The effort we are rightly making to support Ukraine in defending itself against aggression needs to be matched by efforts towards negotiation, dialogue, reconciliation and peace. You cannot have one without the other. Our challenge is to put in place the infrastructures of reconciliation and the architecture of peacebuilding that enable disagreement to happen robustly, but not violently.<\/p>\n
In a culture that often expects instant results and gratification, this work does not happen overnight. There is no \u201ckiss and make up\u201d moment. More often, there is the gradual transformation \u2013 sometimes over generations \u2013 of enmity and hostility to respect and trust. I clearly remember a leader in Northern Ireland being interviewed on the radio in the early summer of 1998, a few weeks after the signing of the Good Friday agreement. He was asked whether reconciliation had been \u201cachieved\u201d, and responded that the idea that something called reconciliation could be achieved in weeks, after 30 years of the Troubles and several centuries of bitterness, was absurd.<\/p>\n
Deep wounds take a long time to become scars. Each of us carries our own pain, which makes it difficult to apologise and to forgive where we have wronged and been wronged. When we look towards reconciliation, we must also recognise \u2013 and have compassion for \u2013 our own conflicted and hurting hearts. Reconciliation is often risky and always costly \u2013 but it is less costly than the alternative.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Is a world without violent conflict really possible? https:\/\/t.co\/FpsXauojDL<\/a><\/p>\n — John Inge (@BishopWorcester) June 7, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n