Pacem in terris 2

https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2013/06/14/at-50/

Quinquagesimo Ante: Reflections on Pacem in Terris Fifty Years Later
Russell Hittinger
Introduction Beginning on the Feast of Christ the King (Oct. 1942) Archbishop Angelo Roncalli made his annual retreat in Istanbul. The retreat master for the Apostolic delegate to Turkey and Greece was the Jesuit Father Rene Follet, who preached on the image of the perfect bishop according to Isidore of Seville. Roncalli wrote in his diary: The Bishop must be distinguished by his own understanding, and his adequate explanation to others, of the philosophy of history, even the history that is now, before our eyes, adding pages of blood to pages of political and social disorders. I want to re-read St. Augustine’s City of God, and draw from his doctrine the necessary material to form my own Judgment ...1 And so it was here, in Istanbul during the Second World War, while reflecting on the problem of nationalism, and while reflecting on the bishop as an image of the supranationalism of the Church, that Roncalli resolved to re-read St. Augustine’s City of God. It gave birth to a pattern of themes that would bear fruit exactly twenty years later

In December 1962 the fourth year of his pontificate – Pope John assembled a drafting committee for a new encyclical, which would be titled Pacem in terris (Peace on Earth). He typed the following instructions to Msgr. Pietro Pavan of the Lateran, who headed the team of writers: Peace is tranquility in the order of things, ordered obedience in fidelity to the eternal law. Order is giving each thing its place. The Peace of mankind is ordered harmony in the home, in the city, in man. Wretched, therefore, is the people that is alienated from God.2 

These three sentences paraphrase Book XIX of St. Augustine’s City of God:
“peace is the tranquility of order”.3 They also express Roncalli’s understanding of the perennial task of the bishop, which he derived from his retreat in Istanbul twenty years earlier: namely, to discern the signs of the times according to the deeper patterns of history, and the still deeper principles of order which ought to inform it. As we shall see, peace as tranquility of order is a paradigm of singular importance for his encyclical, especially its teaching on human rights. In less than one year’s time we will mark the fiftieth anniversary of Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in terris: On Establishing Peace in Truth, Justice. Charity, and Liberty. And because this papal letter remains, to this day, as a kind of magna charta of the Catholic Church’s position on human rights and natural law, it is a good time to begin ruminating on the teaching: first, looking back; then, looking around; and briefly, looking ahead.

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Looking Back Issued on 11 April 1963, Pacem in terris reflected an acute sense of its own historical moment, both sacred and secular. In about two months’ time (from October-December 1962), Pope John: – Convened the Second Vatican Council. – Wrote an address in French to “all men of good will” only twentyfour hours after American military forces had gone to DEFCON 2 during the Cuban missile crisis. – Then, having appeared on the cover of Time Magazine as the “Man of the Year”, he learned from his physicians of a cancer that would soon kill him.
3 Aug., DCD XIX.l3. The peace of the body then consists in the duly proportioned arrangement of its parts. The peace of the irrational soul is the harmonious repose of the appetites, and that of the rational soul the harmony of knowledge and action. The peace of body and soul is the well-ordered and harmonious life and health of the living creature. Peace between man and God is the well-ordered obedience of faith to eternal law. Peace between man and man is well-ordered concord. Domestic peace is the well-ordered concord between those of the family who rule and those who obey. Civil peace is a similar concord among the citizens. The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. The peace of all things is the tranquillity of order. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal, each to its own place. And hence, though the miserable, in so far as they are such, do certainly not enjoy peace, but are severed from that tranquillity of order in which there is no disturbance, nevertheless, inasmuch as they are deservedly and justly miserable, they are by their very misery connected with order.

After receiving the medical report, he set up a drafting committee for the new encyclical. The team of drafters understood they had only weeks or a couple of months, at best, to finish their work.4 Published on Holy Thursday, Pope John christened it his “Easter gift”.5 So, let us look back. In the winter of 1962-1963, two issues galvanized the attention of the global commons. The first was the division between two highly armed “blocs”, a division that began in Europe just after the War, but which had rapidly spread to the rest of the world – to the former colonies, where the “cold war” was actually a complex skirmish line of civil wars, revolutions, and from Southeast Asia and to sub-Saharan Africa hot wars by proxies. Interestingly, although Pope John bemoaned the global fear of a nuclear conflagration, calling instead for gradual disarmament and for non-coercive means of resolving disputes (PT §§ 111-116), there is relatively little said in PT about issues of war. Except for the very significant admonition that use of nuclear weapons is not a fit instrument for the vindication of justice (PT §127, and §111), the encyclical does not conduct arguments within or about the criteria of just war.

