A Reflection on Pope Francis’ 2024 Easter Message
In the third year of the war Russia is waging against Ukraine, in the sixth month of the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, Pope Francis in his 2024 Easter message offered a message of hope:
[T]he tomb of Jesus is open and it is empty! From this, everything begins anew! A new path leads through that empty tomb: the path that none of us, but God alone, could open: the path of life in the midst of death, the path of peace in the midst of war, the path of reconciliation in the midst of hatred, the path of fraternity in the midst of hostility.
The resurrection of Jesus is God’s repudiation of the hegemony of death.
Two themes have been prominent in the Pope’s writings and messages for the last several years: the suffering of the innocent victims of war; and the central role of the arms trade in the culture of violence that so often characterizes our world.
Particularly with the wars in Ukraine and Gaza in mind, Francis highlights the humanity of the victims:
How much suffering we see in the eyes of the children: the children in those lands at war have forgotten how to smile! With those eyes, they ask us: Why? Why all this death? Why all this destruction? War is always an absurdity, war is always a defeat!
In this he returns to a theme he articulated in his speech to the diplomatic corps in January:
Perhaps we need to realize more clearly that civilian victims are not “collateral damage”, but men and woman, with names and surnames, who lose their lives. They are children who are orphaned and deprived of their future. They are individuals who suffer from hunger, thirst and cold, or are mutilated as an effect of the power of modern explosives. Were we to be able to look each of them in the eye, call them by name, and learn something of their personal history, we would see war for what it is: nothing other than an immense tragedy, a “useless slaughter”, one that offends the dignity of every person on this earth.
At the root of the violence that we find all around us, Francis recognizes the key role played by the production and trade in arms. And in the 2024 address to the Diplomatic Corps:
Wars, nonetheless, are able to continue thanks to the enormous stock of available weapons. There is need to pursue a policy of disarmament, since it is illusory to think that weapons have deterrent value. The contrary is true: the availability of weapons encourages their use and increases their production. Weapons create mistrust and divert resources. How many lives could be saved with the resources that today are misdirected to weaponry?
This theme is repeated in the 2024 Easter message: “Let us not yield to the logic of weapons and rearming. Peace is never made with arms, but with outstretched hands and open hearts.”
The children in Gaza and Ukraine, in Sudan and Congo challenge us. They ask us: Why? Why all this death? Why all this destruction? How will we answer them?
The only answer in Gaza, in Ukraine, everywhere, is to stop the violence, turn our energies to works of peace and reconciliation, to binding up of wounds, to feeding the starving, to comfort the sorrowing. But as the Pope challenged us in his New Year’s homily in 2023: “[I]f we are to welcome God and his peace, we cannot stand around complacently, waiting for things to get better. We need to get up, recognize the moments of grace, set out and take a risk.”
The Pope ended his 2022 Easter message with words that can still inspire us today:
Faced with the continuing signs of war, as well as the many painful setbacks to life, Jesus Christ, the victor over sin, fear and death, exhorts us not to surrender to evil and violence. Brothers and sisters, may we be won over by the peace of Christ! Peace is possible; peace is a duty; peace is everyone’s primary responsibility!
And we must remember that the eyes of the children are upon us.
T. Michael McNulty, SJ
Marquette University Center for Peacemaking
