Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, apostolic nuncio and Permanent Observer to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, called on religions to resists the “weaponization” of thoughts and words.
Addressing an interfaith service on January 28, Archbishop Balestrero said that “one of the most urgent services religions can offer today to a suffering humanity is to resist the rising temptation to weaponize thoughts and words. Our spiritual traditions—and right reason—call us to look beyond blood ties, ethnicity, or unilateral ambitions, beyond the reflex to divide or exclude.”
The prelate added:
And yet, how often today is the language of faith dragged into political battles, manipulated to bless nationalism and justify violence?
We who believe must actively refute these forms of blasphemy and desecration of religions—with clarity and truth, with courage, and above all, with lives that reflect what we profess. Alongside all our efforts, we must nurture the habit of prayer and defend the art of dialogue as authentic, credible, and transformative paths to peace and encounter.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, also spoke at the service, telling participants that “there is no lasting peace without justice—but there is no real justice unless the other is recognized as a person, not a tool or an obstacle.”