When the bishop responds to the Pope: Ethiopian peace, a word made flesh

Psalms 68:32

³²Let the great ones come from Egypt, let Ethiopia hasten to stretch out her hands to God.

Jonah 3:7–8

⁷And a cry went out in Nineveh, and by decree of the king and his nobles, these words were spoken: «Neither man nor beast, oxen nor sheep, shall taste anything, nor feed, nor drink water, ⁸Let them cover themselves with sackcloth, both men and animals, let them cry out to God with strength, and let each one turn away from his evil ways and from the violent acts that his hands commit.

2 Corinthians 5:18–19

¹⁸All this comes from God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. ¹⁹For God was reconciling the world to itself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them, and putting on our lips the message of reconciliation.

There are echoes that carry more weight than the initial voice. On Wednesday, September 30, from St. Peter's Square, Leo XIV expressed his concern over the renewed hostilities in Tigray, Afar, and Amhara. Two days later, the Catholic bishops of Ethiopia responded from the wounded nation with a pastoral appeal for peace and reconciliation. When a pope speaks from afar, he is heard. When the pastors of a people echo his words in the language of their faithful, the message takes on substance. It transcends the realm of international exhortation and becomes a local commitment, signed by those who will bear the consequences.

This echo is not merely a relay. Fighting resumed on September 23 between the federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front. This breaks the agreement that ended the 2020-2022 war, which is estimated to have claimed at least 600,000 lives. As the Pope has said, armed conflicts never solve problems; they exacerbate them, leaving a trail of death, destruction, and resentment. The bishops of Ethiopia reiterated this assessment and added what Rome could not say on their behalf: the peace of the nation is a responsibility shared by all.

A minority church that speaks for everyone

A voice that does not claim allegiance to any camp

The bishops first address all parties, without naming any. They ask that everyone see the lives of others as their own, and the suffering of others as their own. This restraint is not timidity. In a country with multiple identities, any label can become a weapon. The Catholic Church in Ethiopia is a small community amidst a predominantly Orthodox Christian population, with significant Muslim minorities. Its strength does not lie in its numbers. It lies in its ability to remain in the middle without betraying the truth.

This position recalls a biblical insight that is often overlooked. Psalm 68 sings: «Cush will stretch out its hands to God» (Ps 68:32). Cush is the land that tradition associates with Ethiopia. The psalmist sees this people with open hands, stretched out toward Heaven, while so many hands are closed around weapons. The image speaks volumes about what the bishops are asking for. The hands that God awaits are those that are open.

The same verb for everyone: to open the heart

The appeal calls on everyone to open their hearts to forgiveness and reconciliation, and to renew the spirit of brotherhood. The wording is precise. It doesn't primarily ask people to lay down their arms, but rather to open their hearts. The order is that of the Gospel: the violence that erupts is the epilogue of an inner closure, and peace begins with conversion. The pastors are not naive. They know that a ceasefire without an open heart is merely a truce, that is to say, a time for rearming.

Augustine of Hippo had already defined peace as the "tranquility of order." He meant that it is not simply the silence of arms. It presupposes that each person, each people, is in their rightful place before God and before others. The Ethiopian bishops take up this idea in their own way, with the quartet that punctuates their text: a peace rooted in truth, justice, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Remove one of the four, and the whole structure collapses.

The most vulnerable in the front row

The bishops deplore that the armed conflict is striking the most vulnerable first: children, the sick, and displaced families. This is a constant in social doctrine, but here it is anything but abstract. The Eparch of Adigrat, Bishop Tesfaselassie Medhin, reported that he was completely isolated, with communications cut off and no contact with anyone. He urgently requested humanitarian access and dialogue in all its forms. He added that the Church remains in its place, alongside the people, through a presence that is the mission of incarnation.

This testimony sheds light on the bishops' appeal. Speaking of peace from Addis Ababa also means speaking for those whose voices have been silenced. When telephone lines go down, the bishops' voice becomes one of the last to break the silence. It is not a mere press release, but a service: lending a voice to those who no longer have one.

Reconciliation, a promise entrusted to someone

He placed within us the word of reconciliation

Saint Paul writes to the Corinthians: God «reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation» (2 Cor 5:18-19). The text does not say that God is entrusting us with a project or a strategy; he is entrusting us with a word. Reconciliation, therefore, is not primarily an agreement between warring parties, drafted by diplomats. It is a word received, which we carry, and for which we are accountable.

This is where the episcopal message takes on its full meaning. The Pope has spoken to the international community. The bishops, for their part, speak to their faithful and to all people of goodwill, with a simple request: to pray and fast. They are assuming what Paul calls ministry. A ministry is not an opinion. It is a responsibility that commits the life of the one who receives it.

