Sansepolcro, 7 December 1996
I willingly participated in this event because I believe that we will come out of it with encouragement to be peacemakers and to be able to appreciate the sacrifice that many make to be workers of solidarity and justice in everyday life. The meaning of this celebration is somewhat to exalt some figures who, certainly, not only spoke, but above all gave their lives for the realization of this very high ideal, which is that of peace. Very high ideal, but also quite evanescent: I believe that working for peace means first of all, making some awareness, making commitments that lead us to be able, day by day, in all the events that touch us, or strike us, to discern an appeal to peace, understood as a right but also as a duty. An awareness that also leads us to see not so much theoretically (not because I am not a lover of theory), but concretely the relationships, the interdependence that exists between us and the phenomena of injustice and inequality. Phenomena, these, which lead us to verify the situation of non-peace that exists in our society and in the world.
Becoming aware of the close dependence that exists between us and others means understanding that peace depends on everyone and certainly that peace cannot be made with slogans. We must know how to promote a culture of peace that depends on discerning the history we are living. That is, it means entering into the events of history, of this era in order to be able to see responsibility in a negative and positive sense. Responsibilities that affect us directly and, from this awareness, from this discernment, the culture of peace is born, that is, the culture of dialogue, the culture of relationships. It is not classical culture, made up of notions or theses, which also serves to increase sensitivity in us, but that knowledge of historical experiences and a historical heritage that becomes a point of reference for everyone. It is enough to spend a few hours here in Sansepolcro to see how this cultural and historical heritage that can be read in this city is essential for promoting a humanistic culture on Man. However, we must also take into account that we are the ones who are the supporters and promoters of a culture. I intend this as a basis for being able to make our life a life that is dedicated in the most radical way possible to the service of others. I believe that peace does not yet exist, because there is not this culture of knowing how to see in others, not an enemy, an adversary, a person to be destroyed, but the same dignity that I defend in myself, seeing my own same rights. We spoke earlier about this large assembly organized by the UN in Rome. Here it was imagined to define eating as a right: I use this word because there are people who cannot eat, perhaps even in our towns, in our cities, increasingly in Rome for example. Americans have not agreed to define eating and nourishment as a human right. So I want to say that probably our commitment that was born this evening, and today is nourished and encouraged, is precisely this becoming aware that the Other different from me has the same rights that I have: the right to work, to respect, to integration and I would say, to culture, the right to respect for its cultural, religious and social identity. In this we have forgotten that the Constitution also made the recognition of rights a commitment to guaranteeing the rights themselves.
It seems to me that some in parliament are working to avoid continuing to declare that work is everyone's right, that culture is everyone's right: some argue that the Constitution cannot continue to declare this. We know that even if stated, many rights are violated on a daily basis. Politics is less and less available to guarantee the rights that are written down. But perhaps these rights are written too high to avoid banging our heads and I would say that every day we should bang our heads where these fundamental rights are not only not guaranteed but, even, we want to give up recognizing them for the future. I think there are concrete examples where the commitment to spreading the culture of peace is needed: I am not just referring to immigration into our country which brings cultural and religious differences between us, different identities which are also cultural riches. If we become aware of this richness we can defeat fear which is the opposite of peace. Because fear foments violence. We are peacemakers: but what happened in the Senate and then in Parliament after the declaration or promise to regularize 240,000 immigrants who had applied, that is, the proposal of vacatio legis which would have been the shame of the Italian State towards many countries considered developing? We are far from being promoters of peace when we talk about these differences if they cause us to change our mentality. In our country I have seen many people who say they belong to the left-wing culture and then they rage on this issue of immigration and then, we no longer know what the left-wing culture is and we can no longer understand what it means wedding ring. When others who are different from me are not accepted, then I cannot continue to say that I want peace. Where social differences and above all cultural, ethnic and religious differences are not accepted as an asset, they cause a challenge to solidarity, a commitment to participation in the common good which is always the good of each and all. And I return to Rome encouraged by the testimony that today is rewarded in the noblest sense of the word, because I believe that we who witness this celebration of the awarding of an award are more rewarded than those who receive it. Because this presentation of an award has nothing rhetorical: it simply has the motivation to say that we need witnesses like them, to make the world a more peaceful world, that is, more just and more supportive.
Father Luigi Di Liegro
