Rome, November 21 (Adnkronos/Labitalia) – “We are faced with an apocalyptic scenario and 59 open wars, but what is tragically missing from international politics is a universal vision.” Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia stated this while speaking at Link University at a conference on ‘Global peace and conflict resolution’. Recalling Pope Francis and the encyclical ‘Laudato si’, Paglia underlined how the Pope remembered that “this planet is a common home for everyone” and that “in the face of the global crisis we cannot save ourselves alone”. A perspective that, according to Paglia, has not yet been formed in politics: “This is the lost vision, our universal dimension”.
The President of the Pontifical Academy for Life recalled how “after 89 we could dream of universal peace” citing Mozambique, Oslo and the end of apartheid in South Africa, “moments in which we understood that we could be together”. But today, he states, “we are witnessing the return of ethnic nationalism, the balkanization of the world”, a dynamic he compares to the conflict in the former Yugoslavia: “In ’92-’93 there were one and a half million mixed marriages: living together was possible”.
For Paglia, “just war no longer makes sense” because “modern conflicts cause far more civilian casualties than military casualties” and there is no international legal framework capable of declaring war “forbidden.” Peace, he stressed, “is not only the task of politics, but also of universities, the economy, the church, information and civil society”.
