Among the seven primers offered by Toronto's Hungarian Pax Romana to elaborate on the source of peace, Thomas à Kempis's quotation strikes me as perhaps the most fundamental: "Be in peace with yourself first, then you can calm others." Karl Rahner's quote, "One can live in peace with his neighbour only if he lives in peace with God and himself," confirms and spells out The Following of Christ's quotation by adding "with God," where any search for peace must start.

Peace in the world originates in the heart of individuals, Christ reminds us: ".from the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies." Mt 15, 19-20 Eric Voegelin in his The World of the Polis (Order and History, V. II) shows how Homer's Iliad makes clear that the Trojan War, a civil war between Greek cities (poleis) was basically a break-down of Greek morality, as the carryings on of the Iliad's cast of characters shows. Pagan Greeks knew this.

The first question Pax Romana suggests we answer seems to me misleadingly stated: "How can we harmonize the Christian teaching of peace with the wars of the Old and New Testament. The crusades and the wars Christian countries fought in the past.?" Harmonize? When did Christ, the Prince of Peace, ever condemn war? "I came not to send peace but the sword." Mt 10, 34 In the Apocalypse, 6, 2, Christ is sitting on a white horse: that white horse is a war horse. The Crusades, which are usually spelled with a capital C, need no harmonizing: they originated at the peak of medieval civilisation.  Moderns recall only their abuses. Chivalry derived from this movement and helped preserve Europe from the social and religious plague of Islam. Church history records a long tradition of military men who, without ever repenting their previous military service to society, moved on to religious pursuits: Saint Martin of Tours, founder of Western monasticism, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Ignatius, to name a few outstanding examples. Our present Holy Father's father was a career officer in the Austrian (Holy Roman Empire) army. To the cumulated military record of Christian and Catholic defence of Christendom, one might add the naval victory of Lepanto, thanks to the initiative of Saint Pius V and his recourse to Our Lady of the Rosary.

The wars of religion following the Reformation, deprecated by our secularised contemporaries, show how seriously our forefathers, Protestant and Catholic, considered religion, and how those pretending to be liberal count religion of no importance. These liberals clothe their contempt with the cloak of tolerance, for many the only remaining virtue. Chesterton claimed religious wars were the only wars worth fighting. He bitterly regretted the loss of his brother Cecil in the Great War, which GK considered a war over real estate.

The Church has generally ruled out pacifism from the earliest times. The Catechism of the Catholic Church allows it for reasons of conscience, even when that conscience is erroneous (n. 2311, 1782 and 1790). The Catechism maintains Saint Augustine's just war theory. (n. 2309)

Pax Romana's last proposed question, "Can peace be achieved through giving up force altogether?" seems to ignore this teaching of the Catechism, as have any number of ecclesiastical authorities since the outbreak of the Islamic terrorist threat. Giving up force altogether would create a vacuum inviting anarchy, chaos. Over-praised Gandhi could safely practise his hard pacifism thanks to the protective environment provided by the military shield of the British Empire. When the British withdrew from India, millions were slaughtered. The same was true of those pacifists of the early Church, thanks to the Pax Romana.  No such luxury was possible in barbarian lands.

"What is the Church's role in promoting peace?" asks Pax. Establish the Kingdom of God in men's hearts and in the nations of the world. This entails the calling to conversion of individuals and of nations, a mission which in recent years has been seriously neglected by Church authorities, except for John Paul's personal ministry. It also requires, beyond the truths of Christian Revelation, the teaching of Christian social doctrine and its application, by the laity (who, we are told, are also part of that Church), in society, a just order, Saint Augustine's tranquillitatis ordo, in society as well as in men's hearts: Opus justitiae, pax. Is 32, 17.