The other great issue of the global commons – which, in fact, occupies the far greater part of PT – was the urgent problem of how to achieve political order in an era of very rapid and confusing decolonization. When the U.N. was established in 1945, 750 million people lived in territories that were not self-governing. By 1960, two thirds of the new member states were former colonies. In that very year the General Assembly declared that all peoples have a “right to self-determination”, and decreed that “immediate steps shall be taken, in Trust and Non-Self Governing Territories or all other territories which have not yet gained independence, to transfer all powers to the peoples of those territories”.6 

This was the problem of the so-called Third World – the peoples who belonged neither to the First World of the West nor to the Second World of the Communist bloc. The third world needed to achieve political and economic development within a wider international order. In many cases, these peoples had de jure states, with flags and stamps and currencies, but they barely functioned with respect to the minimal requirements of political and juridical order. Indeed, it was in 1963 that the long American nightmare in Vietnam began. The Republic of South Vietnam was not able to make the transition from being a French colony to being a successful polity. In both the secular and ecclesiastical press, much attention was given to the policy of aggiornamento – a bringing-up-to-date. The controversial issue was not (yet) what was going on theologically at the Vatican Council, but rather political collaboration between Catholics and parties on the Left. For all practical purposes, aggiornamento was interpreted as “the opening to the Left”. In the encyclical, the Pope expressed his hope that Catholics might cooperate not only with non-believers but also with adherents of a patently false ideology insofar as the cooperation involves “morally lawful aspirations”,7 especially collaboration in defense of “man’s natural rights”.8 The encyclical did not spell out exactly what this meant politically in any particular country 

While it is quite true that PT was an “open letter to the world”, it was also an important letter to the recently convened Council in Rome. The first meeting of the Council was quickly adjourned for the purpose of electing commissioners who would oversee a new set of schemata. In view of the fact that his earlier encyclical, Mater et Magistra, was rather tepidly received, the Pope and Msgr. Pavan “would have to sharpen the message of Mater et Magistra so that the Council would pay attention  Since the Council was called not to resolve internal disputes about doctrine, but chiefly in order to facilitate the Church’s mission in the world, PT signaled that problems in the global commons needed to be put front and center. Although the theme of aggiornamento was prominent in Humanae salutis, the bull of indictment convening Vatican II, and in the pope’s opening address to the Council, PT truly did sharpen the message, leaving its stamp upon several conciliar documents: Lumen Gentium on the Church as a sacrament of unity; the decree Ad Gentes on missionary work; the decree Unitatis Redintegratio on ecumenism; and even more indelibly on Gaudium et spes and Dignitatis humanae.10 

 The pope and his drafting committee understood that one sentence in particular would have a direct effect on the schemata being drawn by the commissioners: “Also among man’s rights is that of being able to worship God in accordance with the right dictates of his own conscience, and to profess his religion both in private and in public”. (§ 14) The sentences on the right of religious conscience received more internal discussion and debate than any other theme of the encyclical during its drafting process.11 In order to allow the Council to exercise its full deliberative weight, however, the sentences on religious liberty were written carefully, even somewhat ambiguously. It was celebrated and criticized both for what it said, for what it didn’t say, as well as for what people imagined it must have said or not said. To wit, the doggerel: By now we know the simple trick; Of how to read Pope John’s encyc.; To play the game, you choose your snippet; Of “Peace on Earth” and boldly clip it.12

By and large, the politics of the cold war determined the way Pacem in Terris was first received.13 The New York Times (for the first and the last time)  printed a papal encyclical in its entirety. The Catholic world was made more than a little nervous by Pope John’s words about “collaboration”. After all, in 1963 some 55 million Catholics were behind the Iron Curtain. The first Catholic president, John F . Kennedy was notably restrained in his public comments about this part of the encyclical. Italy had the largest Communist party in western Europe, and so the Christian Democratic Party was not at all pleased with the Pope’s remarks. For its part, the Communist government of Czechoslovakia tried to erect a puppet church called “Pacem in Terris”.

