Rome Newsroom, May 3, 2024 / 12:21 pm
The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem delivered an impassioned lecture on Thursday at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome detailing the process of peace in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, noting that it is an integral part of the Church’s universal mission and one that must not be conflated with overtly temporal or political aims.
“Peace needs the testimony of clear and strong gestures on the part of all believers, but it also needs to be announced and defended by equally clear words. We cannot remain silent in the face of injustices or invite people to live peacefully and disengage,” Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa remarked during his “lectio magistralis” on Thursday at the pontifical university.
“The preferential option for the poor and the weak, however, does not make us a political party,” he added.
The hourlong lecture, titled “Characteristics and Criteria for a Pastoral Care of Peace,” was the latest installment in the university’s ongoing series of studies in peace sciences and international cooperation launched by the school’s Pontifical Pastoral Institute Redemptor Hominis.