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Marian Pallister, Justice & Peace Scotland’s representative on the Scottish Catholic Bishops’ Conference Committee for Inter-Religious Dialogue, offers a personal view on the UN’s acceptance of the value of faith groups. 

In Matthew V, Jesus tells his disciples that they are the light of the world. He quips that ‘no-one lights a lamp to put it under a tub’ and He points out, ‘…your light must shine in the sight of men, so that seeing your good works, they may give the praise to your Father in heaven’. Our problem for so long is that as Christians (and I think Muslims, Jews and Sikhs are just as guilty), we have hidden our light. And that has led to us being shut out of some of the most important negotiations that concern the world’s most vulnerable people.

What was once seen as the work of religious organisations – education, alleviating poverty, health care – became politicised in the second half of the 20^th century. Religion became a dirty word. I know from personal involvement in a charity that supports the education of vulnerable young people in Zambia that some of the major funders won’t consider organisations with the merest smidgeon of a religious connection.

Now, it seems, the United Nations may change all of that. According to Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the UN, there has been a realisation that religious organisations do have a role to play in the development of our world, and in the promotion of justice and peace.

The Archbishop was in Edinburgh to speak on the subject of inter-faith harmony at the Archdiocesan Offices, and delegates from many faiths attended the event, which was held in the wake of President Trump’s travel ban, ironically announced in the UN’s Interfaith Harmony Week.

This first week in February has been observed as Interfaith Harmony Week since 2010, but it isn’t one that is much publicised in mainstream media. As we know, the phrase ‘No news is good news’ is all too often interpreted as ‘Good news is no news’. When religion is used to justify acts of violence it makes banner headlines – but when religion is used to make a positive difference in the world and people of different faiths work together to make that difference, that news is too often ignored.

Interesting, then, that when Justice and Peace Scotland posted a link on Facebook to a Guardian story about Canadians forming rings of peace around mosques to protect worshippers after the violent attack in Quebec, we got our biggest (and most positive) reaction of the year so far. The basis of Interfaith Harmony Week is ‘Love of God, love of neighbour’ and the Canadians gave witness to both in their reactions.

Archbishop Auza explained that for too long, non-government organisations (NGOs) with a religious connection had been offering to collaborate with the UN on issues of health, poverty, literacy and harmony through inter-religious dialogue, and the UN had turned a deaf ear. Since 2015, however, he has been involved in UN-organised inter-religious consultative panels - progress is being made and the climate is clearly changing.

‘The UN has had to realise the importance of inter-religious dialogue for peace and development,’ Archbishop Auza said.

And he added ‘Religion cannot be relegated to the mosques on Fridays, the synagogues on Saturdays and the churches on Sundays. Religion is not just a private affair.’ So - we can bring the light out from under the tub. The UN has realised the relevance of people of different faiths talking together - and is even recruiting religious experts to advise on delivery of the 17 development goals that are on the world’s agenda from 2020 to 2030.

‘The UN and others,’ the Archbishop said, ‘have come to accept religious organisations as partners in seeking development and peace.’ And to realise that people of faith who love God and neighbour perhaps stand a better chance of achieving those goals than all the well-intentioned career peacemakers?

In our blog, Pat Gaffney, General Secretary of Pax Christi UK, describes a new peace initiative

It is not often that I can actually feel that we are ‘getting somewhere’ in this long-haul journey of peacemaking. I guess I see myself as a plodder anyway, keeping on with the letter-writing, campaigning, production of resources, the “fruit of anxious daily care” that Pope Paul VI spoke of many years ago. The work we have to do whether we are effective or not.

But, there is a shift, a feel that we may just be tipping the balance on a breakthrough with our message of active peacemaking and nonviolence. Part of the shift is the person of Pope Francis – since his appointment in 2013 his words and actions for peace have been crystal clear: from nuclear weapons, Spending on nuclear weapons squanders the wealth of nations, to money making from the arms trade, We plead for peace for this world dominated by arms-dealers, who profit from the blood of men and women. His language reaches hearts and minds and is engaging people of faith, and people of no faith.

The ‘getting somewhere’ is the ground-breaking work coming out of the joint conference of Pax Chrsiti International and the Pontifical Council for Justice & Peace last April which produced the Appeal to the Catholic Church to re-commit to the centrality of Gospel nonviolence. This set the cat among the pigeons. Accusations came that the Church was being urged to ditch the Just War tradition. That the naïve pacifists were going to leave the world unguarded. To me, some of this seemed like deliberate mis-representation by those who unwilling to delve into the tradition and practice of active nonviolence and its value in creating long-lasting, sustainable peace.

The gathering offered concrete examples of how nonviolence is twice as effective as violence and is likely to produce more sustainable and democratic communities. The gathering gave a platform to practitioners of nonviolence like Fr Francisco de Roux from Colombia who has worked for justice and nonviolent change for more than twenty years. He challenged the Catholic Church for its support of the just war paradigm which has sustained so much violence in that country.

