Blessed Are the Peacemakers

(Note: This article appeared in the January 2013 issue of the Western New York Catholic, the Diocesan newspaper for the Diocese of Buffalo. I have become a regular columnist for the newspaper since November, and I am sharing this on here for those of you who may not have access to the Diocesan paper.)

This January 1^st was the 46^th World Day of Peace, and Pope Benedict XVI marked the occasion by issuing a message for the celebration titled “Blessed Are the Peacemakers”. The Pope has previously issued seven other messages for the World Day of Peace dealing with specific aspects of peace, such as the human family, the human person, fighting poverty, and protecting creation.

            In this year’s message, Pope Benedict deals with peace in a more general way, explaining the fullness and the diversity of the concept of peace, and encouraging all people to take responsibility for peace-building. His message highlights the 50^th anniversary of both the Second Vatican Council and the encyclical Pacem in Terris (Peace in the World) issued by Pope John XXIII in 1963. That encyclical urged Christians to live a unity of faith and action by taking an active role in public life, especially in the promotion of peace.

            Since Pacem in Terris, the teaching of the Church has taken a decidedly strong turn in promoting peace, condemning war and criticizing the arms race and nuclear weapons. Less than two years later, the Vatican Council issued Gaudium et spes (Church in the Modern World), which called for a “completely fresh appraisal of war”. This “fresh appraisal” did, in fact, lead Church teaching to give a new and stronger support to non-violent approaches in the struggle for justice.

            The Council also, for the first time, recognized conscientious objection to war as a legitimate position to be held by Catholics. This is remarkable when one considers that just nine years earlier Pope Pius XII made a statement that conscientious objection was not a position legitimately open to Catholics. The Council made it clear that unlike previous assumptions about the necessity or inevitability of war, the Church should expect peace to be the natural condition when people live in accord with the moral order. This orientation toward peace is the context of the Council’s praise of those who renounce violence.

            It also was the basis for the US Bishops to declare almost twenty years later that a Christian approach to the use of force must begin from a “presumption against war”. In their document The Challenge of Peace, issued in 1983, The Bishops also endorsed non-violent resistance to injustice, peace research, conflict resolution studies and peace education. Significantly, that document also sanctioned not only conscientious objection, but a commitment to non-violence and pacifism as a legitimate option for Christians.

            The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church sums up the issue of peace and war this way: “War is a scourge, and is never an appropriate way to resolve problems that arise between nations, it never has been and never will be.” Then, quoting Pope Paul VI’s address to the U. N. in 1965, “never again some peoples against others, never again! …no more war, no more war!”

            From Pacem in Terris, to the Vatican Council’s “fresh appraisal of war” and its disposition against the arms race, to Pope Benedict’s encouragement for all Christians to take personal responsibility for peace-building – all of these should have moved the issue of non-violence to a position high on the agenda of the Church. Yet it is still rare to hear a condemnation of war and violence and the promotion of peace-building from the pulpit, or in the classroom, or as an issue in parishes and organizations. What more will it take to finally make non-violence and peace-building central to the Church’s mission today?