is itself measured by the principles of natural law and the directives of ecclesiastical authority (§160), and that gradual growth is better than the impetuosity of political revolution (§§161-162). In many countries, the debate seems in retrospect to have amounted to little more than what we would call political “spin”. National Review dismissed PT as “a venture in triviality”. See Brookhiser, Right Man Right Place, 47. There was also philosophical handwringing of a more serious nature, chiefly on the question of whether the pope was too lenient on Communists and naïve about the aggressive intentions of the Communist ideology. This, in tandem with PT’s seemingly ambiguous and soft position on just war, led important Protestant thinkers like Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Ramsey to ask whether the encyclical was an exercise in “philosophical anarchism”, “natural law optimism”, perhaps “breathing a Pelagian, rather than an Augustinian, spirit”. These remarks in Paul Ramsey, “Pacem in terris”, in The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility (Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield Pub., 2002), 70-90; first appearing in Religion in Life, Vol. XXXIII Winter 1963-64, 116-135. The latter, on Pelagianism, quoting Reinhold Niebuhr in Christianity and Crisis (May 13, 1963, p. 83).

See also, Peter Steinfels, “Pacem in Terris: A Retrospective”, for the Vincentian Convocation on January 30, 2003 at St. John’s University . Vincentian Center for Church and Society . www .vincenter.org/convocation/steinfels.html. Also worth noting is Steinfels’s passing remarks about how the encyclical was kept at arm’s length by some elements of the Left. In two countries, however, the encyclical’s bid for more collaboration had significant implications for domestic politics. In Italy, for example, the Church had taken a very strong stance against such collaboration in the elections of 1946 and 1948. The Communist party actively recruited Catholics, arguing that in the practical order there was no necessary contradiction between supporting desirable political polices and reforms and following the faith and morals of the Catholic Church. It is still debated whether PT did more harm than good in the context of Italian politics. See Elisa A. Carrillo, “The Italian Catholic Church and Communism, 1943-1963”, The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 77, No.4 (Oct., 1991), 644-657.

4 See Pavan’s letter to Loris Francesco Capovilla, the pope’s personal secretary, dated 23 Nov. 1962. Pavan disclosed his first line of thought, which was “to reestablish the great line of encyclicals in argomento di Leone XIlI” (mentioning Sapientia Christianae, Diuturnum, and Libertas, the same trilogy that would become so important for John Paul II). But, Pavan mused, it could be aimed at the entire global situation, teaching not only Catholics, but also other Christians and non-Christians. Documento 1, in Alberto Melloni, Pacem in terris: Storia dell’ultima enciclica di Papa Giovanni (Roma: GLF , Editori Laterza, 2010), 103-104. At its inception in Pavan’s mind, therefore, PT would take the great Leonine teachings on the eternal law, together with the changing tides of history, and allow them to resonate with a much wider audience [avrebbe una vasta risonanza in tutto il mondo e in tutti gli ambienti]. Drew Christiansen’s argument that PT is a kind of “Copernican” revolution turning papal teachings out of their scholastic grounding, and that “natural law is turned upside down”, has no basis in either the constitutive history of the document, nor in the encyclical itself, which devotes more attention to Aquinas’s notion of the Eternal Law than any encyclical between Leo XIII and JPII’s Veritatis splendor. See Drew Christiansen, SJ., “Commentary on Pacem in terris”, in Modern Catholic Social Teaching, Ed. Kenneth Hines, O.F .M. (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press, 2005). 225-226.

The Global Quest for Tranquillitas Ordinis. Pacem in Terris, Fifty Years Later Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Acta 18, 2013 www.pass.va/content/dam/scienzesociali/pdf/acta18/acta18-hittinger.pdff

As the strange decade of the 1960s unfolded, the encyclical became a kind of icon of the peace and youth movement, and its actual teaching receded from public view, hardly discussed. It is all the more necessary for us, a generation later, to look carefully at what the encyclical said about human rights

Looking Around (in the encyclical) I shall now leave behind the historical context and the contemporary events surrounding PT, in order to look around in the document itself – particularly its treatment of human or natural rights. And I intend to do so by returning to the Augustinian themes with which we began. I count some twenty-five discrete rights in sections 11-27. In his preface to these sections, the pope asserts that these are rights which flow inalienably from human nature (PT §9). So far as I can discern, the terms “natural” and “human” rights are used interchangeably.14 They include the right to life, to bodily integrity, to the means which are necessary and suitable for the proper development of life, including the right to security when otherwise deprived of the means to it through no fault of one’s own; the right to respect for one’s person and reputation, to freedom in seeking truth, and in expressing and communicating one’s opinion, to pursuing art within the limits of morality and the common good, and to being informed truthfully about public events. They include too the right to share in the benefits of culture and, therefore, to both a basic education and a technical training in accordance with the educational development of one’s country; the right to worship God, both privately and publicly, in accordance with one’s conscience; the right to choose freely one’s state in life, including the right to set up a family or to follow a religious vocation;  and the prior right of parents to support and educate their  children.
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History[edit]

