World Day of Peace

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Pope Francis asks Mary’s intercession in World Day of Peace video

January 1, 2024 Catholic News Agency 2
Pope Francis invoke the Virgin Mary as the Queen of Peace and Mother of Mercy at a prayer vigil for peace in St. Peter’s Basilica, Friday, Oct. 27. / Credit: Courtney Mares

Rome Newsroom, Jan 1, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).

In a video marking the World Day of Peace on Jan. 1, Pope Francis asks the Blessed Mother to “teach us to cherish and care for life — each and every human life” and “to repudiate the folly of war, which sows death and eliminates the future.”

“This is a dark hour, Mother,” the pope prays in the video, which was released Monday. “Turn your eyes of mercy toward our human family, which preferred Cain to Abel.”

The Vatican described the video, which used selections from Pope Francis’s Oct. 27 prayer for peace, as an exploration of “the visual and existential contrasts between war and peace.”

It shows a child walking across a desolate field, as another runs joyfully through the tall grass. Smoke billows from a just-bombed building, while fireworks of celebration light up the night sky. Other scenes juxtapose marching soldiers with civilians crossing the street, flying kites with fighter jets, and an elderly woman crying in anguish with another praying serenely.

“You suffer with us and for us, as you see your children suffering from conflicts and wars that are tearing our world apart,” Pope Francis prays to Mary, as an image of a burned-out church is set against a chapel glowing with lit votive candles. You can watch the full video below.

Praying for peace has been a major emphasis of Pope Francis’s in recent months, as armed conflicts rage across the world. In his Urbi et Orbi address on Christmas Day, the pope prayed for an end to violence in Israel and Palestine, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and several other conflict areas in Africa and the Middle East. Francis has repeated many of these intentions in his most recent addresses.

“Please, let’s not forget Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, which are at war,” the pope said in his Angelus message for Jan. 1. “Let’s pray for peace to come, altogether.”

The Catholic Church has observed the World Day of Peace on Jan. 1, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, since 1968. For this year’s observance, Pope Francis also released a message calling for the global regulation of artificial intelligence for “peace and common good.”

In the newly released video, a young girl sits in rubble while another reads quietly on her classroom floor, as Pope Francis tells the Blessed Mother that “we cannot succeed alone.” The pope continues, asking Mary to grant that a “glimmer of light may illumine the dark night of conflict.

“Mother Mary, Queen of Peace, pour forth into our hearts God’s gift of harmony.”

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Taiwan president writes to Pope Francis about ‘preserving regional security’ with China

January 24, 2023 Catholic News Agency 0
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen speaks during a press conference at the presidential office in Taipei on Dec. 27, 2022. / Photo by SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images

Rome Newsroom, Jan 24, 2023 / 11:30 am (CNA).

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has written a letter to Pope Francis underlining the importance of maintaining peace with China and a commitment to the island’s sovereign democracy.

“The war that erupted between Russia and Ukraine last February has brought home to humanity just how valuable peace is,” Tsai wrote in a letter to the pope published by her office on Jan. 23.

“Preserving regional security has become a key consensus shared by national leaders.”

Tsai sent the letter in response to Pope Francis’ message for the 2023 World Day of Peace, the pope’s annual letter sent to all foreign governments around the world to mark the new year.

The president of Taiwan, formally called the Republic of China (ROC), cited a speech that she gave last October following a dramatic rise in tensions between Beijing and Taipei over the summer.

“In my 2022 National Day address, I underscored that peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait are the basis for the development of cross-strait relations and that armed confrontation is absolutely not an option,” Tsai said.

“I made clear that only by respecting the commitment of the Taiwanese people to our sovereignty, democracy, and freedom can there be a foundation for resuming constructive interaction across the Taiwan Strait.”

Vatican City State is the only remaining country in Europe that recognizes Taiwan as a country.

Taiwan, an island less than 110 miles off the coast of China with a population of more than 23 million people, has maintained a vibrant democracy with robust civil liberties despite increased pressure from Beijing regarding the island’s status.

The Holy See has had formal diplomatic relations with the ROC since 1922, while the Church has not had an official diplomatic presence on the mainland People’s Republic of China (PRC) since it was officially expelled by Beijing in 1951.

Only 14 states worldwide still have full diplomatic relations with Taiwan, among them Guatemala, Haiti, and Paraguay. The Chinese Communist Party government in mainland China views Taiwan as a rebel province and has put pressure on countries to cut diplomatic ties with the island.

Amid concern over what a Vatican decision to renew its 2018 provisional accord with Beijing would mean for the Holy See’s diplomatic relationship with Taiwan, a spokesperson for Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in 2020 that it had received assurances from the Vatican regarding the renewal of the Vatican-China deal.

Tsai, the first female president of Taiwan, noted that last year marked the 80th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Republic of China and the Holy See.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it,”  she said.

“Taiwan aspires to serve as a light in the world and will work closely with the Holy See to create a society of greater justice and peace for humanity.”

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Why are the Solemnity of Mary and the World Day of Peace on the same day?

January 1, 2023 Catholic News Agency 0
Pope Francis offers Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God in St. Peter’s Basilica on January 1, 2022. / © Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN/Vatican Pool

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 1, 2023 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Jan. 1 marks more than the start of a new year — it is also the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and the World Day of Peace.

The two celebrations are connected because, as St. Paul VI wrote in 1974, Mary is the Queen of Peace.

“In the revised ordering of the Christmas period it seems to us that the attention of all should be directed towards the restored Solemnity of Mary the holy Mother of God,” he wrote in his encyclical Marialis Cultus. “This celebration, placed on January 1 in conformity with the ancient indication of the liturgy of the City of Rome, is meant to commemorate the part played by Mary in this mystery of salvation.”

