Maróti Gábor

The Normative Connections of Friendship and Peace in Canonical Progression
I. The Canonical Concept of Law’s Cooperative Model Interpretation and the Relational Normativity of Value-Mediating Truth-Seeking

1.

The harmony of truth and mercy is oriented toward a balanced and value-centered approach in such equilibrium that a moral or legal decision emerging in a conflict situation deprives neither mercy nor truth of their fundamental criteria. (Merlin Rengith Ambrose) The psychological narratives of interpretations of friendship do not avoid the objective modifications of equality and balance, since the position of the parties involved in the relationship (friends) is not general or context-neutral, but convergent; that is, it is based on a harmony characterized by actions and reactions, directions, and interests.¹ Within this harmony, objectivity also remains indispensable, and canon law, configured within the system of relations, does not seek to eliminate it even on the plane of confrontation; for the modernized system of penal execution, in restructuring sanction logic and expanding discretionary authority, is not aimed at concealing the objective occurrence of the offense and its consequences in order to grant absolution, but rather at enabling a value-oriented cooperation in which, alongside the restoration of damage, the correction (healing) of the offender and the cessation of scandal may also take place: all this is partly restoration and partly “metamorphosis.” This openness does not invalidate facts and their consequences, does not result in uncertainty or weakness, and does not violate the external and general character of the legal order, since the law of the Church is not the automatism of legal texts but a framework supporting the forum of value-seeking and development characteristic of the holy people.

The cooperative model appearing as a determining factor in the relational evaluation of friendship² may be identified in canon law within the understanding of norm observance grounded in theological and pastoral embeddedness, insofar as the Christian believer’s relationship to rules is primarily value-laden and obedient; thus, the interpretation of canon law based on the theological shift in perspective and communal model of the Second Vatican Council in no way reflects, in connection with the interpretation of obligation, a reductive legal conception producing mechanical norm-following in response to commands or other forms of duty. Rather, rejecting such a one-sided approach, it places the sanctification of the community at the forefront. This cooperative model does not exclude the practical value of normativity, yet the relational application strategy of the canonical concept of law replaces the legal-positivist automatism of mechanical norm-following with the methodology of relational normativity as the method of value-mediating truth-seeking.³ The discretionary authority gaining ground in the execution of sanction discipline does not relate the reality of the value of truth to the offender in order subsequently to diminish the perpetrator’s responsibility arising in connection with the act, but rather in order to prevent normativity from becoming absolutized within one-dimensional interpretive strategies focused exclusively on textual culture, and instead to preserve the relative connection between the canonical legal order and the founding event. The supernatural character of normativity may be identified with the concreteness of legal application insofar as execution stands in united relation with the ecclesiological structure fulfilled in the founding cause of the community. This perspective excludes one-directional legal-positivist solution methods and draws attention to an “intellectual honesty without doctrinal uniformity” that is most characteristic of friendship among human relationships.⁴

2.

Truth is partly knowledge (epistēmē), since information directed toward the particular object of a thing is not merely data but a more complex relation, because truth itself is not only a terminological construct but also an interconnected system. (Scheler) The canonical concept of truth avoids interpretations of norms reduced to rule automatism, since this method treats truth less as fact and more as purpose. The criteria of Christian epistemology relating to love also contain the value conception that commitment to truth (the love of truth) does not regard solely the perceptible data series of truth content as a criterion of value, but also the harmonious relation between the reality content of the fact and the quality of the act directed toward it.⁵ As an epistemological foundation, within the platform of the love of truth, consideration, context, and moral reflection constitute elements of the interpretive method of the phenomenology of truth. These concepts do not empty the factual content of the image of truth, thus they do not question the legitimacy of the demand for objectivity, nor do they lead to inaccuracy or create disproportionate accessibility to the balanced quality of truth; however, in contrast to mechanical norm-following, these methodological elements may help ensure that legal application does not become detached either from the human person or from substantive justification, since these two factors (truth content and the human being) cannot become opposed to or mutually exclusive of one another. In this regard, it may be noted as substantive justification that the founding cause of the ecclesial community did not designate the realization of absolute value abstractions as its goal, but rather the qualified destiny of the human person, which canon law applies in all its layers as a foundational interpretive principle through the supreme norm principle. This normative-epistemological feedback loop (truth knowable as fact or information, data or value quality) enables canon law, in the process of norm application, to ask whether the legal subject, in enforcing the rule, is merely an executing supporting actor or a person cooperating with the value reality of the legal order. Applying interpretive analogies justifying the cooperative system of principles of friendship,⁶ the interpretation of the legal subject’s status in canon law stands closer to the solution-seeking cooperation of friendship than to the substantive self-justification of norm observance reduced to rule automatism.

