Greg Daly
The Pope in Ireland
Pope Francis has been unyielding in his pursuit of peace, writes Greg Daly
Once it was announced that Dublin would host the 2018 World Meeting of Families, there was little delay before speculation began over whether Pope Francis would come to Ireland and whether, if so, he would visit the North.
St John Paul II had famously wanted to visit the region in 1979 during the first papal trip to Ireland, but was prevented from doing so by the especially fraught security situation at the time. It seemed obvious, however, that 30 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and with the agreement itself at risk from the strains of Brexit, Pope Francis would seek to finish his Polish predecessor’s work by visiting a part of Europe where until recently Catholics were at risk of being murdered simply for being Catholic.
In any case, the North would have seemed a natural place for Francis to visit, given his clear passion for places on the peripheries, for building bridges, and for trusting in time to break cycles of violence, hatred and suspicion, and so it was that all manner of religious and civic leaders pleaded with the Pope to come North. A trip to the North could have helped provide the symbolic boost to the area’s stagnant peace and political processes, they said.
Historical visit
It was not to be, however, seemingly due to concerns that a historical visit to the North would overshadow the Dublin gathering, leaving the North as a curious oversight, not just on this papal trip but on Pope Francis’ general peace agenda.
The Pope’s Latin title – Pontifex – basically means ‘bridge-builder’, and building bridges across wartorn societies has been central to this papacy from the beginning, with perhaps the most dramatic early call for peace coming in September 2013, when the Pope appealed for prayer and fasting for Syria.
Just weeks after the Pontiff’s rallying cry at Lampedusa against what he called “the globalisation of indifference”, late August 2013 saw a series of images broadcast around the world of corpses neatly laid out in body-bags. Seemingly they showed clear evidence of having been killed with chemical weapons – by some reports over 1,400 people had been killed by chemical weapons deployed by the Syrian government against rebels in the country’s civil war.
The Pope expressed his horror at this when he spoke at his Sunday Angelus on September 1. “Those terrible images from recent days are burned into my mind and heart,” he said. “There is the judgment of God, and also the judgment of history, upon our actions from which there is no escaping.”
Addressing those Western countries planning on launching missiles against Syria as a reaction to the chemical attacks, he cried: “War brings on war! Violence brings on violence!”
Calling on all involved to pursue negotiations and urging the international to take practical steps to end conflicts, he announced a five-hour prayer vigil in St Peter’s Square for the following Saturday, calling for a day of fasting and prayer for peace.
“On September 7, here [in St Peter’s Square], from 7pm until midnight, we will gather together in prayer, in a spirit of penitence, to ask from God this great gift [of peace] for the beloved Syrian nation and for all the situations of conflict and violence in the world,” he said, calling on non-Catholic Christians and non-Christian believers to participate in suitable ways. “We want a peaceful world,” he said, “we want to be men and women of peace.”
Speaking during the vigil, the Pope addressed the question of where violence comes from, pointing to the story of Cain and Abel and to a failure to understand that we are indeed our brothers’ keepers. Maintaining that every act of violence brings about Cain’s rebirth, he said the answer to this lies in the Cross.
“My Christian faith urges me to look to the Cross,” he said. “There, we can see God’s reply: violence is not answered with violence, death is not answered with the language of death. In the silence of the Cross, the uproar of weapons ceases and the language of reconciliation, forgiveness, dialogue and peace is spoken.”
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A few days later plans for American airstrikes on Syria were put aside, as Russia and the US agreed on a plan to request the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, and Syria’s state broadcaster accepted this as a starting point.
Whether this was related to the Pope’s appeal is unknown, but it ensured Francis had a reputation as a peacemaker, a reputation that would be furthered over coming years by, for instance, his silent May 2014 prayers at the wall separating Israel from the Palestinian territories, when he prayed for the wall’s disappearance. He subsequently hosted Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas at a joint prayer service for peace in the Middle East.
His clearest achievement in the cause of peace, although very much his own, came after years of careful, patient work by Vatican diplomats, when in December 2014 the then US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro declared the beginning of a process of normalising relations between the two countries, signalling the end of 54 years of tensions.
In a 15-minute speech announcing this, President Obama said that Pope Francis had helped spur the change and personally thanked him for doing so. The Vatican then released a statement explaining how two months earlier it had hosted delegations from the US and Cuba to negotiate the deal after Pope Francis had written to both leaders.
According to Time reporters, senior US officials described the papal appeal as unprecedented, and said his letter sparked momentum in the rapprochement between the two administrations.
The following September the Pope visited Cuba on the way to the US for 2015’s World Meeting of Families, and within minutes of his arrival at Havana airport he spoke effusively about the Cuban thaw as a something that could give hope to the world.
“It is a sign of the victory of the culture of encounter and dialogue, the system of universal growth over the forever-dead system of groups and dynasties,” he said. “I urge political leaders to persevere on this path and to develop all its potentialities as a proof of the high service which they are called to carry out on behalf of the peace and well-being of their peoples, of all America, and as an example of reconciliation for the entire world.”
The following day during his Sunday Angelus address, he addressed Colombia’s warring factions, begging the country’s government and leftist rebels to end Latin America’s longest-running war, warning that failure is not an option in ongoing negotiations to stop the country’s bloodshed.
“We do not have the right to allow ourselves yet another failure,” he said, praying that “the long night of pain and violence” might “with the support of all Colombians, become an unending day of concord, justice, fraternity and love”.
Three days later, peace talks, which had gone on in Cuba for over two years but which had stalled, resumed, and when the Pope visited the Latin American nation in September 2017 he praised the progress made in the previous November’s peace agreement, and urged the Colombian people not to be content with “taking the first step”.
“Instead, let us continue our journey anew each day, going forth to encounter others and to encourage concord and fraternity,” he said. “We cannot just stand still. Colombia, your brothers and sisters need you.”