Pacem in Terris

BY GROUP 1
MEMBERS

Alex Kate Dela

Jenelou Victoria Dadivas
Guezil Joy Delfin
Mary Nichole Javellana
Mary Anne Arce
Shanilyn Biong
Sheena Marie Jerusalem
Jenevive Dacles
Historical Social
Contecxt
Shanilyn Biong
Mary Anne Arce
Pope John XXIII wrote the encyclical Pacem in Terris in April of 1963 to address a world
deeply engaged in the Cold War. The Berlin Wall had just gone up and the Cuban Missile
Crisis frightened millions as nuclear weapons began to proliferate. 

At a time in world history marked by powerful new weapons, rivalry, and fear His Holiness
sought to reassure not only the Catholic World, but also all people, that peace on earth is
possible through the divinely established order.

Each person has the right to life and the means necessary to live their life. In addition, all of
humanity has a natural right to be respected, to worship God, to live their life as they
choose, to work and support a family, to form associations, to emigrate, and to take an
active role in public life. All people also have the duty to preserve their life, to respect the
rights of others, work together for the common good, and maintain an attitude of
responsibility
• Author: Pope John XXIII
• Full Name: Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli
• Encyclical Number : 8 of 8 of the Pontificate
• Date Issued: 11 April 1963
• Argument: “That Peace Between All People
Must Be Based On Truth, Justice, Love And
Freedom”
Each country has the right to existence, to self development, and the means to achieve their
development. Minority groups should be protected and be allowed to live in association
with the other peoples within a state. The encyclical continues by discussing relations
between races and the issue of political refugees.

To avoid war we must be intent on building peace in an increasingly interdependent world.

Working with other states to provide for the common good is a constant endeavor and
Catholics must urge their political leaders to do so.
1939-1945
After the atrocities of the Second World War, delegates from 50 nations met to establish an
international peace-keeping organization, which was to become the United Nations. Its first
resolution focused on the peaceful use of atomic energy and the elimination of weapons of
mass destruction.
Hungary was ruled by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

1948
The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This development took place at the beginning of the Cold War, a term used for the hostile
relationship between the United States of America (USA) and communist Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics (USSR) that lasted for most of the second half of the twentieth century.

1949
The French, British and American sectors formed the Federal Republic of Germany which
included West Berlin, while the Soviet zone formed the German Democratic Republic.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) seized total power in Hungary.
1950s
Cuba was ruled by the dictator Batista, who had the support of the USA. Spurred by the
socialist thought of Mao Tse Tung, young Cubans led by Fidel Castro overthrew Batista, and
among other reforms Castro nationalized American firms in Cuba thus keeping their profits in
Cuba. The USA imposed a trade embargo on Cuba, with the result that Russia 1 stepped in to
buy Cuban exports. With a new friend of Russia only 50 miles from America, President
Kennedy supported an abortive attempt by some exiled Cubans to overthrow Castro, who
looked to Russian protection.

1952
The borders between east and west Germany and between east Germany and west Berlin were
closed, and restrictions imposed on east Berliners traveling to west Berlin.

1953
An armistice was signed after the death of Stalin, the General Secretary of the USSR, and the
election of Eisenhower as American president.
1956
A protest of students and workers was brutally suppressed by Soviet troops, with tens of
thousands being killed, and another 200,000 escaping to the west. In the face of nuclear threat,
Eisenhower offered only moral support to the Hungarian people. Other hostilities erupted over
control of the strategic Suez Canal, with a nationalist regime under Gamal Nasser nationalizing
the canal and ultimately turning to the USSR for both military and developmental support.

1961
The Communist government erected a concrete and barbed wire barrier between the two halves
of the city.

1962 - 1963
Russia had a nuclear missile base in Cuba, and Cuba had the guarantee of unlimited weapons.
With the USA under threat, Kennedy undertook not to invade Cuba if Russia withdrew the
nuclear missiles and revoked its weapons. There was a tense stand-off for some time, until one
year later the two nations signed the Nuclear Test Ban treaty.