He added: “It is likewise a fitting occasion for renewing adoration of the newborn Prince of Peace, for listening once more to the glad tidings of the angels (cf. Lk. 2:14), and for imploring from God, through the Queen of Peace, the supreme gift of peace.

“It is for this reason that, in the happy concurrence of the Octave of Christmas and the first day of the year, we have instituted the World Day of Peace.”

The solemnity of Mary as the Mother of God concludes the octave of Christmas, or the eight days following Christ’s birth. While her title as “Mother of God” dates back to the 3rd or 4th century, the Greek term “Theotokos” (“The God-bearer”) first became Catholic doctrine at the Council of Ephesus in 431.

This year, the solemnity — a holy day of obligation — falls on a Sunday.

At the same time, the Catholic Church also recognizes Jan. 1 as the World Day of Peace, a tradition first celebrated by St. Paul VI in 1968.

“We address Ourself to all men of good will to exhort them to celebrate ‘The Day of Peace,’ throughout the world, on the first day of the year, January 1, 1968,” he declared at the time. “It is Our desire that then, every year, this commemoration be repeated as a hope and as a promise, at the beginning of the calendar which measures and outlines the path of human life in time, that Peace with its just and beneficent equilibrium may dominate the development of events to come.”

This day, he stressed, not only belongs to Catholics but also to all people of peace.

“It would hope to have the adherence of all the true friends of Peace, as if it were their own initiative, to be expressed in a free manner, congenial to the particular character of those who are aware of how beautiful and how important is the harmony of all voices in the world for the exaltation of this primary good, which is Peace, in the varied concert of modern humanity,” he said.

This celebration, he added, does not detract from the Solemnity of Mary.

“Such an observance must not change the liturgical calendar, which reserves New Year’s Day for veneration of the divine motherhood of Mary and the most holy Name of Jesus,” he urged, “indeed, those holy and loving religious remembrances must shed their light of goodness, wisdom and hope upon the prayer for, the meditation upon, and the fostering of the great and yearned-for gift of Peace, of which the world has so much need.”

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Pope Francis: Let us place the new year under the protection of Mary

January 1, 2022 Catholic News Agency 19
Pope Francis offers Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God in St. Peter’s Basilica on January 1, 2022. / © Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN/Vatican Pool

Vatican City, Jan 1, 2022 / 09:35 am (CNA).

On New Year’s Day, Pope Francis encouraged people to place their lives under the protection of Mary, the Mother of God.

“The new year begins under the sign of the Holy Mother of God, under the sign of the Mother. A mother’s gaze is the path to rebirth and growth. We need mothers, women who look at the world not to exploit it, but so that it can have life,” Pope Francis said in St. Peter’s Basilica on January 1.

“At the beginning of the New Year, then, let us place ourselves under the protection of this woman, the Mother of God, who is also our mother. May she help us to keep and ponder all things, unafraid of trials and with the joyful certainty that the Lord is faithful and can transform every cross into a resurrection,” the pope said.

Pope Francis’ first public act of 2022 was to offer Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, Holy Mother of God.

In his homily, the pope said that the Virgin Mary teaches us how to “keep and to ponder,” to reflect upon and accept life as it comes, in times of both joy and suffering.

“Mary’s pensiveness … is the expression of a mature, adult faith, not a faith of beginners. Not a newborn faith, it is rather a faith that now gives birth,” he said.

“For spiritual fruitfulness is born of trials and testing. From the quiet of Nazareth and from the triumphant promises received by the Angel – the beginnings – Mary now finds herself in the dark stable of Bethlehem. Yet that is where she gives God to the world.”

The pope asked people to reflect on how Mary had to endure “the scandal of the manger.”

“How can she hold together the throne of a king and the lowly manger? How can she reconcile the glory of the Most High and the bitter poverty of a stable? Let us think of the distress of the Mother of God. What can be more painful for a mother than to see her child suffering poverty? It is troubling indeed,” he said.

“We would not blame Mary, were she to complain of those unexpected troubles. Yet she does not lose heart. She does not complain, but keeps silent. Rather than complain, she chooses a different part: For her part, the Gospel tells us, Mary ‘kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.’”

Pope Francis encouraged people to have the same attitude of Mary when faced with unexpected problems or troubling situations.

“She shows us that it is necessary: it is the narrow path to achieve the goal, the cross, without which there can be no resurrection. Like the pangs of childbirth, it begets a more mature faith,” he said.

After offering Mass, Pope Francis prayed the Angelus at noon from the window of the Apostolic Palace with a crowd gathered below in St. Peter’s Square.

“Happy New Year! Let us begin the new year by entrusting it to Mary, the Mother of God,” he said.

“The new year begins with God who, in the arms of his mother and lying in a manger, gives us courage with tenderness. We need this encouragement. We are still living in uncertain and difficult times due to the pandemic,” the pope said.

“Many are frightened about the future and burdened by social problems, personal problems, dangers stemming from the ecological crisis, injustices and by global economic imbalances. Looking at Mary with her Son in her arms, I think of young mothers and their children fleeing wars and famine, or waiting in refugee camps. There are so many of them.”

Pope Francis said that the thought of Mary holding Jesus in the stable is a reminder that “the world can change and everyone’s life can improve only if we make ourselves available to others.”

He recalled that January 1 marks the World Day of Peace, instituted by St. Paul VI in 1968.

“We can truly build peace only if we have peace in our hearts, only if we receive it from the Prince of peace. But peace is also our commitment: it asks us to take the first step, it demands concrete actions. It is built by being attentive to the least, by promoting justice, with the courage to forgive thus extinguishing the fire of hatred,” he said.

“At the beginning of this year, may the Mother of God, the Queen of Peace, obtain harmony in our hearts and in the entire world,” Pope Francis said.

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