Is it possible to have a world without war or just an unrealistic dream?
The world is by no means perfect but for one reason or the other there are continuing signs that the human race can't seem to resolve conflicts.
Is it that the nature of man is so crude and unjust that some way somehow, selfishness, greed and envy fuels his passion for war. While on the other side of things are our hands forced into battle at the sight of the weak being abused? Either way history has proven that war is inevitable and our approach to it remains the same but its purpose frequently changes.
The need today is for individuals of robust character who can confront the changes in our society without becoming ensnared in greed and selfishness. Humanity is found and developed within the context of our relations and it is within this framework of our own interactions that we must each begin to address the global issues that confront us.
Today’s wars are almost all civil wars fought within impoverished, frail, or failed states. There is no reason to think that the tools of peacemaking emphasized by Catholic social teaching cannot be effectively used to bring such states into existing zones of peace, where war is simply no longer considered a valid option.
There is obviously no guarantee that the decline of war will continue or that humanity can push this decline so far as to abolish war completely. Even if we did manage to eliminate warfare, there will still be plenty of political violence, injustice, and general human misery around the world. But it is clear that Catholicism’s call to abolish war, like its call to abolish the death penalty, is far from foolish.