German Stamp 1969

Pacem in terris was the first encyclical that a Pope addressed to "all men of good will", rather than only to Catholics, quote of the praise to God said by the heavenly army above the manger of Bethlehem (Latin Vulgate: in terra pax in hominibus bonae voluntatis, Luke 2:14; English translation: 2:13-14).^[2] Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Mary Ann Glendon, interprets this to mean "He was insisting that the responsibility for setting conditions for peace does not just belong to the great and powerful of the world—it belongs to each and every one of us."^[3] In theological terms, it marked a major shift in papal teaching from reliance on classical scholastic categories of natural law to a more inductive approach based on the signs of the times.^[4]

In this work, John XXIII reacted to the political situation in the middle of the Cold War. Coming just months after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, during which the Vatican served as an intermediary between the White House and the Kremlin,^[5] the document also reflected the Pope's experience of 1960 in trying to resolve difficulties arising out the four-power occupation of Berlin. The "peace encyclical" was issued only two years after the erection of the Berlin Wall. It also draws on Pope John's reading of Saint Augustine's The City of God and Thomas Aquinas' view of Eternal Law.^[6] In this it echoes the Gospel’s core values and principles of patristic and medieval thought, while reflecting the historical period in which it was written.^[7]

Sociologist Monsignor Pietro Pavan and a small group of theologians helped draft it.^[8] In Pavan’s view Pacem in terris would present the teachings of Leo XIII on the eternal law, "in light of the changing tides of history, and allow them to resonate with a much wider audience".^[6]

The Pope explains in this encyclical that conflicts "should not be resolved by recourse to arms, but rather by negotiation". He further emphasizes the importance of respect of human rights as an essential consequence of the Christian understanding of men and nuclear disarmament. He clearly establishes "...That every man has the right to life, to bodily integrity, and to the means which are suitable for the proper development of life..."

Pacem in terris is an extended reflection on the moral order. The document is divided into four sections.

• The first section of the encyclical establishes the relationship between individuals and humankind, encompassing the issues of human rights and moral duties.
• The second section addresses the relationship between man and state, dwelling on the collective authority of the latter.
• The third section establishes the need for equality amongst nations and the need for the state to be subject to rights and duties that the individual must abide by.
• The final section presents the need for greater relations between nations, thus resulting in collective states assisting other states. The encyclical ends with the urging of Catholics to assist non-Christians and non-Catholics in political and social aspects.

• 1 John XXIII, Journey of a Soul, Trans. Dorothy White (New York: Image Doubleday, 1999), 260-261. 2 Peter Hebblethwaite, Pope John XXIII: Shepherd of the Modern World – The Definitive Biography of Angelo Roncalli (New York: Image Doubleday, 1987), 470.

Reception[edit]

“Pacem in Terris was more than an encyclical—it was an event," recalls Glendon.^[3] Pacem in Terris was the first papal encyclical published in its entirety in the New York Times.^[9] The Washington Post said, "Pacem in terris is not just the voice of an old priest, nor just that of an ancient Church; it is the voice of the conscience of the world.” ^[3] Two years later, it was the subject of a conference at the United Nations attended by over 2,000 statespersons and scholars.^[3]

Legacy[edit]

F. Russell Hittinger describes the encyclical "as a kind of magna carta of the Catholic Church’s position on human rights and natural law".^[6] Pope John XXIII's 1963 encyclical Pacem in terris ("Peace on Earth") radically affected Catholic social teaching not only on war and peace, but on church-state relations, women's rights, religious freedom, international relations and other major issues. Fr. J. Bryan Hehir, called Pacem in terris "a pivotal text in [papal] encyclical history" that played a major role in the development of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom and its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, and on Pope John Paul II's encyclical Centesimus annus ("The Hundredth Year"), which marked the centennial of Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical on labor, Rerum Novarum.^[4] It also influenced the 1965 Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis humanae).^[4]

