A Fresh Understanding of the Idea of ‘Christendom’

(When I was in formation to become a Knight of Our Lady, in 2006, and asked if 'Christendom' still existed, I was directed by the Magisterium of the Order to this text:)

PACEM IN TERRIS: A PERMANENT COMMITMENT

MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II

FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE WORLD DAY OF PEACE (1 JANUARY 2003), http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_20021217_xxxvi-world-day-for-peace_en.html

 [Excerpts from the Text; The underligning and bold text is not the Pope's; it is our own]

“A new international moral order…

The fact that States throughout the world feel obliged to honour the idea of human rights shows how powerful are the tools of moral conviction and spiritual integrity, which proved so decisive in the revolution of conscience that made possible the 1989 non-violent revolution that displaced European communism. And although distorted notions of freedom as licence continue to threaten democracy and free societies, it is surely significant that, in the forty years since Pacem in Terris, much of the world has become more free, structures of dialogue and cooperation between nations have been strengthened, and the threat of a global nuclear war, which weighed so heavily on Pope John XXIII, has been effectively contained.

Boldly, but with all humility, I would like to suggest that the Church's fifteen-hundred-year-old teaching on peace as “tranquillitas ordinis – the tranquillity of order” as Saint Augustine called it (De Civitate Dei, 19, 13), which was brought to a new level of development forty years ago by Pacem in Terris, has a deep relevance for the world today, for the leaders of nations as well as for individuals. That there is serious disorder in world affairs is obvious. Thus the question to be faced remains: What kind of order can replace this disorder, so that men and women can live in freedom, justice, and security? And since the world, amid its disorder, continues nevertheless to be “ordered” and organized in various ways – economic, cultural, even political – there arises another equally urgent question: On what principles are these new forms of world order unfolding?

These far-reaching questions suggest that the problem of order in world affairs, which is the problem of peace rightly understood, cannot be separated from issues of moral principle. This is another way of saying that the question of peace cannot be separated from the question of human dignity and human rights. That is one of the enduring truths taught by Pacem in Terris, which we would do well to remember and reflect upon on this fortieth anniversary.

Is this not the time for all to work together for a new constitutional organization of the human family, truly capable of ensuring peace and harmony between peoples, as well as their integral development? But let there be no misunderstanding. This does not mean writing the constitution of a global super-State. Rather, it means continuing and deepening processes already in place to meet the almost universal demand for participatory ways of exercising political authority, even international political authority, and for transparency and accountability at every level of public life. With his confidence in the goodness he believed could be found in every human person, Pope John XXIII called the entire world to a nobler vision of public life and public authority, even as he boldly challenged the world to think beyond its present state of disorder to new forms of international order commensurate with human dignity.”