A New Paradigm for the Mission
Woven into the fabric of the Jesus’ story from beginning to end is an identification of his mission with peace on earth – deep peace, peace rooted in justice, shalom, and a call to the task of peacemaking for those who would be disciples.
We say the words often and easily: “Peace be with you.” We call him the Prince of Peace. We listen to the promise, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” We struggle to follow his mandates: “Love your enemy;” “Leave your gifts at the altar and go be reconciled with a brother or sister who has something against you.” And we are deeply puzzled by his warning, “I come not to bring peace, but the sword.”
To seek peace, deep peace rooted in justice, shalom – not a mere absence of war, but the fullness of life for all – that is the Christian vocation. As followers of the One who is Peace, who on the cross overcame the violences of our world, we are called to help move our broken and violated world toward the full flowering of New Creation.
Peace is Mystery. It is the Promise, the “already and the not yet.” It requires presence, accompaniment and the nurturing of relationships across boundaries – that is your vocation as missioners. That the pursuit of peace is an act of hope is abundantly clear if we look, even briefly, at our world where what Pope Francis calls “a third world war fought piecemeal” is raging.
For decades, many of us have been discerning ways to move beyond the paradigm in which we find ourselves – a paradigm that justifies enormous loss of human life and widespread destruction of creation in pursuit of a thin peace and a false security.
Thomas Merton once said, “The task of the Christian is at least to make the thought of peace once again seriously possible.” (Peace in the Post Christian Era, 7) That, I believe is the vocation of the Church, and exactly what Pope Francis is trying to do. It is, however, a monumental challenge.
Making Peace Possible
Pax Christi is convinced that in the long run, the only way to make the thought of sustained peace seriously possible, the only way to follow Merton’s plea is by embracing Gospel nonviolence – and we are finding more and more people on every continent and in the institutional Catholic Church who are open to that possibility.
Nonviolence is not the same as pacifism. It is a spirituality, a way of life, an ethic that is potentially universal, and a proven, often-effective approach to preventing or interrupting violence, to protecting vulnerable people and the planet, to promoting just peace.
Nonviolence is not passive. It does not retreat from conflict. It actively engages and transforms conflict and is a courageous force for mercy and reconciliation.
Nonviolence is also not magic. It is not always – or not yet – up to the monumental task of stopping an invading army or extremist violence. At the same time, nonviolence has been proven to be more effective than violence in many contexts. Yet, it is woefully ignored, misunderstood and underfunded – especially in comparison to the world’s investment in weapons, in military training and preparations for war and in armed security.
We have failed to “arm our children with the weapons of dialogue” or to “teach them to fight the good fight of the culture of encounter!” as Pope Francis proposed in Fratelli Tutti (217). Nonviolence education and spiritual formation are almost never included in Catholic elementary schools or Catholic high schools or across disciplines beyond peace studies in Catholic universities. With some important exceptions, rigorous research into the impact of particular nonviolent strategies in different contexts is only beginning to come “into its own.”
A New Way of Being
Despite overwhelming signs to the contrary, though, I believe that we are on the threshold of a new way of being, a new paradigm, a new logic for life and that embracing Gospel nonviolence at the center of Catholic life and teaching will help us move in that direction. Nonviolence is, but is not only, about war and peace, not only about pulling back from the brink of human and ecological devastation. It is also about respect and honesty, about social justice, about building right relationships between humans and with the earth, the natural world.
Czech theologian and professor of sociology Tomas Halik remembers Teilhard de Chardin as one of the first prophets of globalization, who believed that humankind would eventually turn toward “a single force that unites without destroying,” the force of love as understood in the Gospel. Halik believes that this decisive moment is happening right now and that the turn of Christianity towards synodality, the transformation of the Church into a dynamic community of pilgrims, can have an impact on the destiny of the whole human family. (https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/46526)
Nonviolence is a powerful force that unites without destroying, an essential dimension of the beloved community – what Ugandan Father Emmanuel Katongole calls “a spirituality that reflects the very nature of God.” (Pax Christi International https://youtu.be/D8Aads1Qq2o?feature=shared)
It rejects violence in all its forms: yes, war and physical violence, but also structural and systemic violence, gender and racial violence, cultural, ecological, economic, spiritual and psychological violence.
This new nonviolent paradigm is based on a completely different understanding of our place as humans in the whole Earth community, latecomers as we are to the spectacular cosmic reality that we are just now beginning to see – thanks, for example, to the amazing Webb telescope. It helps us to understand that diversity and relationality are imbedded in the cosmos and essential to survival on this planet.
