Pray for Peace
Last Sunday, before praying the midday Angelus, Benedict XVI seconded an appeal from the U.S. bishops to pray for the success of the meeting.
In Annapolis, with help from the international community, Israelis and Palestinians will try to relaunch negotiations and aim for a just and definitive solution to the conflict that has bloodied the Holy Land for 60 years, the Holy Father said.
In his appeal, the Pope recalled the many “tears and sufferings” the conflict has caused the two peoples. He asked people to “implore the Spirit of God for peace for that region so dear to us and to give wisdom and courage to all the protagonists in this important meeting.”
The day of prayer marked by the U.S. bishops’ conference is another step in an ongoing plea for peace in the Holy Land, L’Osservatore Romano reported in its Italian edition today.
The Annapolis encounter “offers a lot of hope,” newly elevated Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, Texas, told the Vatican newspaper. “I hope that those who are involved in this international conference dedicate themselves with diligence to a resolution that effectively assures peace in the regions of the Middle East.”
Cardinal DiNardo said parishes and Catholics all over the United States “are praying, following the encouragement of the prelates, so that the prospect of peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples becomes a concrete reality.” He added that even in a political initiative, such as the Annapolis meeting, prayer “has a great value, also for the future.”
“We are called to persevere in prayer,” the Texas cardinal concluded, “entrusting to God our hope for peace in the coming weeks and months.”
As “jaw jaw’ is better than “war war” (per Winston Churchill), it might also be better to just pray that the men and women gathered in Annapolis listen to the voice of God and figure out a way to make at least some peace. Human beings, of course, are a stubborn lot and pride usually manages to mess up most things we do…but we can hope, and we can pray…and, this time, I think we’ll actually see some moves in the right direction.
We’ve fought a long time and a lot of blood has been spilled - there is still a lot of fighting left to do, and we have not shed all the blood necessary to secure a just and lasting peace…but the amount shed so far is, hopefully, enough for some to start to listen to reason.
This is why, I think, President Bush has called this conference - not out of a hope for a complete fix for what ailes the Arab/Moslem world, but to fix a few things and start down a path where more things can be fixed in the future. The central fact of this peace conference, however, is 130,000 or so US troops in Iraq…still there in spite of a relentless campaign of defeatism in the United States…still there, and thus informing the leaders of the Arab/Moslem world that America, indeed, has the grit to see it out. And it should be kept in mind that this is important on both ends - our enemies know we can take it, and our friends do, too; and that is the more important part of it. There is a reservoir of sense and goodwill in the Arab/Moslem world, but people are wary of sticking their neck out…we’ve now shown them that if they’ll join us, we’ll be there for them. At long last, the stain of our dishonorable surrender in Vietnam has been erased. America’s word is, once again, something people can rely on.
14 comments November 28th, 2007
