Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

310 BRIAN V. JOHNSTONEIn his message for the World Day of Peace of the same year(2002), he had expressed the same view with more explanation:True peace therefore is the fruit of justice, that moral virtueand legal guarantee which ensures full respect for rights andresponsibilities, and the just distribution of benefits and burdens.But because human justice is always fragile and imperfect, subjectas it is to the limitations and egoism of individuals and groups, itmust include and, as it were, be completed by the forgiveness whichheals and rebuilds troubled human relations from their foundations.This is true in circumstances great and small, at the personal levelor on a wider, even international scale. Forgiveness is in no wayopposed to justice, as if to forgive meant to overlook the need toright the wrong done. It is rather the fullness of justice, leading tothat tranquillity of order which is much more than a fragile andtemporary cessation of hostilities, involving as it does the deepesthealing of the wounds which fester in human hearts. Justice andforgiveness are both essential to such healing. 4Justice, then, by itself is not sufficient: what is needed is justicetogether with forgiveness, which is itself, as the Popeexplained in the same document, a form of charity. This, Ibelieve is a very significant point and will be analysed in moredetail later.The Pope also spoke on more specific issues. In particular,he challenged the doctrine of preventive war, that some hadbegun to propose as a justification for war against Iraq. In hismessage to the world on December 25, 2002, John Paul IIrepeated his warnings to the United States and Great Britainand pronounced himself against any “preventative war”. 5Commentators have interpreted the responses of the Pope andthe Vatican as a rejection of the war in Iraq 6 .4(3) www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp_ii_mess_20011211_xxxv-world-day-for-peace_en.html.5Henri TINCQ, “Inquiry on the Diplomatic Offensive of John Paul II’sVatican,” Le Monde, 25 December 2002, 12:16.6Thomas HOPPE, “Gewaltprävention statt Präventivkriege” HerderKorrespondenz 57/5 (May 2003) 227.