Franciscan theologian, Ilia Delio, talks about “the new person” emerging in evolution, who is embracing pluralities of gender, race and religion; who is called into a “new type of consciousness where things are first seen together and then as distinct within this togetherness.” She affirms that we are being rewired for belonging to the cosmic whole. We are more and more aware that we are one earth community; we have a planetary consciousness and “are beginning to see that systems in nature do not work on principles of competition and struggle but on cooperation and sympathy.” (Hours of the Universe, Chapter 14)
Michael Nagler, founder of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, talks about “the new story” that is replacing the “old story” told by the dominant white culture about scarcity, competition and violence. He insists that violence is not the nature of humans – that love, faith, trust and the desire for community, peace and well-being are central to our identity and that nonviolence is a creative power, a pervasive energy, a fundamental principle that we can develop and deploy in human interactions. “Violence, he says, “is a tendency that pulls us back, away from the recognition of unity; nonviolence pulls us forward, toward that recognition … We human beings … can play an active role in our own evolution and consequently that of our species. The discovery of our capacity for nonviolence, connected as it is with higher consciousness or love, is a key to this development … Nonviolence is not only at home in the new story,” Michael Nagler says, “it is the new story.” (The Third Harmony, Chapter 4)
That is the nature of the nonviolence that the Church is learning to embrace. It is a new way of thinking that could guide the world, including in times of crisis, toward just peace rather than justified war; toward respect and inclusion rather than exploitation. It is also a very old way of thinking that so often characterizes the worldview of Indigenous people and is visible in traditional rites of reconciliation in many different cultures.
Our commitment should be to a nonviolence that imitates Jesus’ way of life — that is also challenged and shaped by the history and contemporary experience of those on the peripheries, on the receiving end of war and racism and neglect and planetary destruction. As missioners you know that world on the margins well.
The nonviolence moving to the center of Catholic teaching on war and violence and on peace is a more accurate, expanded, evidence-based and comprehensive approach to nonviolence capable of mobilizing a wide spectrum of tools for change. It is not just not violent but is powerful and actively engaged in preventing or interrupting the violence that is imbedded in many societies by the way we relate to each other and by the way we humans treat the earth.
And it is a nonviolence that energetically promotes just peace, the new story, the beloved community, the New Creation.
I see this shift happening everywhere. I know thousands of people, whole communities around the world who are giving their lives to making the new story real. I am sure you do too. I see it in brilliant work to root out systemic racism and colonial exploitation; to redress centuries of oppression against Indigenous communities; to break habits of exploitation that are destroying the earth; to learn and promote restorative justice practices; to welcome migrants and refugees; to rid the world of nuclear weapons; to celebrate diversity and promote unwavering inclusion and respect for the rights of all people, believing that radical inclusion is the foundational message of the Sermon on the Mount.
A New Story of Nonviolence
I see the new story of nonviolence in Pope Francis’ vision, creativity and commitment to the cry of the earth and the cry of those forced to live on the margins of our world. As he looks around the world, he is clearly horrified, pleading again and again for the paradigm shift so desperately needed away from the direct violence of war and militarization; the cultural violence of indifference and domination; and the structural violence of racism, economic injustice, ecological destruction and more.
I see the new story of nonviolence lifted up in countless communities around the world – most recently, for example, in the extremely challenging contexts of Palestine, Mexico, South Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine.
In Palestine, even before the current horror, I saw the devastating consequences of occupation, the violence of an apartheid system – children killed and imprisoned, recently demolished houses, a massive Wall separating families from their land and from each other, children from their schools, people from their olive trees. Despite the dehumanizing brutality, however, the people stay. They call their steadfastness “sumud,” a powerful expression of nonviolent resistance.
In Mexico a few weeks ago, I saw thousands of people on the move, migrating north, hoping for safety and a decent life. I also saw the brutality of cartels exploiting migrants and Mexicans alike. Yet, local communities organize courageously to expose the truth and protect each other, and migrants keep moving along extremely dangerous paths to claim – nonviolently – a better future.
In South Sudan I saw the results of a bloody civil war following a bloody civil war – unrelenting multidimensional violence – war and military violence, extortion, corruption, torture, disappearances, gang violence, domestic violence, cultural violence, gender violence, the dehumanizing violence of deep poverty, all strangling a people who fought to be free but who have yet to taste peace.