In conceptual-technical terms, consideration precedes decision in every logical construction, and responsibility constitutes the primary autonomous principle characteristic of decision. The conception and content of truth cannot be identified with the epistemological claim to completeness in relation to legal entitlement, since while the content of the act may be fully reduced to the object of the act, legal content cannot be exhausted by the act itself, because the legal relation is evaluated not only according to the content of the act but also according to the legal text; thus, as an element constituting responsibility within the principle of consideration, one may regard not only the object of truth content but also legal content (the legal text and its critically ordered interpretive possibilities). In this respect, canonical penal logic provides room, instead of indeterminate punishments, for relations of consideration between determined sanction content and mandatory or optional penalties. Responsibility, in this regard, does not consist in the automatic emptying of epistemic reflections leading to decision, since the context of the act is generally not directed exclusively toward the crime as an end (the thief does not primarily commit theft with the intention of performing the act of theft itself, but rather for the sake of acquiring the object sought); rather, the sequence of acts occurs within a system of means and ends which ultimately becomes the content of the decision when brought onto the plane of legal interpretation. This interpretive reflection manifests itself not only in the logical structuring of the conceptual system of the linguistic field, but also concerns the philosophical problem of mechanical legal obedience (Hart), since the subjects coming into conflict with the legal order are not concepts but persons; thus, within the structure of responsibility, either we conceal the interpersonal character of decision-making (and canon law), or, by applying it as an interpretive method, we exclude the objectivity that suggests a neutral image of law.

3.

The incorporation of the concept of the person into normative culture does not distort the meanings of the dimension of truth, since the objectivity of the notion of responsibility must be interpreted together with the functions constituting the content of the concept of validity, which define, in a general and descriptive manner, those circumstances and relations that, in their interconnection, bring about the interpreted legal effect. The applicability of norms is not independent of these often personal relations. As an extreme example (though also as a method of interpretation), one may mention from Roman law — which stands in an unquestionable developmental relationship with canon law — the concept of iustus dolor (Centola). In connection with the interpretive scope of the Lex Cornelia, in cases of adultery the husband suffers such a “just pain” that it morally modulates the discipline of sanctions. While the protection of life prevails as a primary value criterion within the legal order, the act of adultery renders the deceived husband “entitled” to something in such a way that the unlawfulness of the violation committed by him nevertheless remains. This case is indeed extreme and understandably stretches the theoretical concepts of norm application within the perspective of contemporary legal thought; nevertheless, it is suitable for illustrating the interpretive horizon of the relation between the concept of the person and the concept of validity from the standpoint of legal theory.⁷ The pain of the Roman husband is not merely affective in the everyday sense of the word, since the moral injury suffered by him was irreparable within that given age (context). In this interpretation, the Roman-law concept of dolor is directed not only toward physical pain, but also incorporates spiritual torment and, characteristically from the Principate onward, the notion of moral suffering within the framework of justice (this is also immanently reflected in the normative decisions of the imperial period). In Roman legal procedural evaluation, the otherwise lawful death penalty applicable to the husband could in certain cases, considering the gravity of the act (adultery), be mitigated in stages to another punishment or even to complete impunity. This personal dimension of justice is alien to our contemporary conception of law, yet it may offer theoretical possibilities, with regard to the responsibility of decision-making, for a multidirectional approach to the organic concept of normativity built upon the notion of friendship as “intellectual honesty.”⁸

Within the sources of canon law and scholarly problem formulations, no explicit interpretation of friendship or conceptual network may be found; however, canonical legal interpretation itself and the foundational methodology emerging from it (relational normativity) presuppose interpersonal relations that, as reflexive analogies, qualify actions directed toward normative concepts or connected with them. The ecclesiological categories inspiring the self-understanding of canon law (the Church as community and society) make possible contextual and interactive questions concerning normative meaning. As a starting point, it may be established as truth that the system of legal entitlements operative within the Church does not detach the circumstances and persons leading to decision-making from the normative texts; thus, norm application is neither parallel to nor untouched by the persons and human beings drawn into interpretation. In the perspective of relational normativity, law is always practice and not merely a collection of rules; consequently, contextually qualifiable interactions occur between the actions of persons (or legal persons and institutions) and the legal order, which the legal order interprets through juridical acts.

4.

The parallels between the concept of friendship and relations of legal entitlement within historical phraseologies: within the theoretical phraseological relations connected to friendship, the category of interest is unavoidable.⁹ As a problem formulation in legal theory, the reality of situations of interest must be brought into relation with legal entitlement structures, since this principled orderliness establishes freedom from conflict. Within the layers of intellectual history connected with thematic analogies, the parallels between the concept of friendship and systems of interests continuously follow the sociological reflections on friendship.¹⁰ In the focus of ancient systems of interest, as the correct choice between uncertainty and stability, the reciprocal content of the interpretation of friendship extended to institutionalizing communal practices, since according to the Aristotelian principle of the “antechamber of justice,” social order, the state, and human cooperation are determined by that reciprocity¹¹ which may also be recognized in the “institutional” character of friendship.¹² This attitude may in fact also be interpreted as a normative technique, since it is directed toward achieving a determined goal connected with the common good and employs an interactive instrument (the dynamics of human relationships) which is external in character and general by virtue of human nature. This friendly relation interpreted as a normative relation does not constitute a legal alternative, nor can it replace or substitute the technique of the legal order;¹³ yet in a certain sense it precedes the regulatory or interventionist function of law, since where the reciprocal content arising from friendship reaches its limits, there begins the role of positive law. The harmonious order of relations of interest grounded in reciprocity beyond law and preceding juridical formations may, in comparison with law, become a more stable framework for orderly conduct among persons. Tracing this interpretation back to the concept of eudaimonia, it becomes understandable in what sense the Nicomachean Ethics seeks the criteria for deserving friendship within the context of happiness: the “mutual goodwill of the virtuous” transcends lower-quality concepts (pleasure, utility, interest)¹⁴ and, in its differentiated character, is directed toward the search for proper — normative — social conduct.¹⁵

