,have rights and duties. Women get kind words and some encouragement for the future. Theyshould not have a purely passive role in society. Nevertheless John XXIII was of his day when it came to sexist language. It’s Man and Men all the way, at least in the CTS version. Women’s primary responsibilityis stillas wives and mothers.
That we all have rights and duties is central in Pacem in Terris. These come from God and are part of his divine plan and order for our world. That belief in the Divine source of rights however must not stop Catholics working with all. Hismessage was for everyone.
Its title makes that clear. After listing all the various categories in our church to whom it is addressed, from Patriarchs down to the Clergy, he ends up addressing ‘all men of good will’. That’smuch wider than any papal message before. And so it was received by the rest of the world.Mikhail Gorbachev said it had a lasting effect on his thinking and called it: ‘an exceptional document’. It must have played some part in his decision to undertake an 18 month unilateral nuclear test ban which, more than anything else, brought the Cold War to an end.
John XXIII’sinternationalperspectiveisthe traditional one - that that theState is the political foundation of the humancommunity. Less than 50 States when the Charter of the UN was signed in 1945, there are 192 today. I don’t think he had much in mind all the other networks of people which command loyalty, from major commercial operations to football clubs, from religious groupings to international trade unions. For these other communities people will struggle and are sometimes prepared to die - and even kill. Pope John knew thatthere will be tensions between minorities and majorities in States but is convinced that they can learn from each other and stay together as well as separating .if need be.
His is not a message of revolution.‘Impetuosity’ is not part of his package as it was not for Pius XII. ‘Development’ not uprooting must be the order of the day.
War is an abomination to be eliminated and nuclear weapons to be banned at once. No ifs, no buts. Unlike many others who discuss such weapons,he is well aware that a major risk is war by accident or as the result of misunderstandings.After all, the Cuban missile crisis was a very recent reminder of dire possibilities.
Those who think nuclear weapons are safe until someone decides to use them ought to read Command and Control by Eric Schlosser which came out this year. When Robert McNamara, United States Secretary of State for Defence, told us that we have been savednot by good judgement but by good luck he was quite right.
The fairly new, in 1963, United Nations Organisation, gets solid praise for its vision and the hope of a more just and ordered world that it promised. So too the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights,even though Johnnotes that not everyone gave it unqualified approval.
One of the most remarkableclaims that he makes concerns immigration. There is a right, he says,to enter a country in which a man hopes to be able to provide more fittingly for himself and his dependents. Itis therefore the duty of State officials to accept such immigrants - so far as the good of their own community, rightlyunderstood,permits.
We are a long way from that vision of free movement as global citizens. No politician or indeed religious leader or development agency in this country,while clearly bewailing the tragedy of the Syrian refugees, has suggested thateven oneof them be allowed to cross our borders. In fact our own current cross party interest is to get rid of as many immigrants as we can.
All of this teaching is based on the notion thatwe are all - or should be – active, contributing membersof our various states. ‘We exhort our Sons to take an active part in public life.’
If Christianprinciples are tohave their effect,Catholics are to ‘strive to influence effectively from within’theinstitutionsof the world,national and international. He did not draw the conclusion that such effective influence might also beneeded in the decision making processes of the church itself. Others soon did.
Hardly had I put these brief impressions down on paper when I remembered thatPax Christi was ten years ahead of me. In 2003 Pax Christiorganised a 40 year anniversary study daywith the title‘Pacem in Terris: Unfinished Business for the Church today’.
The date was 15th March 2003. That date explains my memory loss. On the 15th of February London’s Hyde Park saw the biggestdemonstration ever against the looming attack onIraq. By the 15th March we were only days away from the start of that dreadful illegal war. But Pax Christi produced an excellent report of that day’s work and copies are available here today at a bargain price.
