Grappling Faithfully and Effectively

Grappling Faithfully and Effectively

With the Monumental Violence of Our Time:

The Call to ActiveNonviolence

In the Roman Catholic Church and the World

University of San Diego

October 7, 2017

Presentation 2

Ken Butigan

Introduction

Good afternoon. As we’re moving to the end of our time together, I’d like to take this opportunity to do two things.

First, I invite us to marinate on the potential impact of an encyclical on nonviolence.

Second, I’d like to make as clear as possible what those of us who are working to advance active nonviolence in the Catholic Church mean by nonviolence; why it’s critically important; what it may mean for the Church; and what it may mean for our larger world

What an Encyclical on Nonviolence Might Mean

As we have said, the Rome Conference’s Final Statement invited Pope Francis to share with the Church and the world an encyclical on “nonviolence and just peace.” Of course, it is the pope alone who writes and publishes an encyclical. Such a clear and straightforward declaration and teaching would be an enormous gift to the Church and the world. The fact is that, for many centuries, we have lost our way—we have compromised with violence, legitimated violence and organized violence. As a Church we have often felt there is no other way, but by assuming this, we have lost our way—the way of faithful nonviolence of Jesus. The history of the world would be very different had we not done this. Other than confessing this violence, there is little we can do about the past. But there is much we can do about the present and especially the future. By publishing a clear encyclical on active nonviolence, Pope Francis will help us find our way again.

To get a sense of the potential impact this encyclical would have, we need only look to Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment. It has played a historic role in galvanizing and accelerating the response to the climate crisis. Just this week it was announced that 40 major Catholic institutions aredivestingfrom fossil fuel companies andinvestingin renewable energy as part of their response to the urgent call Pope Francis sounded in theLaudato Si’encyclical. This is in addition to divestment from institutions around the world totaling a value of approximately$5.2 trillionhave divested from fossil funds.

Or consider the high-profile support the Vatican has given to the traction for the treaty abolishing nuclear weapons. Just yesterday, ICAN – the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons--won the Nobel Prize for Peace. As ICAN Tweeted out on September 20, “The Holy See (Vatican) makes history as the first state to ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.” To support this historic process, the Vatican is holding a critically important conference on abolishing nuclear weapons in Rome next month.

Similarly, an encyclical on nonviolence will have far-reaching consequences for the church and the world—marking out a new course for nonviolent options and building a culture of nonviolent alternatives and everything that will make those alternatives possible.

But beyond these potential real-time consequences, an encyclical would contribute to God’s vision for humanity—that we are all called to live together in peace and nonviolence. This would be another important step in this direction.

If this is God’s longing for us, then all of us must think: How am I supporting this vision? A papal encyclical on nonviolence would help sharpen this question for all of us.

Nonviolence and Why It Is Critically Important

But what, again, is nonviolence? Let usbe clear about the meaning of nonviolence.

I’m confident that all of us want peace. What we are exploring today is, “What is the way to peace?” For the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, nonviolence is key to this. In fact, nonviolence, I believe, is an even clearer word than peace itself, which sometimes can be ambiguous. We have a long history in which “peace” is achieved or maintained by lethal force. Even the word peace can be used to support violence. This is much more difficult with nonviolence.

Nonviolence, then, can be definedas a methodology for:

• Actively confronting violence without violence;
• Creatively engaging conflict; and
• Nurturing just, peaceful, and sustainable alternatives.

Nonviolence is a method that confronts, engages, and nurtures. It grapples with violence without usingviolence. It wages conflict creatively usingtwo hands: noncooperation with violence and injustice and steadfast regard for the opponent as a human being. And it envisions and fosters a dramatically different culture than the culture of violence--a culture of restorative justice, of positive peace, and of the healing of our world. It is a paradigm that embraces all aspects of life.

Of course, we have tendencies toward violence—springing from egotism, fear, and greed—and we are encouraged to believe that violence is the bottom line, that it is inevitable, and that it saves us.

But even deeper than our violence is our power to live nonviolently.

If this were not the case we would not have survived. Our violence would have spun out of control long ago. In the face of our violence, we have found ways to resolve conflict, to resist injustice, and to create options that, in the midst of retribution and revenge, seemed impossible.