The phraseology of the normative-technical relation sustaining the order of the community also condenses into the medieval concept of friendship the image of status-bound loyalty, since the human relation producing legitimacy and stability, in the periods following antiquity, was likewise connected to normative functions through the social role operating within estate-based bonds as a mode functioning prior to or beyond law.¹⁶ As the social realization of the operation of norms, the concept determining the value-quality of medieval friendship is fidelity. As a parallel of legal entitlement relations characteristic of the period, the orderedness of interests is expressed through commitment sustaining stability, which manifested itself in the feudal relation functioning more strongly than later theories of contractual obligations (though with negligible technical normativity). This type of relation, psychologically and affectively by no means egalitarian,¹⁷ reflects the hierarchy through which the moral order of the period was fixed within the narrative of the God-human relationship — not as rivalry, but as the fruitfulness of love.¹⁸ In normative-technical interpretation, this does not belong among ritualized relations, since it is not ordered according to entitlements deriving from roles exercised under appropriate circumstances, but rather exists as a moral condition within value-oriented relationships. As a legal-theoretical parallel, this quality of friendship presents the image of unconditional and self-giving obedience arising at the meeting point of norm and person,¹⁹ insofar as within the value system of Christian morality the relation between the self-determining legal subject and the legal order is always norm-oriented and cooperative.

In the Renaissance era of normative ideality, the individuality of legal interpretation, thanks to the society-shaping ideology of humanism, was directed in part toward the idea that the operative principle of the rule governs the law aimed at the common good on the basis of power, yet the direct relation between law and person remains decisive in the realization of law.²⁰ Within this theoretical framework, the realization of norms appears not as a criterion but as a resource; thus, law remains value-exclusive and absolute only insofar as, within the relations of the concrete person, the interest relation of law mediates protection, advancement, or utility. The social acceptance of the normative ideal, within the phraseology and conceptual parallels of friendship, signifies such equality and social acceptance²¹ in which the operation of the idealized normative order becomes inseparable from actual relational structures. This perspective connects normative effectiveness not with social interests but with individual interests; it is not characterized by medieval obedience: the meeting point of the quality of friendship and normativity becomes individually coded. Within the patron-client relations of humanist epistolary culture, friendship simultaneously signified belonging to circles of interest concentrated within, and excluded from, the world of city republics; thus, this quality of relation restricted the implementation of legal realization to processes occurring within specific circles of interest. This process and relational system (exclusive networks of connections) became the “soft infrastructure” of socially integrated yet unequal normative situations.²²

The modern concept of friendship advancing toward modern society, together with the theories of normative evaluation connected to it, may be linked to salon studies, which as a historical phraseology examine within what kind of sociability-based institutional framework the communal actions building cultural and political capital through relational forms took place within the communal spaces functioning as the network-building medium of social processes (e.g., salons). In this era, the interpretation of friendship was not primarily the internal affair of two persons, but rather a ritual medium generated by the effects among the collective relations of interest within the community, determining the equilibrium logic of politics and economics. Since the choice here concerns not only persons but also circles of interest, the interpretation of friendship within this system is also an interest relation connected to access to resources and personal autonomy.²³ The search for connections with juridical structures may place this relational perspective in opposition to the content of interest relations operating in canon law as an organic code expressly foreign to interpretation, since the sociability of networks of interest within the ecclesiastical legal order is not “acquisition-focused” but directed toward what may be transmitted and accepted (for example, in the pattern of commitment within the marital covenant of life). Here too there exists a logic of balance: the purpose and content of “friendship” between the parties are directed not toward the communal construction of attainable means and obtainable goods, but toward maintaining committed service oriented to the goods²⁴ (bonum coniugum) of the societas (e.g., the marital covenant of life) constructed from the causal principle of the absolute of being.²⁵

5.

