By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service • Posted August 27, 2024

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis called on Catholic politicians to be role models and witnesses of hope for young people who are bombarded with “messages of pessimism and cynicism.”

“How important it is for them to see examples of hope and idealism,” the Pope told members of the International Catholic Legislators Network during an audience at the Vatican on August 24.

The lawmakers held their annual meeting outside Rome from August 22 to 25, focusing this year on the theme “The World at War: Permanent Crises and Conflicts – What Does This Mean for Us?”

Pope Francis told them he was not exaggerating when he described the numerous armed conflicts in the world as “a third world war fought piecemeal.”

The situation “seems permanent and unstoppable,” he said. “This ongoing crisis seriously threatens the persistent efforts of the international community, especially through multilateral diplomacy, to promote cooperation in addressing the grave injustices and urgent social, economic and environmental challenges facing our human family.”

All people of good will, but especially legislators who claim to be inspired by the Gospel, must reject war as an appropriate means of resolving conflicts and establishing justice, he said. “War is a failure of politics and humanity, a shameful capitulation, a painful defeat before the forces of evil.”

Resolving conflicts through negotiations and mediation is not capitulation, said the Pope. Relying on violence and war is the true capitulation and leads to a country and its people becoming worse off than before.

“In addition, the enormous destructive power of modern weapons has made the traditional boundaries of warfare virtually obsolete,” he said. “In many cases, the distinction between military and civilian targets is becoming increasingly blurred. The images of death and destruction that we see every day touch our conscience.”

“We must hear the cry of the poor, of the 'widows and orphans' of whom the Bible speaks, in order to recognize the abyss of evil at the heart of war and to opt for peace by all possible means,” Pope Francis told the MPs.

The Pope also called on them to support efforts to reform and renew the United Nations and other international organizations created to promote peace and cooperation. “In this regard,” he said, “particular attention must be paid to safeguarding international humanitarian law and to establishing an ever more solid legal basis for it.”

Furthermore, the promotion of peace “naturally also includes the commitment to an ever more equitable distribution of the earth’s goods, the guarantee of the integral development of individuals and peoples and, in this way, the overcoming of the scandalous inequalities and injustices that fuel long-term conflicts and give rise to new injustices and violence throughout the world.”

Pope Francis urged Catholic lawmakers to “be witnesses of hope, especially to the younger generation. War is not hope, war gives no hope. May your commitment to the common good, sustained by trust in the promises of Christ, serve as an example to our young people.”

The challenge for all Christians, especially politicians, is to “find the wisdom and strength to look above the clouds, to recognize the true signs of the times and, with the hope born of faith, to inspire others, especially young people, to work for a better future,” he said.