Do diplomats matter?

Pope Benedict sure expects them to, and today he told them how.

“Your function as diplomats,” the Holy Father told them, “is particularly important in today’s world, in order to show that in all situations of international life, dialogue must overcome violence, and the desire for peace and fraternity must prevail over the contrasts and selfishness that lead only to tensions, and the resentments that do not contribute to building reconciled societies.”

Okay, but what to do about that?

“Through you,” he went on, “I wish to launch a fresh call to everyone who plays a role in public life and to those who participate in governing nations, to do everything in their power to restore hope to the peoples they rule, … bearing in mind their deepest aspirations so that everyone may benefit from the profits of the natural and economic resources of his or her country, in accordance with the principles of justice and equity.”

So…..give people hope. And be just.

And another thing, educate and encourage the youth.

Benedict XVI laid emphasis on the fact that young people “are a country’s greatest wealth” and that their “integral education” is “a fundamental necessity.” In this context, he also recalled that merely technical and academic training is not enough, and that it is important “to promote education based on human and moral values” in order to ensure that young people “may occupy their rightful place in the development of the nation,” having been given an “awareness of the needs of others.”

Reading the points he made to the particular nations, it strikes me that what applies to the developing nations and the Middle East very much applies to the West, and the United States in particular. The trials there are going on here, tests of the human spirit of every sort. They’re on our nightly news in America and Britain and Spain and Italy….

So we need to be diplomats, and respect the dignity and needs of everyone we encounter. No exceptions.

Peace in the world starts with peace in your heart, extended to the next guy you meet, and so on. That’s what this address leaves me thinking, anyway…