Benedict XVI’s message for the 41st World Day of Peace, to be celebrated Jan. 1, 2008.  “The Human Family, a Community of Peace,”

The family needs a home, a fit environment in which to develop its proper relationships. For the human family, this home is the earth, the environment that God the Creator has given us to inhabit with creativity and responsibility. We need to care for the environment: it has been entrusted to men and women to be protected and cultivated with responsible freedom, with the good of all as a constant guiding criterion. Human beings, obviously, are of supreme worth vis-à-vis creation as a whole. Respecting the environment does not mean considering material or animal nature more important than man.

Commentary  By JOHN L. ALLEN JR. National Catholic Reporter

You might also like to take some time out to read and reflect on the Prayer for Peace from John Dear SJ. John Dear is a Jesuit priest, peace activist, and the author of more than 20 books, most recently, Transfiguration (from Doubleday, with a foreword by Archbishop Tutu). Other books include You Will Be My Witnesses, Living Peace, The Questions of Jesus and Mohandas Gandhi. He has served as the director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the largest interfaith peace organization in the U.S., and after 9/11, as a coordinator of chaplains for the Red Cross at the New York Family Assistance Center. From 2002-2004, he served as pastor of four churches in New Mexico. He has traveled the war zones of the world, been arrested some 75 times for peace, and given thousands of lectures on peace across the country. He lives in the high desert of northeastern New Mexico. For information about his books, articles and speaking schedule, see: www.fatherjohndear.org