What does peace presuppose?
“Shalom”, “peace” in Hebrew, does not merely indicate an absence of war, but “a collective living with well-being” [1 .. “Shalom” refers to a climate of fullness, social well-being, health, justice, life, truth… According to J. Míguez Bonino “peace is a dynamic process through which justice is established in the midst of history’s tensions”. In his encyclical “Pacem in terris”, John XXIII speaks about a “just peace” instead of a “just war”, signifying social development, which places citizens and peoples on the same equal level. In 1983, the North American Episcopal Conference published a document titled: “Justice creates peace”, along the lines of John XXIII’s thinking. The ethics of peace are based on an ethics of justice, which involves the proposal of a new international economic order of equality, in a model of development in solidarity with the peoples of the Third World and with the marginalized peoples of the Fourth World, and on respect of nature considered humanity’s home.