Compared with earlier periods, present-day modern conceptions of friendship are under-institutionalized in the sense that they are not characterized by traditional formulas and ritually fixed frameworks,²⁶ yet the narratives of support, acceptance, and interest-assertion have not been emptied out in connection with the transformations of relations among persons. At the center of the debate concerning value-realities that transcend the normative project of modern moral philosophies (loyalty, truth-telling, critique) as a social relation stands “one’s own normativity”: although this cannot be inserted into a purely deontological framework, neither can it be fully exhausted in the behavioral cultures of interest-communities dissolved into utilitarianism.²⁷ The modern value-concept modifying the idea of loyalty is “entanglement,” which refers to the extent to which, within a relationship, persons may become part of the other’s hierarchy of values in a way that may endanger the quality of objectivity in decision-making when decision criteria are applied.²⁸ This entanglement is not intentional influence or the exercise of pressure, but conduct built upon mutually recognized expectations of collective interest, which may render the moral perspective one-sided or distort it. As a legal-theoretical phraseology, this relational quality may appear when, in the decision-making process, the judge is influenced by questions of identity or selected social interests. Such a decision may be substantively and professionally impeccable, since the quality of impartiality is guaranteed where the rules of the legal order are correctly applied and legal principles are respected; nevertheless, in a moral sense it may raise unnecessary questions that may lead to misunderstandings, and this may become a risk affecting legal certainty, since the juridic subjects affected by the regulation may raise the question of impaired objectivity. As a corresponding canonical legal guarantee, one may mention the rule that excludes the judge from judging the same case at the next instance (cf. CIC can. 1447), indeed the Code extends this prohibition to all persons under pain of nullity. In a similar interpretive framework, though not under pain of nullity, the law also obliges the judge to abstain from the case in situations involving kinship or other “close” relationships (cf. CIC can. 1448), which may operate either in a favorable or in an adverse direction.²⁹

The operation of law regulates relations that come into contact with persons at least indirectly. This operation is, by its nature, general and external; thus, although it does not exclude the existence of individual differences and the possibility of entitlement arising from such individuality, the order of acts operating the law itself takes effect in its general extension. A person’s compliance with law is influenced by several elements. Primarily, the content of the source of law guides the act, which in certain situations becomes a juridic act, but in its functionality it is most often directed toward natural and interest-driven aims;³⁰ not in the value of reality-quality, but secondarily, acts are guided by act-analogies insofar as moral sense and adaptation to observed patterns of action also influence processes arising from experiences of legal compliance. In everyday life, this form of conduct may be called a normative pattern, which as a value-forming principle fixes expected and avoidable solutions. In the search for parallels within the phraseology of friendship, the figure of legal compliance may be understood, by inversion, as not general but specifically individual in the content of friendship and in the normative element contained within it;³¹ nevertheless, the concrete operational forms of this content are still general (participation in a shared worldview, culture, values and tradition; formations of trust and reciprocity; openness). One of the determining philosophical elements of the canonical concept of law is intersubjectivity, which indicates, on the one hand, that the method of realization of entitlement structures built upon general, external, imperative, and usually future-oriented propositions is not a person-alien abstraction, but an operational image to be interpreted as part of the principle that dynamizes the relation between the human person and the supernatural order of being. This legal-philosophical conception accompanying relational principles between persons is capable of bringing every canonical law into the context of friendship, since the supreme salvific rule (salus animarum), functioning as a general interpretive principle, constitutes the framework norm that is both the starting point and the intended fulfillment of the pattern of legal compliance. The operation of law is constituted not only by statutory texts enforcing the content of rules and by the acts arising within them, but is also influenced by experiences built upon limit phenomena. A recurring interpretive formula of canon law is the proposition that “a law can be given,” which points to the character of a community capable of being formally normativized; however, the capacity to produce effects may also become an analytic pattern of justification within its semantic range, since the normative system is made operative not by consisting of logically closed chains of propositions, but by the quality with which the statutory text enforces the intention of the lawmaker — in canonical terminology, the legislator — within relations of entitlement. The critical indicator of operational limits within intersubjective relations is not only knowledge but also experience based on perceptions (the methods by which preferences among conversation topics corresponding to a friend’s artistic orientations are realized,³² the thematic repertoire of openness to mutually edifying value-contents of shared activities³³); thus, if the canonical concept of law is understood as intersubjective, it may be presumed that, within the process of indication among the methods of justification directed toward operative efficacy, the examination of the operational patterns and limits of the legal order is present.³⁴ The fact of an operational limit used as a critical indicator in interpreting the quality of effect may contain, within the text-forming process of the normative system, a meaning capable of producing modification only up to the threshold of divine law; if the theoretical examination of a limit phenomenon leads to a conclusion — or even to an objective fact — whose content or effect would be contrary to this boundary point, then even in the case of presumed dysfunctionality, the promulgation of a text with such content could not take place.³⁵

II. The Normative Concept of Peace in the Catholic Tradition: From the Theological Idea of Order to the Social and Diplomatic Mission of the Church

The examination of the concept of peace from philosophical, theological, and canonical perspectives engages contemporary horizons of inquiry,³⁶ particularly with regard to the development between the 1917 and 1983 editions of the Codex Iuris Canonici. In classical philosophy, peace primarily signifies the condition of communal order and justice,³⁷ while in modern political thought it appears as a condition of international law and institutional cooperation. Building upon Saint Augustine’s concept of tranquillitas ordinis, Christian theology regards peace as the tranquility of an order founded upon justice.³⁸ This perspective is also reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council’s constitution Gaudium et spes, according to which peace is not merely the absence of war, but the fruit of justice. In the 1917 CIC, the concept of peace appears only sporadically, mainly within the context of the internal order of the ecclesial community and pastoral life (e.g., can. 343 §1), and it is presented neither as the opposite of war nor as an explicit task of papal diplomacy. By contrast, the 1983 CIC speaks of peace within a broader social dimension: clerics are obliged to promote peace founded on justice among persons (can. 287 §1), while papal legates receive the mandate to foster matters connected with peace, development, and cooperation among peoples (can. 364, 5°; can. 365). This canonical development is connected with the evolution of Catholic social teaching.³⁹ Modern papal documents — especially Pacem in Terris, Sollicitudo rei socialis, Centesimus annus, and the World Day of Peace messages of John Paul II — interpret peace in relation to human dignity, justice, solidarity, and reconciliation. The examination thus demonstrates that the canonical language of peace gradually developed from the notion of the internal order of the ecclesial community toward the broader dimension of social and diplomatic mission.⁴⁰

