Pope Francis called for prayers for nonviolence and peace in a video message released this week.
“Living, speaking, and acting without violence is not surrendering, losing, or giving up anything but aspiring to everything,” the pope said in his monthly prayer intention.
In the video, images of Pope Francis delivering his message are interspersed with scenes of war zones, bombed-out cities, people fleeing war, police at crime scenes, and peace protesters.
“As St. John XXIII said 60 years ago in his encyclical Pacem in Terris, war is madness,” the pope said. “It’s beyond reason.”
“Any war, any armed confrontation, always ends in defeat for all,” he said.
Pacem in Terris, subtitled “On establishing universal peace in truth, justice, charity, and liberty,” was published 60 years ago on April 11.
Pope Francis urged the world to “develop a culture of peace” and to “remember that, even in cases of self-defense, peace is the ultimate goal, and that a lasting peace can exist only without weapons.”
“Let us make nonviolence a guide for our actions, both in daily life and in international relations,” Pope Francis said.