These descriptions of nonviolence do not come out of thin air. They describe the lived-experience of nonviolence over the course of history and its accelerating mobilization for change over the past century.

These conceptionsalso shed light on the nonviolence of Jesus.

As widespread work in biblical studies over the past half-century has established, nonviolence lay at the heart of Jesus’ mission—and thus is central to the mission of the Church. In his age that was rife with structural violence, Jesus proclaimed a new, nonviolent order rooted in the unconditional love of God. Neither passive nor weak, the nonviolence of Jesus was the power of risky, courageous, and all-embracing love in action, as we’re heard from some of our speakers today.

In the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, he wept (Luke 19:41). He saw the impending destruction that awaited his community if it did not embrace the nonviolent way, especially in its accelerating struggle with the Roman oppressor occupying his land. As he put it so clearly, “Would that you knew the things that make for peace.”

The Catholic Nonviolence Initiative is appealing to the Church to re-commit to the centrality of nonviolence because Jesus has called his disciples–then and now–to live the nonviolent life. Recommitting to Gospel nonviolence is, first and foremost, rooted in being faithful to the nonviolent Jesus.

But we also take this action because Jesus’ vision “of the things that make for peace” is—amidst our own time of catastrophe and threat—a more realistic and effective response than violence and passivity to the monumental violence and injustice of our time.

The Catholic Church Moves Toward Nonviolence

This, then, brings us to the Catholic Church – and its growing turn toward nonviolence.

It must be said, first, that many aspects of the Church—historically and in our own time—have lived and are living Gospel nonviolence. The Church’s work for justice, human rights, forgiveness, mercy and peacebuilding are important dimensions of Jesus’ call to the nonviolent Reign ofGod. A renewed commitment to the theology of Gospel nonviolence will strengthen and deepenthe Church’s work for peace and goodness by explicitly standing against all levels of violence, and clearly strengthening our core identity as followers of the nonviolent Jesus.

But this shift will require nothing less than an ongoing conversion.

In a world where violence is so prevalent, so systematically woven through our lives and societies, so normal, we will be called to a determined, risky and courageous formation process as people and as Church. We will be called to confess our violence as people and as the Church, make amends for our violence, and give up our deeply-embedded belief in violence.

Imagine nurturing a new identity as nonviolent people in a nonviolent church, with a clear and deliberate commitment to preaching, teaching, activating and boldly proclaiming the dynamics of Jesus’ nonviolence at every level of our global communion.

To imagine this is not to imagine that the world will suddenly be nonviolent. Instead, it is to live nonviolently amidst great violence and injustice, unleashing the force for good in response to it—to return good for evil, to break the chains of escalatory violence and revenge, to fully trust the God of love rather than the power of violence, and to engage in the responsibility to protect nonviolently.

Last year’s landmark Rome conference on “Nonviolence and Just Peace” co-sponsored with the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peaceconcluded by seeking to translate these visions into a long-term, concretereality. Specifically, it called on the Church:

• To integrate Gospel nonviolence explicitly into the life and work of the Church at every level;
• To initiate a global conversation on nonviolence within the Church, with people of other faiths, and with the larger world;
• To no longer use or teach “just war theory,” and continue advocating for the abolition of war and nuclear weapons; and
• To promote the development and use of nonviolent practices and strategies.

For example, what if, from among the 1.2 billion Catholics on the planet, the Church organized a 100,000-person force for unarmed nonviolent peacebuilding—similar to Gandhi’sidea of a “peace army” and modeled on the current Nonviolent Peaceforce— trained and equipped to respond to humanitarian crises, to defuse conflicts, and to create the conditions for peaceful dialogue and negotiations?

Or, what if every Catholic parishenvisioned how it could be a center for peacemaking for the community?

These are just two of the countless possibilities that could emerge if the Church to invest spiritually, pastorally and financially in explicitly re-committing to the centrality of Gospel nonviolence.

To support this new trajectory, the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative is nurturing the process of building grassroots support in the global Church for this “nonviolent shift.”