But I also witnessed there the prophetic stance against violence and injustice of South Sudan’s Christian leaders and their powerful commitment to Gospel nonviolence. They said,
the Church of Christ in South Sudan … recommits itself to Gospel nonviolence. It rejects any form of violence and commits itself to a prophetic stance against violence and injustice. This is not a passive approach, not simply submitting to or colluding with violence, but it is active and prophetic in responding to all forms of violence …
The South Sudan Council of Churches General Secretary, James Oyet, introduced the powerful SSCC statement, saying “His Holiness Pope Francis has revealed the sacrament of nonviolence. Here [in South Sudan] the symbol becomes substance as we embody visible acts of nonviolence. Let it be our Church institutions who teach, preach and heal through the sacrament of nonviolence for the salvation of Mother Earth and all her Children.” Beautiful. The sacrament of nonviolence. The symbol becomes substance.(https://www.ctcinfohub.org/south-sudan-council-of-churches-releases-statement-on-nonviolence/)
During the Synod gathering in Rome last October Cardinal Charles Maung Bo from Myanmar, whose country is experiencing a heartbreaking civil war, said:
The violence and trauma being experienced in this moment by the people of Israel and Palestine—as by the people of Myanmar and by so many others around the world—underscore the critical need for humanity to make a dramatic shift from a global paradigm of war and violence to a paradigm of just peace and nonviolence …
Nonviolence is a way of life that “unlearns” the beliefs and ways of violence and “learns” and “practices” … our core identity as nonviolent beings …
(https://paxchristi.net/wp-content/uploads/-2023/10/Cardinal-Bo-Nonviolence-Statement.pdf)
Finally, the intense process of discernment now underway to imagine and promote effective nonviolent ways to end the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine – as difficult as that is to imagine – and to heal the wounds of that brutal war is another sign of the shift toward nonviolence. Many Ukrainians are already demonstrating clearly and with great courage that nonviolent defense can be effective and could be much more readily available with significant investment in resources, training, and research.
In Ukraine, unarmed civilian resistance has: 1) hindered institutionalization of the Russian occupation; 2) protected many civilians; 3) undermined the Russian narrative; 4) built community resilience; 5) strengthened local governance, and 6) built social cohesion. Farmers refused to sell grain to Russian soldiers; fire departments refused to work under a Russian mandate; resisters protected local administration officials and school directors; created an alternative government; and engaged Russian civil society with anti-war messaging.
Many believe that the war of aggression against Ukraine is challenging the very idea that Gospel nonviolence could ever become a widely applicable ethic, but I believe precisely the opposite. Jesus proclaimed a new, nonviolent way of life that was rooted in radical inclusion, the beloved community, mercy and the unconditional love of God — and he did so in the context of a brutal Roman occupation. He was so completely engaged in transforming unjust structures and interrupting violence (even the violence of his “defender,” Peter on the night before he died), that Jesus was hung on a cross as a dangerous threat to those in power.
While international law and our own moral tradition provide sovereign nations with the right to self-defense, in a world of highly destructive, extremely expensive weapons, the human and environmental consequences of armed self-defense cry out for an effective alternative.
For the sake of present and future generations we have to replace the logic of violence in which we are mired with a new logic of nonviolence. Otherwise, we will be perpetually trapped exactly where we are right now, convinced that self-defense and protection, whether in Ukraine or Israel or Washington DC are only and always armed, that only weapons and military might can interrupt violence and protect threatened communities. The question is not whether to defend against a brutal military invasion or organized crime or terrorism or other serious threats, but how, especially how to imagine and build a new paradigm where nonviolent options are increasingly viable and effective.
Nonviolence has been a hallmark of Pope Francis’ response to war and to other forms of violence – what he calls a third world war fought piecemeal. In Fratelli Tutti and in scores of other statements Pope Francis has repeatedly placed nonviolence as the lens through which to evaluate any crisis.
The Catholic Church and Nonviolence
The Catholic Church needs – and I believe is moving toward – a new moral framework that will move nonviolence to the center of Catholic teaching, even as it precisely negotiates an ethical response to the complex expressions of violence encountered in any crisis. The realization of a new paradigm based on nonviolence is even more necessary than it was a few years ago – and more difficult.