There were brilliantcontributions fromIan Linden, Roger Ruston, and Mildred Nevile. Mildred was a much loved and enormously influential lay woman in our Church. She died a year ago: a major loss. In her talk for its 40th anniversary sheput Pacemin Terris into historical context. The world in 1963 wasthen only just recovering from the terror of the Cuban crisiswhich so easily could have developed into a global catastrophe. Further, the Second VaticanCouncil was in progress in 1963 and the Encyclicalmay well have been a message from the Pope to the CouncilFathers giving them an idea ofwhat heexpected.
By and large they came up to expectations with one omission which I find very surprising.
In their Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes they covered much Pacem in Terris ground but (Para 82) saysthat what is needed, as if one did not already exist, is ‘some universal publicauthority….’ Why no specific mention of the United Nations ? The new Pope, Paul VI, was off to speak to the General Assembly in October 1965 and his rousing support for the UN and its aims could not have been more generous. So it’s curious that there’s nothingspecific about the UNin Gaudium et Spes.
Did Pacem inTerris have any real effect on the thinking of the Church? It certainly started a train of thought and action at top level which has continuedby fits and starts to this day. That it still has life and influence is clear. There were anniversary conferences for its 40th birthday and Pope Francis spoke at one in Rome recently for its 50th. In particular none can deny, that what Pope John XXIII said on war, peace and even nuclear weapons,has had a lasting effect.
It was amazing that when Pope John Paul came here in 1982 in the middle of the Falklands war he told this country in Coventry that war was no way to solve disputes between countries.
Mrs Thatcher must have been very cross indeed.But then it is part of the responsibility of bishops, let alone popes, to make political leaders cross from time to time.
Only two weeks ago the Vatican spokesman at the UN High Level meeting on nuclear disarmament,in a speech calling for humanity to be freed from the spectre of nuclear warfare, said something which should have made David Cameron cross if he ever read it. In a clear reference to our own British plans to replaceTrident nuclear weapon submarinesso that we remain a nuclear weapon state for another 40 years,Archbishop Mamberti said:
‘Can we saythere is “good faith” when modernisation programmes of the nuclear weapons states continue despite their affirmations ofeventual nuclear disarmament?’
He called for elimination negotiations to begin. Which 4 countries had previously voted against starting on them? Britain, the United States, France and Russia. The reality is that the leaders of the four major nuclear-armed states think that elimination belongs only to the world of dreams, rhetoric and poetry. They are, they think, entitled to nuclear weapons but no one else is. If abolition ever happens, they imply, we will be a few weeks away from the Second Coming and the Last Judgement.
You didn’t know about Mamberti and the 4 countries voting No? No surprise. Our heavy-weight press, leaning endlessly to the Right, is very selective in what it reports.
What progress have we made here in this country in three areas which were highlighted in Pacem in Terris – political engagement, support for the UN, and war itself?
Have we developed a more politically active laity? I don’t want to be rude but I have to say I don’t think so. Idoubt that there is any more such activity now than there was in 1963. I remember the strong and active Young Catholic Workers movement of those days, the Catholic Student Council, PlaterCollegeand even earlier, theLeague of Christ the King. I remember the buzz about Catholic MPs,Catholic members of the European Parliament, Catholic trade unionists. Political involvement was an active aim and this went with a vigorous programme of education and formation to prepare lay people for the task.
Another reason is that there is less lay involvement in church decision making now than there was in 1963. The Synod of 1971, following the lead given by Pope John in Pacem in Terris
said,‘To help all members of the church take part in the making of decisions, councils at every level should be set up’. Again - ‘they (the laity) should be given responsibility in the administration of church property.’
Cardinal Heenan, perhaps against his own grain, did his best to implement the call from VaticanII for structures which would make such participation real.They ranged fromPastoralCouncils and Parish Councils to Senates of Priests. Perhaps the high point of this process was the Liverpool Pastoral Council in 1980 – the brainchild of Archbishop Worlock. The enthusiasm which that gathering generated was remarkable. The tragedy was that almost at once afterwards the Hierarchy of the day neutered its recommendations in a Report entitled
The Easter People. It sounded good but the spirit had gone.