In commemoration of this encyclical, the annual Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom award was instituted in 1964, first by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport and later by the Quad Cities Pacem in Terris Coalition.^[10][11]

References[edit]

1. Jump up ^ Hebblethwaite, Peter (2010) [1st ed: John XXIII: Pope of the Council (1984)]. John XXIII: Pope of the Century (abridged, revised, and retitled ed.). London: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 4, 214, 232, 240, 241−251. ISBN 978-1-441-18413-9. ISBN 1-44118413-9.
2. Jump up ^ Other translations did not follow the Latin version or, as in the case of the CEI, have stopped following it with the 1973 revised edition of the Jerusalem Bible: compare the Italian text of the encyclical's address and the different translation subsequently introduced by the Italian bishops.
3. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b c d} Ziegler, J.J., "Pacem in Terris at 50", The Catholic World Report, June 14, 2013
4. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b c} Filteau, Jerry. "Experts: 'Pacem in Terris' had radical impact on church teaching", National Catholic Reporter, Apr. 18, 2013
5. Jump up ^ Adkins, Jason. "Catholic Spirit: Of Popes, Presidents and Peace", Minnesota Catholic Conference, April 26, 2012
6. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b c} Hittinger, Russell. "Quinquagesimo Ante: Reflections on Pacem in Terris Fifty Years Later", The Global Quest for Tranquillitas Ordinis. Pacem in Terris, Fifty Years Later Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Acta 18, 2013
7. Jump up ^ Sanchez Sorondo, Marcelo. "The Magnitude of 'Walking in the Truth' (3 Jn 1)", The Global Quest for Tranquillitas Ordinis. Pacem in Terris, Fifty Years Later Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Acta 18, 2013
8. Jump up ^ Murphy, Francis X., "Cardinal Pietro Pavan: inveterate optimist", America, February 1996
9. Jump up ^ Mannion, Gerard. "Pacem in Terris@50: Gifts Old and New for Church and Society in Recent Times", Pacem in Terris Conference 2013, Georgetown University^{[permanent dead link]}
10. Jump up ^ "Pacem In Terris". Diocese of Davenport. Archived from the original on May 12, 2008. Retrieved June 1, 2011.
11. Jump up ^ Arland-Fye, Barb (May 19, 2010). "Peace activist Fr. John Dear to get Pacem in Terris Award". The Catholic Messenger. Davenport, IA. Retrieved June 1, 2011.
    

On April 11, 1963, The Beverly Hillbillies was the top television show in the United States, works by J. D. Salinger and John Steinbeck topped the fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists, and the lead headline in the New York Times was “Atom Submarine with 129 Lost in Depths 220 Miles Off Boston; Oil Slick Seen Near Site of Dive.” The Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine” was the nation’s most popular song; It Happened at the World’s Fair, starring Elvis Presley, was the most popular movie. And Blessed John XXIII issued Pacem in Terris (“Peace on Earth”), the first papal encyclical addressed not only to the Catholic faithful, but also to all men of good will.

“By addressing an encyclical on peace to all men of good will, John XXIII was not merely being good Pope John,” says Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. “He was insisting that the responsibility for setting conditions for peace does not just belong to the great and powerful of the world—it belongs to each and every one of us. That’s crystal clear in the closing paragraphs where he says, ‘There is an immense task incumbent on all men of good will’—the task ‘of bringing about true peace in the order established by God.’ It’s ‘an imperative of duty; a requirement of love.’”

Blessed John wrote his encyclical letter de pace omnium gentium in veritate, iustitia, caritate, libertate constituenda, according to the encyclical’s Latin title—“about establishing the peace of all nations in truth, justice, charity, liberty,” or as the phrase is more loosely rendered in the most popular English version, “on establishing universal peace in truth, justice, charity, and liberty.” The official Latin version appears in Acta Apostolicae Sedis (beginning on page 257); the Vatican website’s Latin version
contains additional notes and at least one Latin error that did not appear in the original. The official version contains five untitled sections with unnumbered paragraphs.

The Italian version contained section titles, subsections, and subsection titles where none exist in the official Latin text. The translator of the most popular English version, which originally appeared in the publication The Pope Speaks, incorporated these Italian additions, while the translator of another English version, found here, did not. This latter English translation has the advantage of adhering more closely to the Latin in the body of the encyclical; unfortunately, it does not retain the original division into five sections, thus making the encyclical appear less structured than it is really is. 