Seven years ago, in his 2017 World Day of Peace message, Pope Francis said, “to be true
Nonviolence has been a hallmark of Pope Francis’ response to war and to other forms of violence – what he calls a third world war fought piecemeal. In Fratelli Tutti and in scores of other statements Pope Francis has repeatedly placed nonviolence as the lens through which to evaluate any crisis.
The Catholic Church and Nonviolence
The Catholic Church needs – and I believe is moving toward – a new moral framework that will move nonviolence to the center of Catholic teaching, even as it precisely negotiates an ethical response to the complex expressions of violence encountered in any crisis. The realization of a new paradigm based on nonviolence is even more necessary than it was a few years ago – and more difficult.
Seven years ago, in his 2017 World Day of Peace message, Pope Francis said, “to be true followers of Jesus today also includes embracing His teaching about nonviolence. …I pledge the assistance of the Church in every effort to build peace through active and creative nonviolence.”
Pax Christi’s Catholic Nonviolence Initiative is doing all that we can to take Pope Francis up on his offer, urging the Church to promote the necessary shift from an ethic of violence and war to an ethic of nonviolence – through our dialogue with the Holy See; bishops and episcopal conferences, Catholic universities, religious communities, diocesan and parish programs, and Church diplomatic efforts.
We do see a leaning toward nonviolence in Catholic social thought – less inclination to dismiss nonviolence as naïve, unrealistic and a more serious effort to imagine a shift from the logic of violence to the logic of nonviolence. That movement is being enhanced by the synodal process, which is participatory, collegial, grounded in and energized by the creative spirit of God, affirming the nonviolent impulses of listening, dialogue, and working through differences. From this perspective, the current Synod can be understood as a global, nonviolent practice to foster a more nonviolent Church and world.
According to the Synthesis Report, Conversation in the Spirit, the Synod methodology, “interweaves thought and feeling, creating a shared vital space.… Conversing ‘in the Spirit’ means living the experience of sharing in the light of faith and seeking God’s will in an authentically evangelical atmosphere within which the Holy Spirit’s unmistakable voice can be heard.” (Synthesis Report, 7).
Gospel nonviolence speaks that same language. Nonviolence is not one more issue, but a personal and collective spiritual process, an ethical proposal, a method to be learned and taught, a Christian way of life. Nonviolence has its own procedures, methodologies and techniques, such as mediation, restorative dialogue, peace facilitation, circles of reconciliation, conflict resolution, consensus-building and trauma healing that are also integrated into the Synod on Synodality process. Both processes are grounded in faith, open to the intervention and guidance of the Spirit and facilitated by love, reason, knowledge and previous experiences.
The Working Document for the General Assembly of the Synod last October said: “A synodal Church can offer a prophetic witness to a fragmented and polarized world, especially when its members are committed to walking together with others for the building of the common good. In places marked by deep conflict, this requires the ability to be agents of reconciliation and artisans of peace.”
Gospel nonviolence based on the life and teaching of Jesus demonstrates ways to become agents of reconciliation and artisans of peace. Pope Francis reminds us that Jesus Himself offers a ‘manual’ for this work in the Sermon on the Mount.
The Synod Synthesis Report specifically mentioned nonviolence twice:
Once calling for more reflection and formation in order that we can manage conflicts in a nonviolent way, a valuable contribution that Christians can offer to today’s world in dialogue and collaboration with other religions. (p. 13)
The other calling for careful consideration of matters that are controversial within the Church, such as … nonviolence and legitimate self-defence, “(p. 30).
Gospel nonviolence does not have all the answers but it does have the methodology, the tools, the knowledge, the experience, the commitment, the faith and the love to seek answers with others.
Imagine 1.3 billion Catholics committed to this mission, being agents of reconciliation and artisans of peace. Imagine Gospel nonviolence being taught in every parish, diocese, Catholic school, high school or university. Imagine Gospel nonviolence guiding our everyday actions in every place, at every border, before every difficult issue. In a divided world where violence is so present and armed conflicts seem to surround us, Gospel nonviolence aims to contribute to the synodality of the Church and to a more peaceful world where walking together as humanity is still possible.
But this unprecedented global transformation will also depend on mobilizing worldwide people-power movements for change using active nonviolence that is what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, Dr. Bernice King in her meeting with Pope Francis called “strategic, courageous, love-centered and organized.” Without a committed and systematic advance of the vision, principles, strategies, practices and tactics of nonviolence, humanity will remain under-equipped to meet the historic challenges of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.