From then on there has been a gentleslide downhill. Of course there is lay involvement, usually in the form of employed lay people or advisers chosen by the Bishops. The structures that do exist in some Dioceses areconsultative only, like some parish councils which are even without mandate or jurisdiction. The Hierarchy can’t expect active participation in public social and political affairs to come from people who remain children in their own basic community- that of the Church. It seems to me that here in this country the Church is as clerical and top down as ever it was.
Pope Francis sounds as if he intends to challenge the global Church to organise itself in a very different way. I can’t be the only Catholic whose heart has been lifted in recent months by the breath of fresh air which he has brought with him. He wants a real dialogue ‘among the people and the bishops and the Pope’ - pastors and people together. Please God he will live long enough to introduce some of the reforms at which he has more than hinted.
What about support for and interest in the United Nations as a result of Pacem in Terris? Let me be blunt. I very much doubt if the majority of people even here today, and you are the keen ones, have even read let alone studied the United NationsCharter. I go into schools of all sorts. It makes no difference whether they are Catholic or secular. Ignorance of the good work of United Nations and of its subagencies, of the International Court of Justice, or the InternationalCriminalCourt is massive. Calls forthe democratic reform of the UN go unheard.The United Nations Association gets minimal support. As a friend and supporter of the late ErskineChilders who did so much to promote UN reform, it grieves me thatthe miracle,which brought the UN to life in on June 26th 1945 remains so small a priority in the Church, and public life generally at least in this country.
What progress oneliminating war and nuclear weapons?
I suspect that much of the official Church thinking in our country on such issues has been over the years more shaped by the discreet influence of our Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence than by Pacem in Terris.
But there are real reasons for confidence and courage. That Catholics are more globally aware than they were, is in substantial part due to CAFOD and its concern for the peoples of less developed world. One day I am sure that all development agencies will openly make the connection between militarism and poverty. A world that can spend $1.7 trillion annually on war will never be able to care for its people. It is becoming more and more apparent that
peace on earth is going to depend on joined up education and campaigning on overcoming poverty, militarism and climate chaos.
Icould not touch on the subjectof peace and war without paying tribute to Bishop Thomas McMahon whose constantwitnessin campaigning against the arms trade and nuclear weapons has been such an encouragement. North of the border Archbishop Keith O’Brien has been a constant voice calling for nuclear disarmament. Before them there was that great Jesuit Archbishop Thomas Roberts SJ who ploughed a sometimes lonely furrow. And in this respect how can I not also mention Archbishop Hurley of Durban who spoke up for those young men in SouthAfrica who refusedmilitary service in support of an apartheid regime.
Beyond bishops there has been thatpowerful network ofJustice and Peace groups and organisations likePaxChristi, the Jesuit Refugee Service,Progressio, Vocation for Justice, the ChristianEcology Link and so many others whose vision of one world justly ordered is exactly that of Pope John in Pacem in Terris.
It is amongst such groups of visionary people that I find my own sources of life and inspiration. I am a comfortable member of my own parish but it is with its Justice and Peace Group that I am really at home and of one mind.
I have always been a glass half full not half empty person. In terms of peace and social justice the Catholic glass is very much half full. A day of joint thought and discussion like this one today will make it ever fuller.
But nor just thought and discussion.
I hope this day leads to action as well.
Re read Pacem in Terris yourself and make sure that copies of it and of
Our World and You( the 1971 Synod Report) are in your CTS rack.
Find out how many World War 1 Conscientious Objectors lived near you and organise an event to mark May 15th next year , International COs day.Get your local school – or parish to have a showing of the Pax Christ film
‘Give Peace a Budget – 7 Ways to spend £1.7 Trillion’
And while you are at it also
‘Conflict and Climate Change’ produced by the Movement for the Abolition of War.
That’s enough for you to do at once.
By next month ,when you have managed all of it ,get in touch and I will have more ideas for you.
Thanks for listening. Now lets get on with the discussion.