Event Item：Active Peace Promoters: Translating into reality the cause of world peace
Speakers ：Cardinal Paul Shan.S.J（Bishop of Kaohsiung, Republic of China）
Time：13:30-15:30 24 July 2004'

Introduction
In human history, there have been many people contributing to world peace; however, most of their contributions are limited to a time, a place, or a special event. Hardly anyone of them has exerted a persistent influence on world peace; especially, those who can sustain their influence after death are even scantier. Among these minority, most of them are religionists. I believe there are many venerable Buddhist monks that endeavor to make world peace a reality. They are worthy of the examples of the people that will be mentioned. Respectable as they are, I would like to leave the task of introducing them to the scholars of Buddhism. Here, I give only three examples: Jesus Christ, Saint Francis of Assisi, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. They are three role models in the Catholic world who have exerted permanent influences on world peace.

Jesus Christ the Lord
In order to understand the role played by Jesus Christ and his contributions to world peace, it is necessary to review human history in rebellion and separation. According to Genesis of the Old Testament, God created a man and a woman in his image after he had created the universe and all the animals and plants on earth. And God gave them his blessing and said to them, “Be fertile and increase, and make the earth full and be masters of it; be rulers over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing moving on the earth.” (Genesis 1: 27-28).

The few words written in Genesis as quoted above refer to human dignity, the origin of human rights, and the meaning and mission of humanity’s existence. The metaphysical basis of human dignity and the origin of human rights is that “God made man in his image.” God is an infinitive spiritual body, with boundless and perfect reason and free will. Human beings are creatures that inherit certain metaphysical limits; however, within these limits, his soul, reason, and freewill are the epitome of God’s spirituality, reason, and freewill. The meaning and mission of humanity’s existence is to “Be fertile and increase, and make the earth full and be masters of it.” “To be fertile” is to participate in missions bestowed to humans by God in creating humanity. “To be masters of the earth” is to participate in missions bestowed upon humanity by God in creating and beautifying the earth, delineating every person to live happily and peacefully, and spend the lives congruent to human dignity. In the abovementioned words from Genesis, it depicts the close relationship between human and the Creator, human between human, and all things in the universe.

God does not want man, created in his own image, to live according to instincts like animals. He does not want people to live like robots controlled mechanically. He expects humans to employ their own wisdom and freewill to determine their actions and lives, living with dignity. The reasons of humanity’s fall, conflict, divide, war, and guilt originate from humanity’s use of their own selfish desires as wisdom and freedom ruthlessly to satisfy their greed, arrogance, vanity, and power. The ancestors of humanity – Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s order just to satisfy their greed, committing original sin. Their sins influenced their eldest son, who killed their second son Able. Human beings began to fall since then. And crimes such as selfish desires, jealousy, hate, robbery, murder, inequality, unfaithfulness, and war happen to us ceaselessly. We are not going to talk about the wars in the remote past, but we would like to discuss the wars that have happened in the past century – there have been two cruel grand-scale world wars, and numberless internal and regional wars. The death total numbering 100 million.

The Second person of the Trinity – the Holy Son -- did not want to see people continue to fall, and twist and smash God’s image. When the time arrived, he was born to the earth as a human, named as Jesus Christ, who was God as well as the perfect man. In him, he repaired God’s image that was twisted and damaged because of human’s selfishness and crime. Further, he also repaired the perfect and harmonious relationship between humanity and heaven, and between humanity and all things in the universe.
Humans disobeyed Heaven’s rule ruthlessly, breaking the natural law, harming others to benefit themselves, cheating, stealing, murdering, robbing, launching wars, and committing many other crimes. All these crimes originated from the malignant thoughts in their hearts. For this, if we want to create peace, we have to cleanse our soul. When Jesus began to preach, he said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” (Mark 1: 15) “You have to repent,” means to “change oneself totally.” “You should believe in the gospel!” is to live in accordance to the biblical spirit.

“God’s Kingdom” is the kingdom of truth, righteousness, love, forgiveness and peace. The virtues of truth, righteousness, love, forgiveness and peace are closely knitted together. It is impossible to maintain sustaining peace if any one of them is lacking.

Jesus Christ did not only preach these virtues that could create sustaining peace, but he also lived up to his words through his behavior. In the end, his miserable death in his crucifixion actualized all these virtues, reaching the unsurpassable apex. He sacrificed himself on the cross as salvation for the human-heaven relationship, serving as witness to the gospel he preached and repaying the sins of humanity’s disobedience. He brought people sustaining salvation and established the model of forgiveness, demonstrating his endless love to human beings and laying the foundation for the union of humanity and heaven, and humanity as a family. Furthermore, he sketched the blue prints for people’s peaceful relationship with each other. Eventually, he pointed out the broad way to sustaining peace.