As part of this, we have launched an ambitious research project featuring theologians, practitioners and church leaders addressing critically important topics in five ongoing roundtables. These themes include the theology of nonviolence, biblical foundations, a new moral framework, the phenomenon of active nonviolence, and the application of Gospel nonviolence throughout the Church.

Calling on the World to Unleash the Power of Nonviolence

Finally, what might this recommitment to nonviolence mean for our larger world?

Quite simply, it could offer the world and its teeming inhabitants a dramatic new lifeline.

After all, we stand at a profound moment of peril. The traditional solutions will not resolve our deepest problems. Neither violence nor passivity will answer the climate crisis, global poverty, racism, and the many forms of injustice that people everywhere face. Nor will violence or passivity end war and terrorism. Various forms of violence and passivity have been pursued for thousands of years as the answer to violence and injustice. If we’re honest with ourselves, these solutions most of the time only exacerbate the problem, or drive it underground, or kick it down the road.

This is not to claim that nonviolent methods will always work. But neither do violent methods. In fact, there is widespread evidence now – thanks to Maria Stephan and a growing number of analysts – that nonviolent strategies outperform violent ones.

If our church of over a billion people began to tap the power of active nonviolence, this would not only build the capacity of the Church to live its mission more faithfully and effectively, it would be an example for the rest of the world. It would encourage people everywhere to explore, experiment with, and practice a clear and powerful alternative to violence and passivity.

In calling on Pope Francis to share with the world an encyclical on nonviolence, the Rome Conference envisioned that this could open possibilities beyond the Church, in the way that the pope’s encyclical, Laudato Si’, is a message inviting the whole world to actively engage the climate crisis. We are confident that this thoroughgoing commitment to and activation of nonviolence will have ramifications far beyond the Church itself.

And it may lead to undreamed of partnerships. As Pope Francis wrote in his World Day of Peace Message on nonviolence, “I pledge the assistance of the Church in every effort to build peace through active and creative nonviolence.” My guess is that this is not restricted to initiatives in the Church only.

Conclusion

Sisters and brothers, we stand at a critical crossroads, where nonviolent solutions are needed now more than ever. The potential of active nonviolence as both a spiritual force and an effective method for change offers a profound way to challenge and transform the crises of our time. In this fraught age, the Catholic Church is taking unparalleled leadership in spreading awareness of the nonviolent “third way” beyond violence and passivity. We are grateful for this unprecedented initiative, led by Pope Francis, whose World Day of Peace message was the first one ever to focus on nonviolence and who, since this landmark declaration was released this past January, has spoken boldly in many speeches and interviews of the power of and need for “nonviolence” and a “culture of nonviolence.”

Now the momentum is building to translate this vision into a more prominent role in Catholic Social Teaching – including our hope that Pope Francis will share with the world an encyclical on “Nonviolence and Just Peace” – and to integrate Jesus’ active and courageous nonviolence at every level of the Church. This will be a long process, but not a moment too soon. The Church is uniquely positioned to call on its global community—but also on the entire planet—to embark on the nonviolent life.

Admittedly, taking these steps will not be easy. It will cause all of us in the Church and perhaps the larger world to reflect deeply on the structures of violence and our own relationship to it. After all, the largest part of the word “nonviolence” is violence; the nonviolent path includes grappling with our own violence as we seek to transform violence in the world. It will be a long process of transformation and healing.

Yet years from now we will likely look back and realize that this clarion call will have helped the entire world to see that there is a concrete alternative to violence and passivity, and that people everywhere have the power to concretely activate this force for good. Much will come from this historic work of envisioning, teaching, and practicing active and creative nonviolence. And much will come from building the infrastructure for fostering countless nonviolent lives, nonviolent communities, nonviolent nations and nonviolent societies.

To take this journey in this perilous hour—but also this Kairos moment, this time of divine grace and human decision—is not to pretend that we will create an ideal world. Instead, we are embarking on the great work of our time: confessing our violence; deepening our faithfulness to the nonviolent Jesus; and joining a spiritual awakening that will equip Christians and non-Christians alike—people of faith and people of good will everywhere—with the tools to live nonviolently, to challenge violence and injustice, and to build, piece by piece, a more just, peaceful and sustainable world.

We look forward to all of us being part of this great, beckoning venture.

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