Twenty Pope Francis Quotes about War and Peace
by CAPP-USA
Some of the best quotes from Pope Francis on war and peace.
These are Our Favorite Pope Francis War and Peace Quotes
Among his many words concerning war and peace, these quotes reflect Pope Francis’s emphasis on peace as a multifaceted and active pursuit, deeply rooted in justice, dialogue, and the everyday actions of individuals and communities.
- “Peace is a great and precious value, the object of our hope and the aspiration of the entire human family.” (53rd World Day of Peace, 1)
- “[W]e cannot truly achieve peace without a convinced dialogue between men and women who seek the truth beyond ideologies and differing opinions.” (53rd World Day of Peace, 2)
- “The desire for peace lies deep within the human heart, and we should not resign ourselves to seeking anything less than this.” (53rd World Day of Peace, 1)
- “Building peace is difficult, but living without peace is torment!” (General Audience, November 19, 2014)
- “Every war is a form of fratricide that destroys the human family’s innate vocation to brotherhood.” (53rd World Day of Peace, 1)
- “[P]eace can never be reduced solely to a balance between power and fear. To threaten others is to lower them to the status of objects and to deny their dignity.” (52nd World Day of Peace, 6)
- “Pope Paul VI noted that peace ‘is not simply the absence of warfare, based on a precarious balance of power; it is fashioned by efforts directed day after day towards the establishment of an order willed by God, with a more perfect justice among men and women’.” (Address to Members of the Diplomatic Corps)
- “Peacemaking calls for courage, much more so than warfare. It calls for the courage to say yes to encounter and no to conflict”. (2014 Invocation for Peace)
- “Trusting others is an art and peace is an art“. (Evangelii Gaudium, 244)
- “Peace is not a document which gets signed and then filed away. Peace is built day by day!” (Apostolic Journey to Kenya, Uganda, and the Central African Republic)
- “Peace is also threatened by every denial of human dignity”. (Address to Members of the Diplomatic Corps)
- “[F]raternity is the foundation and pathway of peace.” (47th World Day of Peace)
- “Christians are called in the world to work for a peace founded on justice.” (Address to Members of the Diplomatic Corps)
- “Politics is at the service of peace if it finds expression in the recognition of the gifts and abilities of each individual.” (52nd World Day of Peace, 5)
- “Peace, in effect, is the fruit of a great political project grounded in the mutual responsibility and interdependence of human beings.” (52nd World Day of Peace, 7)
- “War always marks the failure of peace, it is always a defeat for humanity.” (Vigil of Prayer for Peace, 3)
- There are “three paths for building a lasting peace. First, dialogue between generations as the basis for the realization of shared projects. Second, education as a factor of freedom, responsibility and development. Finally, labour as a means for the full realization of human dignity.” (55th World Day of Peace, 1)
- “We often talk about peace when we feel directly threatened…In reality, peace always concerns us, always! Just as the other, our brother and sister, always concern us, and we must take care of him or her.” (Address to Students for the Education of Peace and Caring)
- “Peace is a work of justice. Here too: not a justice proclaimed, imagined, planned… but rather a justice put into practice, lived out. The Gospel teaches us that the ultimate fulfilment of justice is love”. (Apostolic Journey to Sarajevo)
- “God is not the God of war, but of peace.” (Message to the 2021 G20 Interfaith Forum)