After Jesus Christ’s resurrection, hundreds of thousands of his disciples in the latter times endeavored to preach the Christ’s Gospel at every corner of the world to evangelize the message of creating peace and saving people. We can be certain that the Christ’s influence in world peace will continue to work until the end of the world.

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI 1181-1226
Born in 1181 at Assisi at central Italy, St. Francis had lived a prolific life since childhood. Furthermore, he was handsome and generous, always ready to give, becoming a leader among the local young people. When he grew older, he assisted his father in business. He also briefly joined the military. Moreover, he got lost for quite sometime living a frivolous life. Once in church, he heard the words spoken by Jesus to a rich youth: “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me” (Matthew 19:21). These words moved him deeply. Likewise, he gave away many things in his family to the poor. Meanwhile, he imitated Jesus’ simple and impoverished life. After his father returned from his trading trip and saw that Francis had over-donated, he broke his relationship with him. Furthermore, he expelled Francis from home. After that point, Francis enjoyed more freedom, joined like-minded friends and established the Francisco Society, advocating living in extreme poverty and simplicity.

In the 13th Century, many Italian states attempted to win their independence; therefore, wars between them were frequent. Furthermore, the Christians also organized the Crusades trying to get back the Holy City occupied by the Muslims. Since Francis had became a pious Christian, he always negotiated between states for peace, regarding the mission for peace as his own duty. Furthermore, he also preached in Egypt, persuading the Egyptian kind to be in peace with the Christians. He did not only love all people philanthropically, but also all creatures. He regarded the animals his brothers and sisters. He even talked and preached to the birds and fishes, calling the sun his brother, the moon his sister. In addition, he composed a song for them; he named the song the “Peace Prayer of Saint Francis,” which was widely known among people, regardless of their race and religion. Everyone loves to sing it:

Peace Prayer of Saint Francis
"O Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace!
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, harmony;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light, and
Where there is sorrow, joy.
Oh Divine Master, grant that I may not
so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand; to be loved
as to love; for it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life."

During St. Francis’ lifetime, it was the period of the crusades, when the kings in Western Europe competed with each other vigorously. They attempted to use armed force to seize the Holy Land back. However, after 200 years and 8 crusades of a huge-scale, they still could not recover the Holy Land, not to mention the numberless soldiers died in the wars. St. Francis’ followers did not have any soldiers. All they used was love to regain the Holy Land gradually. St. Francis and his followers were the real instruments for creating peace.

MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA 1910-1997
Concerning Mother Teresa’s love and her care given to the “poorest of the poor”, I have heard about it a long time ago. But the first time I talked to her was in 1985. On the night of January 17 that year, I listened to her speech, “How to Care, Love, and Look after the Poorest of the Poor”, at Zhongshan Hall, Taipei. She left a very deep impression on me. Furthermore, her speech allowed me to understand it was a broad way leading to sustaining world peace.

In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace; some people were suspicious concerning the reason the “Nobel Peace Prize” was awarded to Mother Teresa? She did not negotiate between any conflicts. Nor did she weave among the nations to engage in diplomacy, endeavoring to peace between countries that were at war. Indeed, she just dedicated all she could to serve the “poorest of the poor”, offering her greatest love. She used substantial acts to contribute all she had in helping the people who urgently longed for help. She never thought of getting “Nobel Peace Prize.” However, she created a smooth path to world peace unexpectedly.

In the past century, science, technology, and material culture have progressed considerably. Some people believed that the progress has already passed all of humanity’s accomplishments in the past hundreds of thousands of years. However, the progress in science, technology, and material culture did not facilitate people’s growth spiritually. On the contrary, it promoted selfishness, greed, sensual gratification, coldness, deprivation and cruelty, sowing malignant seeds. It widened the gaps and built up high walls between the rich and the poor, ,destroying human dignity and basic human rights. It filled this world with war and violence.

With Christ’s selfless love, Mother Teresa contributed her love silently to serve “the poorest of the poor” allowing them to feel their own dignity, and people’s love and concern. Even those people who were seriously ill and abandoned, Mother Teresa enabled them to die with a smile because of her care and love.

Mother Teresa did not use profound philosophy but only simple love and sincerity to offer substantial help to “the poorest of the poor” to cure the most serious modern sickness: selfishness, voracity, sensual gratification, coldness, deprivation and violence. Likewise, she opened up a smooth path, which everyone can follow, to create world peace.

（ from：2004 World Youth Peace Summit Taipei Conference）

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