The Gospels Draw us Further: A Just Peace Ethic

[Expositions 12.1 (2018) 80–102] Expositions (online) ISSN: 1747–5376 The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic ELI S. McCARTHY Georgetown University Would the Catholic Church benefit from focusing on a just peace moral framework? If so, how do we most effectively move toward this goal? In my response to these two questions, I will focus on three areas: 1) the purpose of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative; 2) a just peace moral framework and how it applies to a conflict case; and 3) key questions on mass atrocities and the just war ethic. Purpose of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative (CNI) In April 2016, the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, members of the Justice and Peace Commission of the global leaders of women and men religious institutes (UISG, USG), U.S. Conferences of Women and Men Religious Leaders (LCWR, CMSM), Pax Christi International, and more than eighty-five representatives (including six bishops) from around the world were all part of a wonderful conference focused on gospel nonviolence and just peace.1 Many participants came from contexts of violence and war—e.g., Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, South Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Philippines, and Colombia. Our focus was on active nonviolence in order to help the Catholic community develop a deeper understanding and commitment to nonviolence as the power of love in action; as the path to fuller truth;2 as a spirituality, way of life, and distinct virtue; and finally as an effective method and constructive force for transforming conflict, challenging all forms of violence, and protecting the vulnerable. We heard from Catholic leaders, such as Archbishop Odama and Francisco de Roux, S.J., who negotiated with very violent armed actors such as the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and the FARC and paramilitaries in Colombia. We also heard from Sr. Matty Nazik from Iraq who called us to stop the militarization of her country, to stop bombing, and to rely on nonviolent strategies.3 81 McCarthy Mairead Maguire, who is a Nobel Peace Prize winner from Ireland, and Father de Roux both spoke about how the just war mentality is getting in the way of developing nonviolent practices.4 In the end, we crafted an appeal to the Catholic Church that included asking Pope Francis to write an encyclical on nonviolence, to scale-up key nonviolent practices and education, to initiate a global conversation, to shift to a just peace ethic, and no longer to use or teach “just war” as a Catholic approach.5 The CNI website offers many resources, such as frequently asked questions, expert background papers, and a page to endorse the appeal as an individual or organization.6 Other U.S. Catholic ethicists, theologians, and thinkers who participated in the conference or endorsed the appeal include Gerald Schlabach, Marie Dennis, Ken Butigan, Lisa Sowle Cahill, Terry Rynne, Sister Joan Chittister, Sister Marianne Farina, Father John Dear, David Cochran, Dan Cosacchi, John Sniegocki, and Robert Meager. In addition to U.S. leadership conferences of religious institutes, more than a hundred individual religious orders in the U.S. have endorsed the appeal.7 The national bishops’ conferences of Japan and Belgium also have endorsed the appeal. A Just Peace Moral Framework A just peace ethic is rooted in an understanding of creation as a sacred gift, the biblical notion of Shalom that “justice and peace shall embrace” (Psalm 85.10), the Sermon on the Mount, Catholic social teaching, and the vocation to be missionary disciples. It reminds us that peace requires justice-making, but also that peacemaking is the way to true justice. As Pope Francis stated, “justice never comes from killing.”8 Jesus modeled this approach. Living under military occupation, he became vulnerable, cared for outcasts, loved and forgave enemies, challenged the religious, political, economic, and military powers of the day, and finally risked and offered his life on the cross to expose and transcend both injustice and violence.9 Thus, this just peace approach is consistent with gospel nonviolence. And according to Pope Francis, “true discipleship must embrace Jesus’ teaching about nonviolence.”10 The Sermon on the Mount diagnoses the traditional righteousness that is good as far as it goes but still gets us stuck in or even perpetuates vicious cycles. Jesus thus proposes transforming initiatives, such as asserting our dignity and loving enemies.11 The Beatitudes call each of us to a way of life that includes the virtue of active nonviolence.12 This virtue of active nonviolence realizes the goods of conciliatory love that draws enemies toward friendship and the truth of our ultimate unity and equal dignity.13 Related virtues include mercy, compassion, empathy, humility, The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic 82 hospitality, solidarity, courage, and justice. Nonviolence specifies courage as suffering out of reverence for the dignity or sacred gift of others, without distorting our own dignity by possessing or killing others, and focuses on justice as restorative justice.14 Against this background, Pope Francis called the Sermon on the Mount the “manual” for peacemaking and challenged political and religious leaders to apply the beatitudes in the exercise of their responsibilities.15 A just peace ethic also builds on the trajectory of contemporary popes’ teaching and statements. In the early 1960s, Pope John XXIII wrote that “war is not a suitable way to restore rights.”16 Paul VI linked peace and structural justice and said the “Church cannot accept violence, especially the force of arms.”17 John Paul II said that “violence is evil, it violates our dignity, it is the enemy of justice,”18 and called us “not to follow those who train us in how to kill.”19 The Compendium of Social Doctrine drew on John Paul II in its call to “reject definitively the idea that justice can be sought through recourse to war.”20 Benedict XVI called “love of enemies the nucleus of the Christian revolution”21 and said that it is “impossible to interpret Jesus as violent.”22 Pope Francis focuses us on mercy. He has claimed that “the true force of the Christian is truth and love, which means rejecting all violence, so faith and violence are