Transcript Slide 1

Dominique Pire
Dialogue & Action
for Peace
Formation of a Peacemaker
• Born 1910
• Seminary at Leffe
• Doctorate at
Angelicum & Louvain
• Scout movement
• Nobel Peace Prize
1958
Fraternal Dialogue
• Entering into relationship
• “If I differ from you, I do you no wrong; I expand
you” (Saint-Exupéry)
• Msgr Cardijn “see, judge, act” to which Pire
adds, “unite”
“profoundly peaceful coexistence, the coexistence
of hearts, consists in mutual respect of the values
of that other as other… which finally comes
together in a finished job, completed in a
disinterested way, by people living on the two
opposite sides.”
European Villages
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Encounter with Edward Squadrille 1949
IOR: the ‘useful’ & the ‘hard core’
To gather and strengthen families of DPs
7 villages: Germany, Austria and Belgium
– Aix-la-Chapelle 1956
– Wuppertal 1959 in honour of Anne Frank
– Berchem-Saint Agathe 1962
• Awarded Nobel 1958, his vision expanded
to world-wide dimensions
“What is really shocking, from Linz to Salzburg,
from Villach to Innsbruck, is the nearly complete
absence of unconditional kindness in a Christian
sense. Some only help Protestants, others only
Catholics, and still others will only help
Hungarian Catholics. All this, despite the fact
that misery has overtaken all of these
unfortunate people and has rendered them all
equally worthy of our interest. One suffers in a
real sense, physically so to speak, on account of
this conditional goodness and from the absence
of the real face of Christ. Would He have asked
upon entering the camp, ‘Are you a Catholic?’
The entire Gospel contradicts this.”
University of Peace
• In Tihange, near Huy
• focus on going beyond outbreaks of
injustice and violence by engaging in
deeper reflection
• For young people to receive formation in
dialogue over several weeks
Islands of Peace
• Building the World of the Heart through
these ‘Islands’ of development projects
• Help to self-help
• saw real hunger in East Pakistan 1962 –
founded Gohira Island first
• Madras, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau,
Mali, Ecuador
Refugee Services
• Service d’Entraide Familiale for Huy region
• L’Aide aux Personnes Déplaceés
• L’Acceuil de Refugés Politiques
• Global Sponsorships in refugee camps –
Eastern Europe to Latin America, Africa
Respect for all God’s People
“I have rarely known anyone so profoundly and,
I would even dare say, so religiously respectful of
people and the convictions of others.”
(Professor Van der Elst, a non-believer)
• shy and emotional, dialogue not easy for him
• acted from an acute sense of the heart and the
loving gaze of God:
“I feel at certain moments the urgent need for
solitude, prayer and meditation on the Gospels”
“It is up to us to plant a little
apple tree and not an orchard
of dreams. Love is concrete
and is on a human scale. It is
not possible to love in the
abstract. Love is for beings of
flesh and blood. No matter how
small these villages, they are
inhabited by the real men, real
women and real children that
we have rescued.”