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Ecumenism

What Is Missing in the World for There to Be Peace?

Arquivo BV

Baron d’Holbach

 

Never before has civilization achieved such significant technological advancements as it has today. What is missing then for there to be Peace? Progress needs to be sublimed by Ecumenical Spirituality, which potentially accompanies us—whether we know it or not and whether we want it or not—even before we were born. We must proclaim it, as believers of God, provided, naturally, that He is understood as Love, Truth, and Justice, which “is the support of the world,” while “injustice, on the contrary, is the origin and source of all the calamities that afflict it,” according to the thinking of philosopher Baron d’Holbach (1723-1789).

As I wrote in Dialética da Boa Vontade — Reflexões e Pensamentos [Reflections and Thoughts — The Dialectic of Good Will], published in 1987: In a future which we, civilians, religious people, and military men and women with common sense, hope to be near, Peace will no longer be established under the caterpillar tracks of tanks or with the boom of cannons; over piles of corpses or with crowds of widows and orphans; not even with magnificent accomplishments of material progress without God. In other words, without the corresponding ethical, moral, and spiritual development. Human Beings will discover that they are not only sex, stomach, and intellect, subjugated by what they consider to be the only reality. Within themselves dwells the eternal Spirit that speaks to them of other lives and other worlds, which they seek either through Intuition or Reason. Even today the peace of men is still the peace of wolves and of some crazy short-sighted individuals who rule people on Earth.

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Peace, true Peace, arises first from the pure hearts of human beings, and only Jesus can remove all hatred from the hearts of humanity, because Jesus is the Lord of Peace.

José de Paiva Netto is a writer, journalist, radio broadcaster, composer, and poet. He is the President of the Legion of Good Will (LGW), effective member of the Brazilian Press Association (ABI) and of the Brazilian International Press Association (ABI-Inter). Affiliated to the National Federation of Journalists (FENAJ), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Union of Professional Journalists of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the Union of Writers of Rio de Janeiro, the Union of Radio Broadcasters of Rio de Janeiro, and the Brazilian Union of Composers (UBC). He is also a member of the Academy of Letters of Central Brazil. He is an author of international reference in the concept and defense of the cause of Ecumenical Citizenship and Spirituality which, according to him, constitute “the cradle of the most generous values that are born of the Soul, the dwelling of the emotions and of the reasoning enlightened by intuition, the atmosphere that embraces everything that transcends the ordinary field of matter and comes from the elevated human sensitivity, such as Truth, Justice, Mercy, Ethics, Honesty, Generosity, and Fraternal Love.”