It was good also to hear of the painstaking work of dialogue and mediation in preventing the escalation of violence in countries like Sudan and Uganda and the DRC. The good news of church leaders and workers confronting those who use violence, facilitating conversations between warring groups, is little acknowledged yet this is politics for peace in action. In recent days the Bishops of DRC have been internationally thanked for the key role they are playing in trying to prevent a new civil war in that country.

Contributing to this ‘getting somewhere’, is the theme of the 2017 World Peace Day message, Nonviolence, a style of politics for peace. The first time in 50 years of messages that nonviolence has featured in a theme and been explored so deeply. Pope Francis gets it. He tells us that violence won’t cure the problems of our world. He reminds us that the Gospel, and the person of Jesus, are about nonviolence – setting out a radically different approaches. He highlights witness of those who show us that nonviolence is about action, risk-taking, confronting injustice, following in the footsteps of Jesus, Gandhi, Khaffer Khan, Martin Luther King jr, the peace women leaders of Liberia, the Christians of Eastern Europe who all brought about change through nonviolent means.

The door is ajar, our work is to push it wide-open by growing these ideas in our schools, parishes in the formation of Christians. Teaching about the active nonviolence of Jesus.

Training church workers in mediation and conflict resolution. Acting up against the arms trade and the mis-use of resources on warfare. This has become the work of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, to develop our imagination, our skills and our resources in the Church towards becoming ‘credible promoters of nonviolent peacemaking’. (646)

Pat Gaffney has been General Secretary of the British Section of Pax Christi since 1990. She is a member of the on-going Catholic Nonviolence working group.

Endorse the Appeal to the Catholic Church to re-commit to Gospel nonviolence 

World Peace Day Message 

All jobs come with unexpected days -  however there was nothing in the 2 ½ years I had worked in the Civil Service which prepared me for the first week of November 2016 when I was sent to Calais to see the last days of the “jungle”. 

Most of the camp’s residents had been cleared, but there remained between 1500 and 1700 unaccompanied children and young families. Following an agreement between the UK and French governments these people would be taken to reception centres and considered for travel to the UK. The purpose of sending us was to show the presence of the British government, to reassure those being transported that this was not a trick by the French authorities, and that they’d not been forgotten. 

It felt strange to be going to a place which I had heard and read so much about. The graffiti on bridges calling for access to the UK, or freedom to travel remained, but the rest of the camp was gone.

All that remained was debris, and the Eritrean church. This became a sanctuary on the Tuesday evening when tensions between the Eritrean, and Afghan communities had erupted. It too was bulldozed as we watched on Thursday morning.

Part of me knew how unsuitable the camp at Calais had become Residents were vulnerable to attack, the weather was so often bad, the local people and police had become increasingly hostile local, and then there were the “agents” - people smugglers who exploited their desperation  with promises of a passage to the UK. 

But while I was there, I witnessed both love and tears. There was the love of volunteers who had put themselves at the service of the refugees, offering language classes, legal assistance, and the support that the state refused. I was moved by the tearful goodbyes between volunteers and migrants. 

This was a real community of people broken up over those few days. And it is people’s stories that stay with me. 

Wais, a young Afghan asylum seeker travelling with his wife, and Abeel, their 2½-year-old son, spoke about his life back home,  the disappearance of his mother, and kidnap of his sister many years ago. Then there were the events that had led him to leave Afghanistan with a new-born child. He also told me how he’d spoken with his mother. She was a refugee who had been safe in the UK for the last seven years. She had long believed him to be dead. They had not met because she was unable to afford to travel to France, but Wais was hoping to be reunited with her soon.

I also talked with Jamal, at 14-years-old, the eldest of six children travelling with their mother.  His youngest sister was just five weeks old, born in the camp. He spoke about their lives, his hope to see his father in the UK – and wanting to visit Manchester to see Man United play. 

I travelled back trying to reflect on what I’d seen. I believe it was a lack of compassion and humanity that led to the growth of the camp at Calais. Whatever our country’s legal obligations, seeing people living in misery, and throwing themselves under the wheels of trains and lorries in attempts to reach safety seems to have been drowned out by hate-mongering headlines and the resurgent far-right. Even those few we do welcome are subjected to the ignorance of the media, and sycophantic politicians making baseless demands for dental examinations to “prove their age”. 

My new role with Justice and Peace Scotland promises to be a busy and varied one. But I hope that journey, a week after I had learnt of my success in being appointed, will stay with me here in Scotland. 

“You must treat the outsider as one of your native-born people - as a full citizen - and you are to love him in the same way you love yourself; for remember, you were once strangers living in Egypt.” Leviticus 19:34

(Danny is Social Justice Co-ordinator for Justice and Peace Scotland. Originally from Stockport, he is a lay volunteer with the Salesian of Don Bosco.)