Florence: Pax Christi 80th Anniversary World Gathering opens

Pax Christi icon

Fr Joe Ryan writes:

Pax Christi International Conference began in Florence, Italy, at 4pm on Wednesday with the basis theme: Building Bridges for Tomorrow.

In fact, Pax Christi has been building bridges ever since it was founded in 1945 by Marthe Dortel-Clandot. It began as a campaign of prayer for Franco- German reconciliation. This original objective was enlarged and Pax Christi became 'a crusade of prayer for the nations'. This spiritual basis underpinned the work of the movement. As it developed, it called for a socio-political action in public life as a means of bringing about the Peace of Christ.

At the beginning of the conference, we had 30 minutes to introduce ourselves to other delegates whom we hadn't met. How encouraging to meet so many people from all over the world. Kathryn Lydon, Pax Christi Chair, said she had met Godefroid from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was describing the influence Pax Christi was having in trying to reconcile the Rwandan Government and the DRC. Sr Bridget Crisp from New Zealand, telling of her work with the Māori Community. Jonathan working in Geneva. Fr Joe Ryan met up with Barbara from Korea; Bishop Tony Celino, Auxiliary Bishop of El Paso; Margarida from Portugal and Ursula from Austria, each having their own unique story to tell of their Peace work.

The magnificent Pax Christ Peace Icon took centre stage and Ann Farr gave a background of its origins and invited us to spend some time contemplating the many messages contained there.

The panel of speakers commemorating Pax Christi's heritage and trends for the future were: Don Giovanni Ricchiuti, Pax Christi Italy President; Etienne De Jonghe, former Secretary General; Maria Emma Allegri, Pax Christi Italy Chairwoman; Sophia Maaba, Pax Christi Philippines,PCI Youth Forum and Johnny Zokovitch, PCI Fund for Peace Board Member, Facilitator.

The Speakers gave us further details of the history of the foundation; the importance of human friendship and relations; they traced the movement of Pax Christi from a European perspective to a global movement. There was mention of the Peace movement in Northern Ireland inspiring the concept of Non-violent resolution of conflict.

As Sophie, a young person from the Philippines, spoke about a New Vision in working for peace. It could have been Greta Thunberg speaking with such passion and clarity. Sophie reminded us that young people don't need to wait for permission from elders to speak on peace! They refuse to believe that peace is not possible.... there needs to be a multigenerational element....that peace is not a gift from the powerful.

There's is a task for all of us to do and hopefully the next few days will guide us to new beginnings in our own efforts for peace.

So we look forward to exciting ideas in the rest of the Conference.