A reconciliation that costs

It would be too easy to make this word a synonym for lukewarm compromise. In Scripture, reconciliation always costs someone something. For Paul, it costs the cross. For the Ethiopians, it means renouncing a logic of revenge fueled by years of mourning. Those who lost a son in the previous war do not hear the word "forgiveness" as a given. They hear it as an almost unbearable demand.

The bishops are well aware of this. That is why they link forgiveness to truth and justice, not to forgetting. John XXIII, in Pacem in terris, laid down these pillars for order among nations: truth, justice, charity, and freedom. Ethiopian reconciliation cannot circumvent any of them. A peace that silences the victims would already be a defeat, and justice without charity would lead to the next cycle of vengeance.

Forgiveness, this political act

Forgiveness is sometimes thought to belong to the private sphere. The Church's teaching says the opposite. Paul VI wrote that development is the new name for peace. One could add that forgiveness is its first preparatory work. In a fractured society, every act of forgiveness loosens the grip of collective resentment. A neighbor who renounces revenge disarms a family, then a village.

Imagine, for example, two parishes in neighboring regions. One has lost sons in the fighting, the other shelters displaced families. A priest who organizes a shared meal, a vigil, a prayer for the dead on both sides, hasn't changed the front lines. Yet he has done what treaties cannot: he has made it possible for them to look at each other. It is in these small openings that the word of reconciliation begins to take root.

Fasting and prayer: the weapon of the humble

Nineveh, the city that stopped fighting

The call asks all the faithful to persevere in prayer and fasting. This is not a mere circumstantial ritual. The Book of Jonah offers the most striking image of this practice. The king of Nineveh commands that neither people nor animals should taste anything, and that everyone should turn from their evil ways and from the violence in their hands (Jonah 3:7-8). Note the precision: violence is not an idea; it is in the hands. The Ninevite fast is inseparable from a concrete action. Hands release what they held.

The text adds that God saw their deeds and renounced the evil he had foretold. The message is simple and demanding. True fasting is not a deprivation that puts us in order with Heaven. It is a visible transformation, beginning in the stomach and extending to the hands. The bishops of Ethiopia ask for nothing more: that fervor translate into a cessation of violence.

Pray with the Pope, pray with the country

Pope Leo XIV reiterated, on the same day, his invitation to pray the Rosary during this month of October. This juxtaposition is not accidental. The Rosary is the prayer of those who cannot control events: one recites the same supplication, bead by bead, without presuming to change their course by one's own strength alone. It is, in its own way, a fasting from words. It tells God that one does not know, and that one surrenders to God's will.

By joining their appeal with that of Rome, the Ethiopian bishops are grounding prayer in a broader communion. A faithful person in Mekele, Adigrat, or Addis Ababa who recites the decades of prayer is not praying alone. They are praying with thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter's Square, and with Catholics from every continent. The communion of saints ceases to be a mere formula: it becomes a network of vigilance, woven where telephone networks are down.

A bishop's gesture in Uganda

On the very day this news spread, another African pastor received episcopal office. Bishop Bonaventure Bosco Gubazire, a missionary in Africa, was ordained Bishop of Kabale, Uganda, before thousands of expected faithful. He became the fifth bishop of this diocese, founded in 1966. During his appointment, he quoted a proverb: "One finger cannot pick up a grain," calling for everyone's cooperation. He also spoke of a diocese inspired by justice, peace, reconciliation, and hospitality.

This rapprochement is not merely decorative. It serves as a reminder that the episcopate is a ministry of communion, and that the pastors of Africa bear the same burden together. Bishop Gubazire's proverb expresses in a single sentence what the Ethiopian call demands in several pages: no one gathers the seed of peace alone. It requires many fingers, therefore many open hands, and these hands, according to the psalm, are those that God awaits from Kush.

What we can do starting today

Pray with precision. A prayer for Ethiopia should not remain general. Pray for the families who can no longer reach their loved ones, for the priests and nuns who remain there, for the children deprived of school and healthcare. Pray also for those who bear arms, for their hearts are the first battlefield. Choose a decade of your rosary this week for a specific region—Tigray, Afar, or Amhara—and name it aloud.

Fasting and giving. The fast of Nineveh involved turning over one's hands. Yours can also take the form of giving. What you set aside from your table one day of the week, offer to a cause that supports suffering communities. The Church has long understood that fasting without almsgiving is incomplete. However, be mindful of the reliability of your channels: local church organizations remain among the few trustworthy partners.

To give voice. Reconciliation is not reserved for Ethiopians. Each of us experiences a rift, in our family, our parish, our workplace. The ministry Paul speaks of concerns us all. This commitment begins with a call made, a hand extended, a word of forgiveness spoken in time. And if, one day soon, the guns fall silent in Tigray, it will also be because hands far and wide, throughout the world, will have opened together.

Lectio divina

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