The ceasefire that ended the ‘twelve-day war’ between Israel and Iran ‘has not dispelled the spectre of renewed hostilities’, so much so that ‘the belligerents are preparing for the worst’ and the question seems to be ‘not if, but when’. This is what Cardinal Dominique Joseph Mathieu, Archbishop of Tehran-Isfahan of the Latins, writes in a reflection sent to AsiaNews on the theme of peace in view of World Day on 1 January, from a region ravaged by ‘tensions and conflicts’ that could soon erupt again.
‘Peace should not be reduced to a simple opposition to war, just as disarmament is not reduced to the antithesis of armament,’ observes the cardinal, while winds of (a new) war with the Jewish state are blowing in the Islamic Republic. And even within the country, there is no shortage of repression and imprisonment, as shown by the recent sentence of over 50 years for five Christians “guilty” of practising their faith, or the escalation of executions, the number of which in 2025 more than doubled compared to the previous year. More than 1,900 death sentences have been carried out, according to data from the Iranian-Norwegian NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), well above the 975 in 2024.
Nevertheless, it remains an ideal and a goal, even more so, the cardinal observes, when one thinks of the ‘equivalents in Hebrew, shalom, and Arabic/Persian, salam. They indicate fullness, integrity, well-being, prosperity, health, security and harmony – not only the absence of war, but the presence of a fully realised life’. In this context, the warning at the end of the reflection becomes even more urgent: that peace may be real “in our hearts, in our communities and in our world”.
