This headline “Overcome Indifference and Win Peace” is the title of the Pope’s message of peace for the new year, as the Pope is used to address a message on January 1 every year which commemorates the World Day of Peace. This is the 49th anniversary of commemorating this world day of peace. This day coincides with the 50th anniversary of the issuance of two major documents by the Church, namely the Nostra Aetate, which opened the doors wide for dialogue among followers of religions, and the document of “Gaudium et Spes” (Joy and Hope), which also opened the doors wide for cooperation among various figures and institutions in the world, including the fields of politics, economy, culture and others.
The 2016 Message of Peace is the third issued by Pope Francis during his papacy. It calls for overcoming the “culture”, or rather ”the globalization”, of indifference to the needs of people. It warns against indifference towards the disasters prevailing nowadays which are grave factors that undermine peace. The message says: “In order to overcome indifference, it is important to ensure that the contribution of families, teachers, intellectuals, artists and communicators be associated with promoting conscientious feelings based on comprehensive human solidarity.
Birzeit Parish priest Fr. Dr. Louis Hazboun defines indifference saying: “It is a situation in which someone takes a negative attitude towards everything. However, it is different from boredom, because boredom is the feeling that overwhelms people when they find nothing of interest to them, while indifference has nothing to do with anxiety and anger. It is an emotional state of behavior where one demonstrates indifference towards private affairs or even public events such as politics. The one who demonstrates indifference cares less about physical, emotional, social, economic, and religious aspects or ever demonstrates indolence and apathy. This indifference could be directed to God, to relatives and to the environment.”
From this premise, the Pope called for having the world realize its responsibility towards the challenges, namely massacres, persecution, bigotry--based on faith and ethnicity--ignoring the freedom of others, as well as elimination of their rights within the framework of corruption and organized crime. Peace is possible when rights of everyone are recognized and respected based on freedom and justice. Peace stems from transcending indifference and attaining humanity based on dialogue and cooperation.
In the new year which the Pope termed as the “Year of Mercy”, the Pope makes a threefold appeal to the leaders of nations which will definitely push the world towards further fraternity and conviviality instead of resorting to violence and indifference. These points are to refrain from drawing other peoples into conflicts or wars which destroy not only their material, cultural and social legacy, but also – and in the long term – their moral and spiritual integrity; to forgive or manage in a sustainable way the international debt of the poorer nations; and to adopt policies of cooperation which, instead of bowing before the dictatorship of certain ideologies, will respect the values of local populations and, in any case, not prove detrimental to the fundamental and inalienable right to life of the unborn.
What are our hopes in the new year whose onset was marked by the fall of snow? We have a threefold hope. Firstly, a plea to the Almighty God to preserve Jordan’s safety and security under the Hashemite leadership, with the awareness of its people and their national unity; secondly, to extinguish the political conflagrations which are wreaking havoc in several Arab countries, causing many innocent people to lose their lives, and demolishing the Orient’s distinguished characteristics of the holy religious and historical plurality; and thirdly to have the “major” world leaders adopt a unified criteria to deal with everybody without any discrimination including poor peoples and countries. If the world really wanted to win the grand prize, namely peace, then it ought to immediately overcome indifference.