- The human rights abuses in many nation, above all Marxists nation such as the USSR, were
very pronounced and clear to the world.
Vietnam …

1963
The final Cold War conflict was played out in Vietnam with the spread of
communism.

1973
The ensuing war claimed millions of civilians and soldiers on both sides before
America withdrew

1975
Saigon City fell and Vietnam was united under one government.

1989
Coldwar ended when the Berlin wall came down
THOUGHTS
Alex Kate Dela
Jenevive Dacles
☩ Pacem in Terris  focuses on issues of peace in a nuclear age. It
revisits the application of the just war theory. Pacem in Terris,
the 1963 encyclical of Pope John XXIII, argued that there is a
need for disarmament and that nuclear weapons must be banned.
Pope Pius XII claimed that “the calamity of a world war, with the
economic and social ruin that accompany it, must not on any
account be permitted to engulf the human race for a third time.” 

☩ Pacem in Terris brings a tremendous challenge to a highly

militarized and nationalistic U.S. foreign policy and to a
contemporary global economy that benefits a few very wealthy
and powerful people, while leaving millions in dire poverty and
the whole earth community threatened.
Pacem in Terris grew out of challenges and opportunities John saw facing the world. In the
process, he unequivocally ended up declaring that nuclear weapons had to be banned from the
planet.

"Justice, right reason, and the recognition of man's dignity cry out insistently for a cessation to
the arms race," he wrote. "The stockpiles of armaments which have been built up in various
countries must be reduced all round and simultaneously by the parties concerned. Nuclear
weapons must be banned. A general agreement must be reached on a suitable disarmament
program, with an effective system of mutual control.“

Pope John proposed a new world order to be built on four pillars: truth, justice, love and
freedom.
☩ The challenge is to take the fundamental principle on which the present peace depends - the fear and
anxious expectation of war and replace it with another, which declares that true world peace can only
consist in mutual trust, not in equality of arms \

☩ Authorities of the world community must have as its fundamental objective the recognition, respect,
safeguarding and promotion of the rights of the human person.

☩ By the natural law every human being has the right to respect for his person, to his good reputation; the
right to freedom in searching for truth and in expressing and communicating his opinions, and in pursuit of
art, within the limits laid down by the moral order and the common good; and he has the right to be
informed truthfully about public events
He looked at the world and saw human progress, listing some of these noting:

☩ people were becoming increasingly conscious of their human dignity;

☩ women and workers were claiming their basic rights;
☩ nations were achieving independence, breaking out of colonialism. They were founding
governments on constitutions, included fundamental human rights;
☩ a new sense of world community was growing across the planet;
☩ national economies were growing more interdependent;
☩ people were rejecting violence as a means to settle disputes; and
☩ the entire human family was entering the era of the atom and the space/information age.
The main areas covered in Pacem in Terris are:

I. Order Between People

II. Relations Between Individuals and the State
III. Relations Between States
IV. Relations of People and States with the World Community
V. Faith and Action
 I. Order Between Men

☩  Any well-regulated and productive association of men in society demands the

acceptance of one fundamental principle: that each individual man is truly a person. His
is a nature, that is, endowed with intelligence and free will. As such he has rights and
duties, which together flow as a direct consequence from his nature. These rights and
duties are universal and inviolable, and therefore altogether inalienable. #9

☩ Rights
☩ • Each person has the right to life and the means necessary to live their life.
Human Rights
a. Rights to life and a worthy standard of living
b. Rights to moral and cultural values
c. Rights to worship
d. Rights to choose one’s state of life
e. Economic rights
f. Right of meeting and association
g. Right to emigrate and immigrate
h. Political rights
 ☩ Duties

• To acknowledge and respect rights of others

• To collaborate mutually

• To act for others responsibly

• To preserve life and live it becomingly

II. Responsibilities and Duties of Civil Authorities
A. To ensure the common good by maintaining personal rights and duties

B. To coordinate social relations in a way that allows people to exercise their rights
peacefully and without threatening others

C. A three-fold division of power – legislative, executive and judicial –is recommended

D. Good governance requires:

I. A charter of human rights
II. A written constitution
III. Relations between governed and government are in terms of rights and
duties
 III. Relations Between States
1. Peace on earth notes that “all States are by nature equal in dignity,” that is, they have the
right to existence, to self-development and to be primarily responsible for this
development.

2. States are also subjects to rights and duties. This means that relationships between
States must be harmonized in truth, justice, active solidarity and freedom. This requires
the elimination of “every trace of racism,” and the selfish pursuit of self-development at
the cost of oppressing or restricting other states and the avoidance of prejudices. The
church believes that “the true and solid peace of nations can consist, not in equality of
arms, but in mutual trust alone.”

