In an editorial, “Commitment to peace born from contemplating face of the Christ Child,” a Vatican spokesman wrote that “to look upon that Child, the central figure of our Nativity scenes, cannot leave us indifferent to the tragedy of the many children who are victims of war.”
Andrea Tornielli, the editorial director of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, said on December 19 that “for Christians, peace and non-violence have profoundly evangelical roots in the words and attitude of Jesus, who ordered Peter—when he tried to defend Him—to put his sword back into its sheath.”
Tornielli warned that “In public debate and in the media, an aggressive and confrontational logic seems to prevail”—“a destabilizing and extremely dangerous logic that goes far beyond the principle of legitimate defense and leads us towards the abyss of a new world conflict, with unpredictable and devastating consequences.”