1. The Philosophical Concept of Peace: Order, Justice, and Juridical Institutionalization

The concept of peace appeared already in classical political thought within the Western philosophical tradition as a complex normative category. In ancient philosophy, peace did not merely signify the absence of war, but the condition of social and moral order. According to scholarship summarizing the reception of Platonic political philosophy, Plato describes justice as the proper order of the soul and the political community; in this sense, peace is the consequence of harmonious social order.⁴¹ Modern political philosophy relocated this concept into a new context. Within the Kantian tradition, peace is not simply a moral or political virtue, but an institutional-juridical construction: republican government, public law, and normative cooperation among states guarantee the conditions of “perpetual peace.” Thus, within modern political thought, peace increasingly became connected with the system of international law and political institutions.⁴² This dual inheritance — peace as the state of order and justice, and peace as a juridically institutionalized political relation — continues within Christian theology and Catholic social teaching.⁴³

2. The Theological Meaning of Peace: The Augustinian Tradition and Conciliar Teaching

One of the classical theological definitions of peace in Christian theology is associated with Saint Augustine. In the Catholic tradition, peace frequently appears in the Augustinian formula tranquillitas ordinis, that is, “the tranquility of order.” This definition relates peace to divine order and the order of justice. The Second Vatican Council’s constitution Gaudium et spes reformulated this tradition within a new historical and social context. The document states that peace is not merely the absence of war, cannot be reduced to a balance of power, and is not the product of dictatorship; rather, it is the fruit of justice realized within the order of the human community (GS 78). The conciliar text thereby interprets peace simultaneously as a theological, moral, and social category. One of the key documents of twentieth-century Catholic social teaching, the encyclical Pacem in Terris, further deepens this perspective. The document discusses peace in relation to the rights and duties deriving from the dignity of the human person and the moral order of political communities.

3. The Concept of Peace in Canon Law

In the text of the Codex Iuris Canonici promulgated in 1917, the concept of pax appears relatively infrequently and primarily within an internal ecclesiastical context. One certain example in the official Latin text is can. 343 §1, which among the purposes of episcopal visitation mentions the following formula: “…pacem, innocentiam, pietatem et disciplinam in populo et clero promovendam.” In this context, peace appears among the goals of pastoral governance and ecclesiastical discipline. The canon interprets peace as one component of the moral and disciplinary order of the ecclesial community. The provisions of the Code (1917 CIC) concerning papal legates (cc. 265–270) establish the framework of the Roman Pontiff’s diplomatic representation. Canon 265 affirms the pope’s right to send legates, while can. 267 §1 lists among the duties of nuncios and internuncios the maintenance of relations between the Holy See and the respective state, as well as the observation of ecclesiastical conditions and the reporting thereof to the pope. The 1917 CIC, however, does not explicitly identify the promotion of peace as a task of papal envoys within these provisions. According to a search of the Latin text, the expression bellum likewise does not appear in the codified canonical text, nor is the concept of peace thematized as the opposite of war. It follows that the concept of peace in the 1917 CIC is to be interpreted primarily within the context of the internal order of the ecclesial community.

As a result of the canonical reform following the Second Vatican Council, the 1983 edition of the Codex Iuris Canonici employs the concept of peace within a broader social perspective.⁴⁴ Canon 287 §1 states: “Clerici pacem et concordiam iustitia innixam inter homines servandam quam maxime semper foveant.” (“Clerics are always to foster as much as possible peace and concord founded on justice among persons.”) This formulation already interprets peace explicitly within a social dimension. The regulation concerning papal legates also receives a new emphasis. According to can. 364, 5°, the papal legate’s task includes promoting matters connected with peace, development, and cooperation among peoples, while canon 365 defines the functions exercised by papal representatives before states, particularly concerning relations between the Church and the state. It remains important, however, that the current Code of Canon Law likewise does not explicitly thematize peace as the opposite concept of war. The expression bellum does not appear within the normative structure of the Code.

4. Peace in Modern Papal Teaching

In the second half of the twentieth century, the concept of peace became one of the central categories of Catholic social teaching. The encyclical Pacem in Terris discusses peace within the context of human rights, the common good, and the moral order of political communities. The teaching of Pope John Paul II further deepened this perspective. The encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis interprets peace in relation to development and solidarity. Centesimus annus, in the post-Cold War period, discusses the conditions of peace within the order of human dignity, freedom, and political responsibility. The pope’s World Day of Peace messages articulate this teaching with particular clarity.⁴⁵ According to the 1991 message, respect for human conscience and religious freedom constitutes a fundamental condition of peace. The 2002 World Day of Peace message — No peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness — emphasizes that peace is founded upon the mutually presupposing relationship between justice and reconciliation.

