Vatican City (AsiaNews) – “The Human Family: A community of Peace,” will be the theme Pope Benedict XVI will address in his message or the celebration of the 41st World Day of Peace, scheduled for January 1, 2008.

In announcing the news, the Press Office of the Holy See added that the “theme chosen by the Holy Father is based on the conviction that the perception of a common destiny and the experience of communion are essential factors in realising the common good and for the peace of humanity.”

The statement goes on to say that as the “Second Vatican Council put it, ‘[o]ne is the community of all peoples, one their origin, for God made the whole human race to live over the face of the earth’ (Nostra aetate, 1, 2). Similarly, ‘[e]very social group must take account of the needs and legitimate aspirations of other groups, and even of the general welfare of the entire human family’ (Gaudium et spes, 26). Even though the dignity of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God, had already been revealed to man in the Old Testament, the unity of mankind is one the more original truths of Christianity.”

The Vatican statement noted that “The Human Family: A community of Peace develops in a coherent way In truth, Peace and The Human Person, the Heart of Peace, respectively the themes for reflection on World Day of Peace in 2006 and 2007. Recognising the unity of the human family has never before been as providential as in this moment in history, with crises affecting international organisations and serious concerns touching the international community. Each human being, each nation is called to live and feel a part of the human Family which God conceived as a community of peace.”