This leaning toward nonviolence in Catholic social thought is also visible in Laudato Si, which has enabled us to see more clearly that the cry of the earth and the suffering of the creatures living on this planet are intrinsically interconnected with human violence, including the cultural violence of indifference and domination; the direct violence of war and militarization; and the economic violence of destructive, unaccountable extractive projects or unsustainable, consumption-driven lifestyles. Humans, instead of caring for the earth that nurtures us, have damaged its ability to sustain life.
Gospel nonviolence is much more than a political strategy; it is a spirituality through which we see and interpret life, a set of virtues and principles for personal and social change. You will reflect on the spirituality of nonviolence with Sister Sheila Kinsey later in the week.
Rich Diversity of Nonviolent Practices
As you probably know, Pax Christi International is a global Catholic peace movement with 120-member organizations working for peace on six continents. For almost 80 years, Pax Christi International members around the world, including many who have lived in zones of conflict and extremely dangerous situations, have nurtured a deep commitment to active nonviolence.
About 15 years ago we began to collect stories about the methodology and impact, success or failure, faith-connection or not of nonviolent practice from different, often very violent contexts where our members live or work. We began to see amazing creativity, wisdom and, frequently, the effectiveness of nonviolent strategies despite the fact that nonviolent options were often dismissed as passive, naïve, even irresponsible in the “real” world and almost always under-resourced.
A rich diversity of nonviolent strategies is being employed in different contexts. They have been the “bread and butter” for Pax Christi member organizations for decades: trainings in strategic nonviolence for communities negatively affected by extractive projects throughout Latin America; nonviolence trainings for youth and religious sisters in the DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and Kenya; accompaniment of communities at risk in the Middle East; sports for peace programs in Haiti and South Sudan; reintegrating former combatants into their communities in the DR Congo;, and creative nonviolent advocacy to reduce military spending and support diplomatic solutions to seemingly intractable violent conflicts – the list is endless.
We were tired of being figuratively “patted on the head” when we challenged violent responses to threatened or actual violence, especially when one of the great gifts of our age is the empirical evidence that active nonviolence is a positive, constructive and powerful force for social change and very often more effective than violence. Diverse nonviolent approaches – from diplomacy to trauma healing, from restorative justice to accompaniment, from civil resistance to civilian based defense, from nonviolent communication to unarmed civilian protection – are effectively dealing with violence without lethal force; transforming conflict; protecting people and communities at risk; and fostering just and peaceful alternatives.
As a Catholic movement we began to realize that it could make a huge difference in knowledge about and the development of nonviolent approaches to conflict transformation if the Catholic Church turned its vast capacity for education, communication, advocacy and diplomacy to teaching about nonviolence, researching the effectiveness of different nonviolent options, advocating for public policies that support and promote nonviolent approaches to national and international security.
What if over 1 billion Catholics worldwide were formed from the beginning of life to understand and appreciate the power and effectiveness of active nonviolence and the connection of nonviolence to the heart of the Gospel? What if we all knew how to apply nonviolent tools to defuse conflict before it became violent?
What if the Catholic Church itself adopted the discipline and spirituality of nonviolence to transform the violence of clericalism and abuse in our Church?
What if the Catholic Church committed its vast spiritual, intellectual and financial resources to developing a new moral framework and language for discerning ways to prevent atrocities, to protect people and the planet in a dangerous world? What would happen if the Church left behind easy references to “just war” and prioritized nonviolent tools to address violent or potentially violent situations?
In April 2016, 85 people from around the world gathered in Rome for what has been called a “landmark” conference on nonviolence and just peace. Invited by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and Pax Christi International, participants came together to imagine a new framework for Catholic teaching on war and peace that could help the world move beyond perpetual violence and war. Central to our conversation were the voices of people promoting active nonviolence in the midst of horrific violence.
Many participants came from countries that have been at war or dealing with serious violence for decades: Iraq and Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Colombia, Peru, El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Korea, Japan.
Ogarit Younan, who co-founded the Academic University for Nonviolence and Human Rights in Lebanon, shared her positive experience of equipping youth, educators and community leaders throughout the Middle East with nonviolent skills to end vicious cycles of violence and discrimination.
Archbishop Odama, from Gulu in Northern Uganda, spoke about nonviolent strategies used by the Acholi Religious Leaders to engage the Lord’s Resistance Army.
