Theme announced for 2016 World Day of Peace
August 11, 2015
“Overcome indifference and win peace” is the theme of the 49th World Day of Peace, which will be celebrated on January 1.
“Indifference in regard to the scourges of our time is one of the fundamental causes of the lack of peace,” the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace said in an August 11 statement announcing the theme. “Today, indifference is often linked to various forms of individualism which cause isolation, ignorance, selfishness and, therefore, lack of interest and commitment.”
“Peace is to be worked at: it is not something that one gains without efforts, without conversion of mind and heart, without a sense of creativity and positive engagement in discussion,” the Pontifical Council added, as it noted “the serious problems and challenges afflicting our time, such as fundamentalism, intolerance and massacres, persecutions on account of faith and ethnicity, disregard for freedom and the destruction of the rights of entire peoples, the exploitation of human beings submitted even to the different forms of slavery, corruption and organized crime, war and the plight of refugees and forcibly displaced persons.”
The 2016 World Day of Peace will be the third of Pope Francis’s pontificate, and the papal message for the day is traditionally released in early December. The theme in 2014 was “Fraternity, the Foundation and Pathway to Peace”; the 2015 theme was “No Longer Slaves, But Brothers and Sisters.”
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Further information:
- Tema della 49.ma Giornata Mondiale della Pace (1° gennaio 2016), 11.08.2015 (Holy See Press Office)
- Background: papal message for January 1, the World Day of Peace (CWN, 12/31)
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