Highlighting another pressing human need, John Paul II repeated the words of Pope Paul VI, delivered at the U.N. General Assembly 14 years ago: “No more war. War never again.”

In the same way that they responded to more than 30 appeals of Pope Paul VI for peace in Ireland. They rejected it! “In all conscience,” the Catholic Irish Republican Army answered, “we believe that force is by far the only means of removing the evil of British presence in Ireland.”

Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland believe that they are being oppressed by a Protestant majority. Therefore, in rejecting the pope’s appeal, Catholics cite their Church’s doctrine that violence may be employed to achieve justice.a