- Together during the conference we wrote an Appeal to the Catholic Church to Re-commit to the Centrality of Gospel Nonviolence, urging the Church to move beyond the language of “just war” that has been central to Catholic theology on war and peace for centuries and to “integrate Gospel nonviolence explicitly into the life, including the sacramental life, and work of the Church through dioceses, parishes, agencies, schools, universities, seminaries, religious orders, voluntary associations, and others.” We also asked Pope Francis to write an encyclical, on nonviolence.
- Obviously, we were delighted when he wrote his 2017 World Day of Peace message on “Nonviolence A Style of Politics for Peace,” presenting active nonviolence as both powerful and, according to recent studies, very effective.
Immediately after the 2016 conference we organized the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative as a project of Pax Christi International to encourage the Church at every level to center nonviolence in its teaching and practice.
A second conference in April 2019 entitled “Path of Nonviolence: Towards a Culture of Peace” was cosponsored by the Dicastery for Integral Human Development. And a third conference in Rome in December 2022 focused on “Pope Francis, Nonviolence and the Fullness of Pacem in Terris,” All of the conferences followed the same pattern, bringing experienced nonviolence practitioners from the peripheries together with cardinals, bishops, theologians and social scientists to contribute to a renewed Catholic understanding of nonviolence.
A Deep Exploration of Nonviolence
Beginning in 2017, the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative organized an international virtual process of discussion, discernment, and research on key themes related to nonviolence and just peace involving 125 theologians, academics, grassroots nonviolence practitioners and some Church leadership. The purpose of this process was to generate deep thinking about nonviolence in different contexts and to gather material that could be a resource for Church leaders.
In all, there were five roundtables, each of which produced a final paper that formed the basis for our book Advancing Nonviolence and Just Peace in the Church and the World. In addition, a two-day consultation with 12 theologians and peace practitioners from five African countries and in-person interviews with over 15 theologians and peace practitioners
from El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala and Nicaragua brought deep experience in different contexts of war and ongoing violence to the roundtable discernment process.
1.The first roundtable contributed to a foundational theology of nonviolenceusing classic theological categories: Creation and Anthropology, Biblical Foundations, Christology, Pneumatology, Eschatology and Ecclesiology. Their reflections began with Genesis and generally moved in chronological order through the Scriptures, engaging with God’s call to humanity throughout history to live nonviolence, making an effort to retrieve and proclaim the shape that God’s absolute peace, mercy, love, and justice take in the midst of a world fraught with violence: the incarnational nonviolence of Christ Jesus. The Church – the People of God – experiences this call through discipleship, community, prayer, sacrament, ministry and discernment under the guidance and creative power of the Holy Spirit.
2. The second roundtable studied Jesus’ nonviolence according to the Gospels. They explored seven important findings:
- Jesus teaches us how to prevent violence and seal it off at its origins by his teaching on love of enemies. (Mt. 5:43-45) By refusing to see anyone as an alien or enemy, the violence that begins in the mind through the act of labeling is stopped before it can fester.
- When violence does break out, Jesus teaches us how to use transforming initiatives, how to intervene with practical, creative nonviolent practices that stop the escalation of violence. (Mt. 5: 38-42).
- He shows us how to attack and overcome the structural causes of violence and suffering through civil resistance – nonviolent direct action. In Jesus’ day the main pillars of Jewish life and society—Sabbath, Torah and Temple—were controlled by often self-interested elites operating within the Roman imperial context. Jesus modeled how to go after root causes. (Mark 3:1-6; Luke 13; John 14:27; Mark 11: 15-17).
- He teaches and models a way to reconcile a community after it has been torn apart by violence and division. He teaches a way to bring a community back together again by giving agency to the victim, making the guilty accountable and through sublime acts of forgiveness. (Mt. 18: 15-17, 20; Mt. 18:21; Luke 23:14).
- Jesus demonstrates how to defend the innocent with nonviolent action instead of violence. (John 8: 4-10).
- He shows us how to construct a community and culture of nonviolence as an antithesis to regimes of domination through violence.
- He shows us how to live a life of nonviolence to the full and to the end.
Beyond the testimony of the Gospels, this roundtable also pointed to the life and witness of the disciples after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. In the Acts of the Apostles Luke describes how the early disciples lived out Jesus’ nonviolent style of life—reaching out without fear to all, healing, rejoicing and building the reign of God. Many figures of the early Church followed him into suffering and death. All the disciples of the early church understood his call. They understood the risks. They knew where his way of life might lead. The most quoted section of the Bible up until the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E. was consistently the Sermon on the Mount teaching of love of enemy. Early Christians believed it. They practiced it.
