However, I bet London to a brick that very few Catholics know that the World Day of Peace was established by Pope Paul VI in 1967, being inspired by the encyclical Pacem in Terris of Pope John XXIII and with reference to his own encyclical Populorum Progressio. The day was first celebrated on 1st January 1968.
The Catholic Church, with the intention of service and of example, simply wishes to “launch the idea”, in the hope that it may not only receive the widest consent of the civilised world but that such an idea may find everywhere numerous promoters, able and capable of impressing on the “Day of Peace”, to be celebrated on the first day of every new year, that sincere and strong character of conscious humanity, redeemed from its sad and fatal bellicose conflicts, which will give to the history of the world a more happy, ordered and civilised development.”
Full text of the 1st World Day of Peace address by St Paul VI
MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE
FRANCIS
FOR THE 57th
WORLD DAY OF PEACE
1 JANUARY 2024
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