Reaction and influence

Pacem in Terris is an extended reflection on the moral order. “The Creator of the world has imprinted in man’s heart an order which his conscience reveals to him and enjoins him to obey,” the pontiff wrote (no. 5), explaining:

By these laws [in human nature] men are most admirably taught, first of all how they should conduct their mutual dealings among themselves, then how the relationships between the citizens and the public authorities of each state should be regulated, then how states should deal with one another, and finally how, on the one hand individual men and states, and on the other hand the community of all peoples, should act towards each other, the establishment of such a community being urgently demanded today by the requirements of universal common good (no. 7).

Thus, the first section examines the order among men; the second, the relation between citizens and public authorities; the third, the relation between states; and the fourth, the relation of individuals and states to the world community. The fifth section consists of pastoral exhortations.

Reaction to the encyclical was widespread and favorable: it was immediately hailed by sources as diverse as the US State Department and the European Communist press. Pacem in Terris “is not just the voice of an old priest, nor just that of an ancient Church; it is the voice of the conscience of the world,” stated the Washington Post – praise reflected in other editorials of the day.

“I am much encouraged by a reading in this last week of the remarkable encyclical, Pacem in Terris,” President John F. Kennedy said at a convocation at Boston College. “In its penetrating analysis of today’s great problems, of social welfare and human rights, of disarmament and international order and peace, that document surely shows that on the basis of one great faith and its traditions there can be developed counsel on public affairs that is of value to all men and women of good will. As a Catholic, I am proud of it; and as an American, I have learned from it.”

“Pacem in Terris was more than an encyclical—it was an event, a ‘happening,’ as we used to say in those days,” recalls Glendon. She told CWR that “one gets a sense of just how much of an event it was when one recalls that it was printed in full in the New York Times. Two years later, it was the subject of a conference at the United Nations attended by over 2,000 statespersons and scholars, including Vice President Hubert Humphrey, UN Secretary General U Thant, diplomats Abba Eban and George Kennan, American politicians Eugene McCarthy and Adlai Stevenson, and scores of public figures from every corner of the world.”

Glendon added:

The fact that the encyclical attracted so much notice beyond Catholic circles in itself made an impression on American Catholics, even those who were not ordinarily standing by their mailboxes waiting for the latest word from Rome. 

No doubt the timing had much to do with its impact. The Cold War was at its height, and the world had been shaken by the Cuban missile crisis the preceding fall. But Pacem in Terris also spoke to the momentous changes that were taking rise in America. It made a huge impression on young Catholics like myself who were beginning to be active in the civil rights movement. 

It was exciting that the Pope himself seemed to be encouraging our causes. His emphatic insistence that “racial discrimination can in no way be accepted,” his affirmation of women’s roles and rights in contemporary society, and his praise for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—all those things contributed to our sense of being on the cusp of historic changes, and gave us a sense of pride that our Church’s leaders were in the forefront. Lest we forget: the previous year Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel of New Orleans had excommunicated three powerful Louisiana political figures for opposing the desegregation of schools. It felt like a great time to be a Catholic!

Blessed John’s encyclical has exercised a profound impact on subsequent Catholic teaching. The Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes the encyclical in its teaching on conversion and society (no. 1886) and authority (nos. 1897 and 1903) and cites the encyclical in its teaching on respect for the human person (no. 1930). The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004) quotes the encyclical 16 times and offers 34 additional citations. Each social encyclical written after Pacem in Terris has cited it.

In 2003, Blessed John Paul II referred to the 40th anniversary of Pacem in Terris at least nine times, offering his most extensive reflections in his Messages for the World Day of Peace and World Communication Day. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, then the Vatican’s chief representative at the United Nations, also delivered an address on the encyclical that year.

Pope Benedict XVI described Pacem in Terris as an “immortal encyclical” in a 2006 Angelus address and referred to it at least five times during the last year of his pontificate. Likewise, Pope Francis mentioned the encyclical in an address to the Papal Foundation delivered the day of its 50th anniversary.

Pacem in Terris became the subject of renewed interest in view of its 50th anniversary. In 2012, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences devoted its plenary session to it; the proceedings included notable contributions by coeditors Mary Ann Glendon and Russell Hittinger, as well as reflections by ecclesiastical, academic, cultural, and political dignitaries, including Lord David Alton, who reflected on Pacem in Terris and globalization, and Janne Haaland Matlary, who spoke on human rights.