- The third roundtable contributed to a new moral framework based on nonviolence and just peace that is rooted in the experience of those who have lived in contexts of war, destructive conflict, and violence, and is reinforced by evidence of effective nonviolent alternatives. It recapitulates Catholic social teaching as a whole; emphasizes active, strategic, nonviolent approaches; and proposes just peace norms that (1) prepare for and work through the inevitable conflicts in human societies (2) exit vicious cycles of violence and (3) build sustainable peace. It is more expansive than either pacifism or the just war tradition and requires constant attention to the root causes of violence and to the social conditions that make for peace, rejecting simplistic solutions that make violence deceptively tempting.
- The fourth roundtable developed a comprehensive proposal for how the institutional Catholic Church could integrate Gospel nonviolence into its life and mission.
- The fifth roundtable gathered powerful, detailed case studies of nonviolent action and experience in different violent circumstances around the world (in Kenya, Croatia, England, Afghanistan, the United States, Colombia, South Korea, Philippines, Australia, Uganda, Lebanon/Syria, Central African Republic, Palestine, South Sudan, and Mexico).
The work of Pax Christi’s Catholic Nonviolence Initiative has continued energetically since those round tables and 2017-18. The roundtable reports and are available on our website along with many additional reports and multiple resources for individuals and communities.
The very positive international response to the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative has been quite amazing. Everywhere it seems that human beings are yearning for a new paradigm, a new stage on which to enact the Earth Community drama. We don’t pretend to have the definitive word about active nonviolence. In fact, we are specifically encouraging people to make use of the excellent resources developed by organizations in many different countries and, especially, to learn from local experience how to live nonviolently in their own context, how to employ nonviolence wherever they live in the service of just peace and ecological integrity.
Pope Francis has been helping us all imagine a Church actively committed to advancing Gospel nonviolence. Reflecting on the 2017 World Day of Peace message, “Nonviolence: A Style of Politics for Peace,” he said that the path of nonviolence in politics and society “is the path to pursue now and in the future.” “This is the way of peace,” … “not a peace proclaimed by words but in fact denied by pursuing strategies of domination, backed up by scandalous outlays for arms, while so many people lack the very necessities of life.”
In a world marked by war, conflict and widespread violence even in people’s day-to-day life, he said, “the choice of nonviolence as a style of life is increasingly demanded in the exercise of responsibility at every level, from family education, to social and civil commitment, to political activity and international relations.”
“In every situation, this means rejecting violence as a method for resolving conflicts and dealing with them instead through dialogue and negotiation.”
“This is not the same as weakness or passivity; rather it presupposes firmness, courage and the ability to face issues and conflicts with intellectual honesty, truly seeking the common good over and above all partisan interest, be it ideological, economic or political.”
(https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2016/12/15/pope-francis-nonviolence-not-weakness)
Church actively committed to advancing Gospel nonviolence. Reflecting on the 2017 World Day of Peace message, “Nonviolence: A Style of Politics for Peace,” he said that the path of nonviolence in politics and society “is the path to pursue now and in the future.” “This is the way of peace,” … “not a peace proclaimed by words but in fact denied by pursuing strategies of domination, backed up by scandalous outlays for arms, while so many people lack the very necessities of life.”
In a world marked by war, conflict and widespread violence even in people’s day-to-day life, he said, “the choice of nonviolence as a style of life is increasingly demanded in the exercise of responsibility at every level, from family education, to social and civil commitment, to political activity and international relations.”
“In every situation, this means rejecting violence as a method for resolving conflicts and dealing with them instead through dialogue and negotiation.”
“This is not the same as weakness or passivity; rather it presupposes firmness, courage and the ability to face issues and conflicts with intellectual honesty, truly seeking the common good over and above all partisan interest, be it ideological, economic or political.”
(https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2016/12/15/pope-francis-nonviolence-not-weakness)
The issues, the challenges we face are intertwined, interconnected at a root deep level. Either we will continue to live our way into the new story of right relationships and commit to developing and scaling up diverse, powerful nonviolent tools to provide protection and genuine security — or we will remain stuck in the old story that violence and war are inevitable.
If humans and the earth community that we call home are going to survive, nonviolence is essential to the future we have to create – beginning in the zones of conflict where so many of you are in mission. Thank you.