3. Religious between states must be based on freedom.

IV. Relations Of People And States With The World Community
1. In spite of its fresh and optimistic outlook and confidence in the good will of people
in pursuing peace in the world, the document also brings to awareness that the path
to peace is be set with many and grave obstacles. The pursuit of universal common
good and the recognition of the equal status of every nation can only “be adequately
tackled or solved… by the efforts of public authorities… which are in position to act
in an effective manner on a world-wide basis.”

2. Pacem In Terris also encourages that the United Nations be promoted.

 V. Faith And Action
1. Catholics must “take an active part in public life and to contribute toward the attainment of the
common good of the entire human family as well as to that of their own political community.”

2. A unity between faith and action is needed. A solid Christian education in which scientific
training is integrated with religious instruction should begin in childhood and continue through
one’s life so that there can be balance between scientific, technical and professional elements
on one hand, and spiritual values on the other.

3. Dialogue and collaboration with people of other faiths are encouraged so that the task of
“restoring the relations of the human family in truth, in justice, in love and freedom” can be
achieved.

4. Peace will be but an empty-sounding word unless it is established on an order founded on truth,
built according to justice, inspired and integrated by charity, and put into practice in freedom.
☩ John XXIII was very distressed to see the enormous ongoing build up of arms during arms
the Cold War – particularly the cost and the resources devoted to it. He called for a process of
disarmament by every nation.
☩
At the same time, he repeats the appeal made in Mater et Magistra that every nation assists
those in economic development. The continued integration of the world economy has meant
that no state can pursue its own interests in isolation. Growing economic interdependence
requires cooperation for progress.
☩
In a 1983 pastoral letter “The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response” the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishop commented on Church teachings on war and peace. Written
during the height of the Cold War, the letter emphasizes the Church’s strong desire for the
peaceful settlement of disputes.
The Problem of Political Refugees
☩ The deep feelings of paternal love for all mankind which God has implanted in Our heart
makes it impossible for Us to view without bitter anguish of spirit the plight of those who
for political reasons have been exiled from their own homelands. There are great numbers
of such refugees at the present time, and many are the sufferings—the incredible
sufferings—to which they are constantly exposed.
☩
 In defining the scope of a just freedom within which individual citizens may live lives
worthy of their human dignity, the rulers of some nations have been far too restrictive.
Sometimes in States of this kind the very right to freedom is called in question, and even
flatly denied. We have here a complete reversal of the right order of society, for the whole
raison d'etre of public authority is to safeguard the interests of the community. Its
sovereign duty is to recognize the noble realm of freedom and protect its rights.
 Causes of the Arms Race
☩ On the other hand, We are deeply distressed to see the enormous stocks of armaments that have
been, and continue to be, manufactured in the economically more developed countries. This
policy is involving a vast outlay of intellectual and material resources, with the result that the
people of these countries are saddled with a great burden, while other countries lack the help
they need for their economic and social development .
CONTEXT (PRINCIPLES)
Mary Nichole Javellana
Guezil Joy Delfin
 Principles
Principle of Human Dignity
All of humanity was created in God’s own image and likeness (Gen. 1:26.) and endowed with
freedom and intelligence and give power over the earth.

Principle of Respect for Human Life

Each person has the right to life and the means necessary to live their life.

Principle of Common Good

Every human person is to promote the welfare of everybody not only for the few but for the
majority.
 Principles
Principle of Stewardship
We are to take care of our environment and whatever property God has given to us.

Principle of Association
United Nations Organization (UN) was established to promote PEACE between nations.
Men are by nature social; they have the right together to form associations with their fellows to
attain their objectives.
 Principles
Participation

Each individual will make his whole-hearted contribution so that right and duties will be more effectively
observed.”

Therefore, human society must primarily be considered something pertaining to the spiritual. Through it, in
the bright light of truth men should share their knowledge, be able to exercise their rights and fulfill their
obligations, be inspired to seek spiritual values, mutually derive genuine pleasure from the beautiful of
whatever order it be, always be readily disposed to pass on to others the best of their own cultural heritage
and eagerly strive to make their own the spiritual achievements of others. These benefits not only influence,
but at the same time give aim and scope to all that has bearing on cultural expressions, economic and social
institutions, political movements and forms, laws, and all other structures by which society is outwardly
established and constantly developed.
 Principles
It is in keeping with their dignity as persons that human beings should take an active part in government,
although the manner in which they share in it will depend on the level of development of the country to
which they belong. Men will find new and extensive advantages in the fact that they are allowed to
participate in government. In this situation, those who administer the government come into frequent contact
with the citizens, and it is thus easier for them to learn what is really needed for the common good. And
since public officials hold office only for a specified period of time their authority, far from withering, rather
takes on a new vigor in a measure proportionate to the development of human society.
 Principles
Preferential protection for the poor and vulnerable
To achieve common good, the document acknowledged that we should put more attention to the less
fortunate members of the society and a state must promote material and spiritual welfare of citizens.