In recent months, the University of Notre Dame, the Catholic University of America, and Georgetown University have hosted conferences on the encyclical. At the conference at Catholic University, Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, discussed Catholic peacebuilding, and Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines, chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, spoke about solidarity and American foreign policy. 

In Pacem in Terris, Blessed John cited Sacred Scripture, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Popes Leo XIII, Benedict XV, Pius XI, and Pius XII. CWR asked scholars and other Christian leaders who have reflected on the encyclical to discuss the most important ways in which the encyclical developed the tradition of Catholic social teaching in which it is rooted.

George Weigel said that “by applying the Augustinian concept of peace-as-order to contemporary conditions, Pacem in Terris stretched the classic Catholic moral tradition’s thinking about statecraft while maintaining the tradition’s intellectual tether to its roots.”

“Pope John taught that a just and peaceful human society is ‘primarily a spiritual reality,’” observed Bishop Pates. “He declared that a truly human society consists of ‘spiritual values which exert a guiding influence on culture, economics, social institutions, political movements’ (no. 36). This spiritual insight advanced the tradition at the same time that it returned us to the central Gospel mandate of being peacemakers. Ultimately, peace is about love—God’s love. In the words of Blessed Pope John, it is a spiritual call to have love, not fear’ guide the relationships among individuals and even nations (no. 129).”

“As an encyclical it drew on all the usual sources,” said Lord Alton, “but its sense of urgency and its accessibility set the tone for the teaching documents which have followed, perhaps especially the encyclicals of John Paul II.”

Marie Dennis, co-president of Pax Christi International and speaker at the Catholic University conference, told CWR that “one of the most interesting topics Pope John XXIII addressed in Pacem in Terris was the inadequacy of the modern state to ensure the universal common good (nos. 137-38). At the same time, Pacem in Terris emphasizes the right role of government based upon the principle of subsidiarity. The relevance of this concern about global political authority today was reiterated by Pope Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate,” his 2009 social encyclical.

Matlary said that Pacem in Terris “centers [Catholic] social teaching on the concept of human rights, both the social and economic, as well as the political and civil rights. By so doing, it argues that only states that respect human rights, which imply democracy and rule of law, are legitimate.”

“The Pope states without any doubt that states based on force of some kind—be they Communist or theocratic dictatorship—are intolerable and illegitimate,” she added. “This very clear embrace of liberal democracy is a step forward: the Church has always lived with the powers that be, but in our age there is but one model that is acceptable according to Christian ethics.”

Enduring significance

Press coverage of Pacem in Terris in April 1963 focused almost entirely on the encyclical’s discussion of nuclear weapons (nos. 109-119). What is most significant about the encyclical with the passage of five decades?

“Briefly, the press reporting focused on an immediate issue, but Pope John’s message was meant to be applied much more broadly, and was rooted in his own experiences of the conflicts of the preceding century,” said Lord Alton. “It did strike a special chord with a generation desperate not to see the world engulfed in another cataclysmic global war. It has lost none of its relevance with the passage of time and continues to speak to both heart and head—with a message which needs to be heard from the DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo] to the DPRK [North Korea] and by the leaders of the nations

“The Pope states without any doubt that states based on force of some kind—be they Communist or theocratic dictatorship—are intolerable and illegitimate,” she added. “This very clear embrace of liberal democracy is a step forward: the Church has always lived with the powers that be, but in our age there is but one model that is acceptable according to Christian ethics.”

Enduring significance https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2013/06/14/at-50/

ris in April 1963 focused almost entirely on the encyclical’s discussion of nuclear weapons (nos. 109-119). What is most significant about the encyclical with the passage of five decades?

“Briefly, the press reporting focused on an immediate issue, but Pope John’s message was meant to be applied much more broadly, and was rooted in his own experiences of the conflicts of the preceding century,” said Lord Alton. “It did strike a special chord with a generation desperate not to see the world engulfed in another cataclysmic global war. It has lost none of its relevance with the passage of time and continues to speak to both heart and head—with a message which needs to be heard from the DRC [Democratic Republic of the Cong

“The nuclear issue is very different today than at his time, so we should look at other aspects of the encyclical,” said Matlary. “I think the acceptance of human rights, defined as natural rights, is the key novelty. And with it, the need to stand by human rights, rightly understood, something which is extremely important today. The Holy See is the only world actor that does that today, at a time marked by the politicization of human rights in every Western state: the rights to life, the family, etc., are key ideological battlegrounds.”

