By Barb Arland-Fye
Editorial
Young people “are the sign that a different world is possible: a world of fraternity and friendship, where conflicts are not resolved with weapons but with dialogue,” Pope Leo XIV believes (CNS, 8-3-25). He said so before praying the Angelus with young people attending the closing Mass for the Jubilee of Youth Aug. 3. This hopeful message should inspire all of us to commit to resolving conflicts — personal and communal — through dialogue and not weapons, which can include our mouths.
Prayer, our starting point, fortifies our resolve. The Holy Father’s prayer intention for this month of August invites us to pray “that societies avoid internal conflicts due to ethnic, political, religious or ideological reasons” and encourages us to “seek paths of dialogue” and “respond to conflict with gestures of fraternity” (https://tinyurl.com/3xxpf8x3).
So, what do we do about the ongoing conflicts raging in our world — in Gaza, Ukraine, countries in Africa — and in our own country and communities?
Pope Leo “calls on Jesus to send the Holy Spirit ‘to rekindle within us the desire to understand one another, to listen, to live together with respect and compassion,’” Vatican News reports. “The Holy Father goes on to ask the Lord for ‘the courage to seek paths of dialogue, to respond to conflict with gestures of fraternity, to open our hearts to others without fear of difference.’’’
He prays that we become “builders of bridges, able to overcome borders and ideologies, able to see others through the eyes of the heart, recognizing in every person an inviolable dignity.” He asks Jesus to “help us to create spaces where hope can flourish, where diversity is not a threat but a richness that makes us more human.”
While all of us can promote peaceful coexistence in our daily lives, our government leaders need to step up to the plate, says Father Cristóbal Fones, S.J., the international director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network (popesprayer.va).
Building “harmonious and peaceful societies” requires an investment “in the family; safeguarding the dignity of every person, especially the weakest and most defenseless; exercising justice; seeking to remedy inequalities; defending the truth, which is the basis on which authentic relationships can be built,” Father Fones said.
How are we defending the truth, safeguarding the dignity of every person and seeking to remedy inequalities in resolving the pressing issues of our time: lack of affordable housing, a living wage, hunger, poverty, immigration, abortion, the death penalty, stewardship of the earth?
As the Jubilee of Youth concluded, Pope Leo reminded the young people that united with Jesus, they will be “seeds of hope wherever you live: in your families, with your friends, at school, at work, in sports. Seeds of hope with Christ, our hope” (CNS, 8-3-25).
Young people can’t do it alone. They need the witness of adults who plant seeds of hope, not animosity. They need adults who speak the truth, even when the truth is hard to accept. They need adults who speak in a tone of voice that welcomes dialogue, not shouting and vitriol that shuts it off.
“The world will never be the dwelling place of peace, till peace has found a home in the heart of each and every man, till every man preserves in himself the order ordained by God to be preserved,” St. John XXIII said in his encyclical “Pacem in Terris” (“Peace on Earth”).
Let us begin with prayer. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9).
Barb Arland-Fye, Editor
arland-fye@davenportdiocese.org
