Ballyroan Parish, Dublin

World Day of Peace 2024

The Most Reverend Dermot Farrell, Archbishop of Dublin, celebrated  Mass on the occasion of the 57th World Day of Peace 2024 in Ballyroan Parish on 1st January 2024.

Fr Michael would like to thank all those who made the Mass for the World Day of Peace on Monday so special and a great success!

Pondering the Brutality and Darkness of War
Perhaps, the first thing that we might put before our eyes is the brutality of war, and the suffering it unleashes on countless men, women and children. As we see on our screens, the raw violence of war causes immense misery for entire populations. While our senses may be numbed by the reports and images, we cannot ignore the reality of the people who are being killed and injured, or those who are suffering because it is not happening in our land.

Seeing the Inter-relation of Conflicts
It is important that we see that everything is connected—be that the many wars raging throughout the world, the pandemic, and the climate crisis. The migration crises and the care of our Common Home are interrelated. The great human movements from the East and from the Southern Hemisphere toward the developed world are intimately related with the climate crisis, and its effect on our lives and wellbeing. It is vital that we recognise the gravity of the situation of this planet—our Common Home. To live well together in our Common Home we need an urgent dialogue. So how do we dialogue well?

Our Neighbour Caricatured and Religion Manipulated
In many of these conflicts, both religious belief and religious history are manipulated to support a particular agenda. The three Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—hold that every person has been created in the image and likeness of God. We agree that the oneness of God is reflected in the unity of the human race (see Gen 1:27 and Qur’an, Sura 2:213). In other words, every person has a shared sacredness that reaches across our national borders.”