Pope Francis Quotes

Truth commissions also allow perpetrators to be reintegrated into society and not go back into the bush to pick up their guns again.

The goal of pursuit of justice must not simply be that justice happens but that reconciliation also happens.

Forgiveness and reconciliation are not just ethereal, spiritual, other-worldly activities. They have to do with the real world. They are realpolitik, because in a very real sense, without forgiveness, there is no future.

I often write about reconciling. Reconciling, or maybe half-reconciling between antagonists, between people who are deadly enemies. I write about reconciliation, but not as a miracle, as a slow, gradual process of mutual discovery - discovering one another. I write about sad, sober, sometimes heart-breaking compromises.

Peace cannot come without the engagement of those who have been before. Gen. Dostum will make peace possible. He was engaged in conflict of the past. Forgiveness is an extremely important part of our culture. But, like Rwanda and South Africa, we need to fashion our own solution.

Without forgiveness there can be no future for a relationship between individuals or within and between nations.

There will be no future without forgiveness. Any process of peace is bound to collapse if this is missing. There is no way peace and stability can come through the gun of vengeance.

In the aftermath of any war or genocide, healing and reconciliation are ultimate aspirations.

The problem after a war is the victor. He thinks he has just proved that war and violence will pay. Who will now teach him a lesson?

We have to support truth and reconciliation and some form of justice.

We are to love our enemies that they might be returned to their right minds.

We are meeting here to put an end to this cycle [of violence], to put things back in order and to put the wheel of peace on the right track. The task is very great, but our hopes are greater.

There's what we did wrong and what we did right. The mistake is that we did some things against the people - by us and also by the enemy - but the other side, as I told you, is that without our struggle there would be no Cambodia right now.

We can forgive you for killing our children, but we can never forgive you for making us kill your children.

Forgiveness, dialogue, reconciliation - these are the words of peace, in beloved Syria, in the Middle East, in all the world.

The whole human race loses by every act of personal vengeance.

Let us ask Mary to help us respond to violence, to conflict and to war, with the power of dialogue, reconciliation and love. She is our mother: may she help us to find peace; all of us are her children!

Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity.

Reconciliation is a deep practice that we can do with our listening and our mindful speech. To reconcile means to bring peace and happiness to nations, people, and members of our family.... In order to reconcile, you have to possess the art of deep listening.

Such, indeed, is the policy of civil war: severely to remember injuries, and to forget the most important services. Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.

In Rwanda, we have a society that has experienced a very serious rupture and you can't expect all of a sudden that things will be perfect. Even so: You cannot find any more areas where any segment of the population would be afraid to go, like we used to have before. But there is always a lot more to do.

Emphasize reconciliation, not resolution. It is unrealistic to expect everyone to agree about everything. Reconciliation focuses on the relationship, while resolution focuses on the problem. When we focus on reconciliation, the problem loses significance and often becomes irrelevant.

Justice is not Healing. Healing cometh only by suffering and patience, and maketh no demand, not even for Justice. Justice worketh only within the bonds of things as they are... and therefore though Justice is itself good and desireth no further evil, it can but perpetuate the evil that was, and doth not prevent it from the bearing of fruit in sorrow.

We must not only speak about forgiveness and reconciliation, we must act on these principles.

As I rejected amnesty, so I reject revenge. I ask all Americans who ever asked for goodness and mercy in their lives, who ever sought forgiveness for their trespasses, to join in rehabilitating all the casualties of the tragic conflict of the past.