The philosophical, theological, and canonical examination of the concept of peace demonstrates that the meaning of the concept gradually expanded as a result of historical development. Within the classical philosophical tradition, peace primarily signified the condition of order and justice arising from the harmonious structure of the human community.⁴⁶ In Christian theology, this interpretation received normative formulation in the Augustinian concept of tranquillitas ordinis. The Second Vatican Council’s constitution Gaudium et spes reinterpreted this tradition within a modern social context when it described peace as the fruit of justice and the ordered condition of the human community. Canonical development reflects this theological and social transformation. While the concept of peace in the 1917 Code still appears primarily within the context of the internal order of the ecclesial community, the 1983 Code already speaks explicitly of peace within social and international dimensions, especially regarding the social responsibility of clerics and the diplomatic mission of papal legates. This change corresponds closely with the development of modern Catholic social teaching, which interprets peace in relation to human dignity, justice, solidarity, and international cooperation, particularly in documents such as Pacem in Terris, Sollicitudo rei socialis, and Centesimus annus.

From an anthropological perspective, the question of peace is connected with the nature of human conflict. Modern cultural anthropology and conflict theory — for example René Girard’s mimetic theory of conflict — indicate that rivalry and violence may constitute structural phenomena within human communities, the management of which requires cultural and religious mechanisms.⁴⁷ Within this perspective, religious traditions — including Christianity — may also be interpreted as institutions for the normative limitation of social conflicts.⁴⁸ From the perspective of historical scholarship, the institutionalization of peace is the result of a long civilizational process.⁴⁹ In one of the classic works of historical sociology, Norbert Elias connects the formation of the modern state and the monopolization of violence with the gradual regulation of social conflicts.⁵⁰ This process contributed to peace increasingly becoming a category connected with political and juridical institutions.⁵¹

The sociological and political-scientific currents of modern peace research further expanded the interpretation of the concept. Johan Galtung’s model of peace research distinguishes between “negative peace” (the absence of armed violence) and “positive peace,” which signifies the condition of social justice, institutional stability, and the fulfillment of human needs.⁵² This approach may in many respects be paralleled with the Catholic social teaching on peace.⁵³ From a political-scientific perspective, peace constitutes one of the fundamental normative goals of the modern international order.⁵⁴ Modern political thought — especially within the Kantian tradition — interprets peace as the result of juridical and institutional cooperation among states.⁵⁵ Within the diplomatic practice of the Holy See, this perspective appears in the moral and mediatory role promoting peace, which is also reflected in the functions of papal legates according to the provisions of the 1983 CIC.

Overall, the historical development of the concept of peace demonstrates the formation of a multilevel normative category: at the anthropological level, it is connected with the problem of human conflict management;⁵⁶ at the historical level, with the development of political and juridical institutions; and from sociological and political-scientific perspectives, with the conditions of social justice and international cooperation.⁵⁷ Within this process, Catholic theology and canon law integrate peace in a distinctive manner as a fundamental concept of moral, social, and diplomatic mission.

The philosophical, theological, and canonical examination of the concept of peace possesses not only historical or theoretical significance, but also relevance for contemporary international and social discourse. Catholic social teaching — especially the documents Pacem in Terris, Sollicitudo rei socialis, and Centesimus annus — connects peace with the normative order of human dignity, justice, and solidarity. This perspective corresponds with the interdisciplinary approaches of modern peace research, which emphasize the role of structural injustices, social inequalities, and institutional instability in the emergence of conflicts. The provisions of the 1983 CIC — particularly the peace-promoting duties of clerics and the diplomatic mission of papal legates — indicate that the juridical structure of the Catholic Church also reflects upon this broader social dimension. Consequently, the concept of peace is not merely a moral or theological category, but also a normative framework capable of contributing to the practical discourse of conflict prevention, mediation, and international cooperation.

From the philosophical tradition’s concepts of order and justice, through the Augustinian theological interpretation of tranquillitas ordinis, to modern Catholic social teaching and the normative structure of the 1983 CIC, the concept of peace outlines a developmental trajectory in which peace gradually evolves from the notion of the internal order of the ecclesial community into a comprehensive normative category grounded upon human dignity, justice, and international cooperation, and oriented toward social and diplomatic mission.⁵⁸

