ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the relationship between religion and peace in the context of the Roman Catholic Church in the previous century, more specifically, after the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. It traces papal efforts to teach peace even in the midst of war and its support of steps to ensure that Europe would enjoy a peaceful future based on reconciliation and cooperation. It shows how, based on an anthropological conception of culture and of a theology of forgiveness and reconciliation, Pope John Paul II never ceased speaking out against the conflicts and violence that ravaged the end of the last century and the early years of the twenty-first century. Thus the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church devotes an entire section to the issue of peace.