Weigel likewise notes that “from a historical point of view, Pacem in Terris inserted the Catholic Church firmly into the late-20th century debate on human rights, which proved to be such an important tool in the hands of those who eventually brought down the Berlin wall and thus made an enormous contribution to peace.”

Weigel adds, “The encyclical’s emphasis on ‘order’ was also an anticipation of the keep question posed by globalization: if the world is being ‘ordered,’ in the sense of becoming ever more interconnected, on what principles is that ‘ordering’ going to be reflected in the world’s political and economic structures? That remains as crucial a question today.”

“Pope John, without the benefit of today’s popular understanding of ‘globalization,’ sketched a broad vista of the ‘universal common good’ of humanity (nos. 132-141),” observes Bishops Pates. “In a prophetic passage, John XXIII wrote: ‘National economies are gradually becoming so interdependent that a kind of world economy is being born … [E]ach country’s social progress, order, security and peace are necessarily linked with the social progress, order, security and peace of every other country’ (no. 130). The fates of all nations are linked. We are one human family.”

“Peace is not achieved, as Pope John noted, by ‘an equal balance of armaments’ (no. 110),” Bishop Pates continued. “It is built by contributing to the common good of the whole human family. We are challenged to trust in relationships and engagement with other nations as the true path to peace. Every Christian, every person, shares this vocation of promoting peace. I believe that what the Holy Father advocated has been proven true from a negative perspective in the armed encounters the United States has experienced in the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars.”

Pax Christi International’s Dennis adds that “the context for Pacem in Terris was profoundly different from our context 50 years later. The geopolitical reality and even the global economy (at least those dimensions of both that were visible in the US and European media) were then largely bi-polar—shaped by the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. People living behind the Iron Curtain could hardly imagine an end to the status quo.” 

“I am struck by the scope and optimism of Pacem in Terris, as well as by its emphases on human rights and duties; on the need to end the arms race; and on the need for an effective international body to ensure the universal common good—all of which remain relevant today,” she continued. “That kind of optimism was interesting (and consistent with the inherent optimism of the Christian tradition), given that Pope John XXIII had not seen the nonviolent revolutions that would eventually end the Cold War. At the same time, many of the positive changes he saw on the horizon have not been fully realized … The human ‘rights and duties’ the document holds up as ‘universal and inviolable and therefore altogether inalienable’ are also far-reaching. Many of them, however, are still in need of urgent attention.”

“Pacem in Terris also, of course, speaks directly to the arms race,” Dennis added. “Fifty years later, the need for disarmament is just as urgent. While there are fewer nuclear weapons ready to launch, the possibility of nuclear terrorism is very real; more countries possess nuclear weapons and not all are signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty; and nuclear deterrence has become a permanent state of affairs. Furthermore, we are entering into an era of new lethal technologies (drone warfare) that are shifting the very concept of a limited battlefield and undermining international law.” 

Because Pacem in Terris was addressed to all “men of good will,” CWR asked the president of the National Association of Evangelicals to offer reflections on the encyclical.

“Fifty years later we are impressed with his foresight, challenged by his insights, grateful for a half century without nuclear war and still yearning for greater peace,” said Leith Anderson. “His opening greeting to ‘all men of good will’ included us evangelicals. It was a call for Catholics and others to join hands for the common good even though there are continuing differences.”

“Evangelicals in America have found Catholics to be our friends and allies in opposing abortion-on-demand, upholding traditional marriage, and advocating for the poor,” he continued. “The strengthening of our cooperation may not have been foreseen by Catholics or Evangelicals in 1963, but the encyclical certainly helped pave the way.”

“The good news is that the pope’s call to end nuclear testing and seek negotiation as a means to resolve conflict has significantly advanced,” Anderson added. “What was a bold proposal 50 years ago has become the international standard today, followed by all nuclear powers except a few rogue nations. Today, the principles of peace must be applied to new and different threats but the principles are the same … Both Catholics and Evangelicals in 2013 are part of a new and different generation, but Pacem in Terris is still news of importance.”

“I think what continues to challenge and inspire us in Pacem in Terris is a message similar to what we find in Federalist No. 1,” said Glendon. “Like Alexander Hamilton, Pope John encourages us to believe that we human beings are not just helplessly carried along on the waves of history, that we can help to shift probabilities in favor of peace, and that we have a responsibility to do so.”

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o] to the DPRK [North Korea] and by the leaders of the nations.”