1. Utz, K., Freundschaft: Eine Philosophische Theorie, Schöningh, 2012. 89.
2. Lepp, I., Von Wesen Und Wert Der Freundschaft, Arena Verlag, 1965. 120.
3. Internationales Theologisches Institut - Trumau Entdeckung Der Freundschaft: Von Philia Bis Facebook, Herder, 2010. 17.
4. Chiaia, M., Storie Di Amicizie Spirituali, Àncora (kiad.) 2007. 61.
5. vö. Ellithorpe, A. M., Multireligious Reflections on Friendship: Becoming Ourselves in Community, Lexington Books, 2023. 174.
6. Rouner, L. S., The Changing Face of Friendship, in. Boston University Studies in Philosophy and Religion, 1994.
7. Szaif, J., Freundschaft Und Moral: über Freundschaft Als Thema Der Philosophischen Ethik, in. Bonner Philosophische Vorträge Und Studien, 2005.
8. Kirkpatrick, L.A., “Precis: Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion”, in. Archive for the Psychology of Religion, vol. 28, 2006. (3–47.) 33.
9. Lepp, I., Von Wesen Und Wert Der Freundschaft, Arena Verlag, 1965. 14.
10. vö. Utz, K., Freundschaft: Eine Philosophische Theorie, Schöningh, 2012. 81.
11. Internationales Theologisches Institut - Trumau Entdeckung Der Freundschaft: Von Philia Bis Facebook, Herder, 2010. 44.
12. The concept of amicitia in Roman legal practice and institutional interpretation, besides signifying an interpersonal relationship, often extended in its interpretive focus to state and international relations as well (see: the relationship between Rome and client kings as amici populi Romani). Thus, it is connected to the terminology of friendship and, although not explicitly legal in character, belongs to the framework of alliance (societas).
13. Watts, F.N., “Attachment, Evolution and the Psychology of Religion: A Response on Lee Kirkpatrick”, in. Archive for the Psychology of Religion, vol. 28, 2006. (63–69.)
14. Warne, N.A., “Growing in Love, Growing Through Friendship”, Anglican Theological Review, vol. 108, no. 1, 2026. (33–46.)
15. Cicero’s emphasis here is directed more explicitly toward political formations insofar as, in the purpose of friendship, he examines the extent to which the practice of virtue for the sake of another person’s interest may proceed within the relations of moral compromise.
16. Utz, K., Freundschaft: Eine Philosophische Theorie, Schöningh, 2012. 86.
17. The ancient concept of friendship did not always indicate a relationship characterized by equality of status. An orator or another professional who performed devoted and reliable service in public affairs alongside a politician or public official fulfilled his duties “as a friend,” while asserting common interests within the Ciceronian framework of reciprocity, trust, and affection. The title amicus augusti during the Principate referred more formally to free persons and family members belonging to the emperor’s court. Friendship between persons of approximately equal social status was termed hospitium within Roman social culture. This belongs specifically to the concept of ritualized friendship, similarly to the host–guest relationship.
18. This conception of relationship partly reflects Aristotle’s notion of friendship as “another self” (Eth. Nic. 1169 b 6.), though in a more elevated and comprehensive sense.
19. Watts, F.N., “Attachment, Evolution and the Psychology of Religion: A Response on Lee Kirkpatrick”, in. Archive for the Psychology of Religion, vol. 28, 2006. (63–69.) 66.
20. Ellithorpe, A. M., Multireligious Reflections on Friendship: Becoming Ourselves in Community, Lexington Books, 2023.
21. Sullivan, J., “Friendship and Spiritual Learning: Seedbed for Synodality”, Religions, vol. 14, no. 5, 2023.
22. Watts, F.N., “Attachment, Evolution and the Psychology of Religion: A Response on Lee Kirkpatrick”, in. Archive for the Psychology of Religion, vol. 28, 2006. (63–69.) 69.
23. In the context of friendship, Kantian ethics excludes the loyalty required by friendship and the methods of resolving the resulting conflicts unjustly from the foundations necessary for legal legitimacy; therefore, according to Kant, a decision or law based not on juridical relations but on other human value factors is not merely mistaken but unlawful.
24. vö. Goldbrunner, H., Masken Der Partnerschaft: Wie Paare Ihre Wirklichkeit Konstruieren, Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1994. 201.
25. In the search for truth, within procedures proving facts or other forms of truth-content, impartiality signifies neither value-neutrality nor an attitude detached from interests and human factors. The exclusion of friendship from the sphere of law is not unfriendly even where the opposing parties in a conflict are bound by a marital covenant. In formal proceedings concerning the validity of marriage, the former “friendly” relationship between the parties is not violated when the evidentiary process does not appear to serve the personal interest of one or both parties; this impartiality protects the interests of both parties, the persons affected by the marriage, and indeed the entire community, because for its members the Church also represents the community of the absolute value.
26. Fürst, A., Streit Unter Freunden: Ideal Und Realität in Der Freundschaftslehre Der Antike, Beiträge Zur Altertumskunde, 1996. 25.
27. Kirkpatrick, L.A., “Precis: Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion”, in. Archive for the Psychology of Religion, vol. 28, 2006. (3–47.) 28.
28. Fürst, A., Streit Unter Freunden: Ideal Und Realität in Der Freundschaftslehre Der Antike, Beiträge Zur Altertumskunde, 1996. 61.