Subsidiarity
Any disputes which may arise can be resolved by negotiations and agreement and not by recourse to arms.

But it is no part of the duty of universal authority to limit the sphere of action of the public authority of
individual States, or to arrogate any of their functions to itself. On the contrary, its essential purpose is to
create world conditions in which the public authorities of each nation, its citizens and intermediate groups,
can carry out their tasks, fullfill their duties and claim their rights with greater security.
 Principles

Human equality
Men are equal in natural dignity and no men have the capacity to force internal compliance on
the other.
CONCLUSION
Jenelou Victoria Dadivas
In conclusion, Pope John XXIII argued that disarmament was necessary and that nuclear weapons
should be prohibited. Its aim is to promote the common good and develop Catholic social doctrine,
with a focus on individual and state human rights and obligations, as well as legitimate state-to-
state relations. Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth) is concerned with issues of peace in the nuclear
age which emphasizes the Church's strong desire for peaceful settlement of disputes. If we all
continue to be kind and seek to bring peace to all relationships in our global community, there will
be no more wars and misunderstandings, and the poor will have access to the resources they require
because the weapons budget will be diverted to them. And the human person's rights will be widely
recognized, respected, safeguarded, and promoted in the future. The encyclical insists that the
Creator of the world has printed on the human heart an order which conscience reveals and enjoins
us to obey. Also, let us not forget our responsibilities to carry on the peace as this is our duties to
preserve the life had given to us by God.
REFLECTION
Sheena Marie Jerusalem
 Make love not war is one of the cliché saying yet a powerful one, because who would want to
choose a noisy environment, a trigger being pulled, a bullet being shot, a grenade and missiles
being launched, who would want to pick a soil planted with landmines when you could have a
garden full of dancing flowers.

Pacem in Terris tells us that despite how the world evolve and be modernize we should not use
this to be the reason of someone’s fall, I think that all people would like to live in peaceful
homes, in safe houses and in quiet dwellings, but we have clearly not achieved that
objective. We need the Spirit of God to be poured upon us from above because we have not
been able to achieve peace on our own. Pacem in Terris states that we are all made in the image
and likeness of God and God’s laws are written on our hearts.

Because of this, each human being has inherent dignity and because of our inherent dignity, all
of us have basic human rights such as the right to life and live, food, clothing, shelter, health
care, education, social services, and just wages. And with these rights comes our duties toward
our fellow men and women.
 Each person has the right to life and the means necessary to live their life. In addition, all of
humanity has a natural right to be respected, to worship God, to live their life as they choose, to
work and support a family, to form associations, to emigrate, and to take an active role in
public life. All people also have the duty to preserve their life, to respect the rights of others,
work together for the common good, and maintain an attitude of responsibility. That’s why we
have a public authority and government it is to attain the common good, to protect everyone’s
personal rights and duties.

The condition of people is a major consideration when determining the form of government in
a country. Government must also never disregard the moral law and justice must be
administered impartially.
Although that our country and each one of us has the right to defend and protect ourselves,
offensive war of any kind is not morally justifiable. We can protect ourselves without the
expense of harming others. Even a defensive response to an unjust attack may go far beyond
the limits of legitimate defense if it causes big destruction. So, we have to build trust if we
expect to achieve peace. War is always a defeat for humanity. Always. I think that solid
arguments can be made that most of the wars fought by the United States in the last 50-60
years were unjust and unnecessary.  If we understand that the majority of victims in modern
day warfare are innocent civilians, including children, I don’t know how we can ever justify
war. We can do better than these.
In a world with ever increasing technology it is important to remember that nuclear and
conventional weapons should never be used to explode a whole cities and their population. Let
us always give greater emphasis to human rights in our society and throughout the world, let us
commit in using the vast resources of this country to help people in other nations that are less
fortunate than ourselves. Let us start peace by being peace itself.