During his visit to Iraq, Pope Francis stressed the importance of fraternal love in establishing peace in a land torn not only by recent foreign misadventures but by religious conflicts inherited from the past. The Pope wasn't saying that religious difference don't matter, but rather that they must not become the pretext for emnity between persons, who are all in the hands of God. The Lord is at work in every person for the fulfillment of His wise and loving plan through Jesus Christ. This takes nothing away from the Christian vocation to evangelization, but it excludes all hatred from Christian witness, while also joining with non-Christians in the common recognition that hatred has no legitimate place in any religious life that seeks to do the will of God, or any human life that seeks the good.
We can all acknowledge hatred as the common enemy, which blinds us to the personhood of the other.