29. A similar prohibitive formula may be interpreted in the rule forbidding court personnel from accepting any gift connected to a case (vö. can. 1456).
30. Regarding the operation of juridical relations in their general extension, it is worth noting that the law legitimizing a person’s authorized act is general in character; thus the same legal source authorizes the same claim within a particular act, while nearly all human acts are directed toward different purposes and conclude in differing factual contents.
31. García F. M., “Notes on the Biblical Foundation of the Document of the International Theological Commission, ‘Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church’”, Religions, vol. 15, no. 10, 2024.
32. Wissenschaftliches Kolloquium Rituale der Freundschaft 2003, Rituale der Freundschaft, Halberstadt, 2003. ISBN 978-3-8253-5235-6/3-8253-5235-8, Heidelberg Winter 2006. 78.
33. Münchberg, K. – Reidenbach, C., Freundschaft: Theorien Und Poetiken ; [Internationalen Kolloquium Unterwegs Zur Freundschaft - Acheminement Vers L'amitié], Luxembourg, ISBN 978-3-7705-5370-9/3-7705-5370-5, 2012. 301.
34. The practice of “public consultation,” common in secular legal systems, is not characteristic in this form within the context of general law-making in canon law, since ontological explanations concerning the origin of law are connected not to theories of the social contract but to the founding event that creates the community, from which all obligations and authorizations derive. Collectivity and particularity are nevertheless present in the rule-making methods of particular law. Not only in the interpretation of general canons, but also in diocesan or parish rule-modifications and in the common drafting and approval of statutes within institutes of consecrated life, analogies may be drawn with the terminology of public consultation; nevertheless, the concept remains foreign to the philosophical legal image of the sacred legal order.
35. Within the analytical dimensions of academic and research freedom, this critical indicator directed toward boundary phenomena and normative patterns operates analogically; for the Church’s mission derives not from the functioning of its members, but from the fact of the founding event itself. From this event arise those boundary points that frame the moral possibilities of research for ecclesiastical institutions. The realization of the normative pattern evaluates this freedom not only morally but canonically as well, insofar as contents exceeding the freedom established by these fixed boundary points cannot obtain legitimacy within ecclesiastical institutions.
36. Jüngel, E., “Christ, Justice and Peace”, in. Toward a Theology of the State, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014. 71.
37. Dear, J., The God of peace: Toward a theology of nonviolence, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2005. 17.
38. Johnson, J.T., “Ideology, reason, and the limitation of war”, in. Religious and secular concepts, 2015. (1200–1740.) 1544.
39. Doe, N., “Canon law and communion”, in. Ecclesiastical Law Journal, 2002. 6.30: (241–263.) 258–259.
40. Gomes, K.J., “An intellectual genealogy of the just war: A survey of christian political thought on the justification of warfare”, Small Wars Journal, 2008. (1–18.) 4.
41. Behn, U., “Concept of Religion and Peace”, in. Inter-religious Approach to Peace Building, 1985. (23–26.) 26.
42. Rudd, K., “Faith in politics [Christian ethics and the State.]”, in. The Monthly, 2006. (10.): 22–30. 26.
43. Tillich, P., Theology of peace, Westminster – John Knox Press, 1990. 210.
44. Doe, N., “Canon law and communion”, in. Ecclesiastical Law Journal, 2002. 6.30: (241–263.) 249.
45. Harding, D.W., “The Concept of Peace”, in. The Science of Society and the Unity of Mankind, 1974. (252–272.) 262.
46. Johnson, J.T., “Ideology, reason, and the limitation of war”, in. Religious and secular concepts, 2015. (1200–1740.) 1549.
47. Palaver, W., René Girard's mimetic theory, Michigan State University Press, 2013. 318.
48. Lev, A., “Modernity and mimetic desire: A critique of René Girard”, Constellations, in. International Journal of Critical & Democratic Theory, 2024. 31.1. 244–270. 255.
49. vö. Böhm, T., “René Girard und die ‘Mimetische Theorie’”, in. Zeitschrift für Pastoraltheologie, 2023. (43.2): 35–44. 39.
50. Krieken, R., “Law and civilization: Norbert Elias as a regulation theorist”, in. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 2019. (15.1): 267–288. 276.
51. vö. Elias, N., “Processes of state formation and nation building”, in. Transactions of the seventh world congress of sociology, 1972. (274–284.) 281.
52. Grewal, B.S., “Johan Galtung: Positive and negative peace”, School of Social Science, in. Auckland University of Technology, 2003. 30.1.
53. Stümke, V., “The Concept of Peace in Christianity”, in. The Concept of Peace in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, 2020. (45–97.) 70.
54. Galtung, J. – Fischer, D., “Positive and negative peace”, in. Johan Galtung: Pioneer of peace research, Berlin, Heidelberg (Springer Berlin Heidelberg) 2013. (173–178.) 177.
55. Johansen, R.C., “Developing a grand strategy for peace and human security: Guidelines from research, theory, and experience”, in. Global Governance, 2017. (23.4): 525–536. 532.
56. vö. Richmond, O.P., Peace: A very short introduction, Oxford University Press, 2023. 247.
57. Shields, P., “Limits of Negative Peace, Faces of Positive Peace”, in. Parameters (US Army War College [kiad.]) 47(2017): 4 (5–12.) 9.
58. O’Riordan, S., “Towards a theology of peace”, in. The Furrow, 1979. (144–154.) 152.