incompatible,”23 “war is the negation of all rights and does grave harm to the environment,”24 and “war is never a necessity.”25 He told us “not to bomb or make war on ISIS”26 and claimed that “the door is always open to dialogue, even with ISIS.”27 More details about this trajectory, nuances, and lingering dilemmas around armed force in Catholic social teaching can be found in Lisa Sowle Cahill’s background paper to the 2016 conference.28 In addition, the World Council of Churches called for turning to a just peace approach in 2011,29 as did interfaith leaders in 2012.30 Drawing on this trajectory and the work of other scholars like Gerald Schlabach, I propose a just peace ethic with three distinct, yet overlapping spheres: 1) the virtues and skills for engaging conflict constructively (jus in conflictionis); 2) practices and transforming initiatives to break cycles of violence (jus ex bellum); and 3) ongoing actions and policies to build more sustainable peace (jus ad pacem).31 In the first sphere, the key virtues of active nonviolence, mercy, compassion, empathy, humility, hospitality, solidarity, courage, and justice can help us to focus on developing the character 83 McCarthy necessary for the practices of a just peace ethic. With these virtues, we will be better motivated and prepared to imagine nonviolent ways to transform conflict and to choose and stand by those ways through difficult situations. Virtues also help us to integrate or keep consistent means and ends: that is, to observe what Jarem Sawatsky calls the principle of reflexivity.32 As a virtue approach, this understanding of nonviolence goes beyond pacifism, which is often understood as a rule against violence.33 Sphere two includes practices and transformative initiatives that entail both constructive peacebuilding and nonviolent resistance. For example, one set of guiding practices is nonviolent direct action, which includes creative nonviolent resistance to injustice, unarmed civilian protection, and nonviolent civilian-based defense. Nonviolent resistance has worked against ruthless dictators, and research of 320 cases over the last hundred years has proven that nonviolent resistance has been over two times more effective in accomplishing political objectives than violent resistance, and even more at least ten times more likely to yield durable democracy.34 In large part, this is due to nonviolence’s humanizing each party, diminishing key sources of power, and getting broader, diverse participation.35 Another set of transforming initiatives includes the goals of drawing adversaries toward partnership and addressing root causes of conflict.36 Practices in this regard include acknowledging responsibility for harm; identifying the human needs of all actors; and independent initiatives to cultivate trust, heal trauma, and work toward restorative justice. An additional set of transforming initiatives focuses on significantly reducing weapons and the arms trade, toward what Pope Francis called “integral disarmament.”37 One particular practice worth elaboration is unarmed civilian protection. This practice is offered by about fifteen organizations such as Nonviolent Peaceforce, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Cure Violence,38 and Operation Dove, which is a Catholic organization. In South Sudan, Nonviolent Peaceforce’s protection, which engages all armed actors, has reduced sexual assaults and rape by armed actors from regularity to zero in the areas NP patrols and directly saved fourteen people from an armed militia attack. This attack was occurring in a U.N. protection site. As people were running and being shot, fourteen women and children rushed into a mud hut with two NP officers. Three different times, the armed militia came in demanding that the NP officers leave, but each time they refused, saying they were unarmed and non-partisan. Amazingly, the fourteen women and children survived the attack.39 The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic 84 Sphere three operates at all stages of conflict. Normative guidelines to help build sustainable peace through policies and ongoing actions include cultivating healthy relationships and reconciliation, ensuring environmental justice, building a robust civil society and just governance, illuminating human dignity and ensuring human rights, fostering an economy with a focus on the marginalized and vulnerable, and finally outlawing war through the U.N. Vatican II made a profound statement that it was “our clear duty to strain every muscle as we work for the time when all war can be completely outlawed.”40 The key questions to ask in order to implement these norms of a just peace ethic are: What habits (virtues/vices) and skill-sets are needed to engage conflict constructively? What are the root causes of the conflict? What just peace practices and transforming initiatives hold promise to break cycles of violence? What actions and policies could help build sustainable peace?41 As we discern how to respond to these questions for specific contexts, the just peace ethic calls us to choose acts that enhance rather than obstruct the various norms in each of the three, overlapping spheres discussed above. By way of example, if we look at Syria, a just peace approach would clarify the root causes of the conflict and suggest some of the following transformative initiatives:  Being attentive to the virtue of active nonviolence calls us to humanize all parties. Accordingly, we would exercise humanizing rhetoric towards all to defuse the violence and see more clearly the path toward just peace. Further, in accord with participatory processes, we would focus on diplomacy that attempts to include all key stakeholders, both armed and unarmed.42  We would increase funding for local, nonviolent civil society organizations, particularly led by women. Through these organizations, we would offer creative forms of trauma-healing and training in nonviolent civil resistance. For example, Jesuit Refugee Services has offered trauma-healing that has prevented young men from joining the civil war.43 Trauma-healing is vital not just for children, but for people directly involved in or connected to political negotiations, as well as those involved in armed action. Examples of nonviolent resistance against ISIS include Muslim leaders encircling a sacred site in Mosul, which prevented ISIS from destroying it, and a Muslim woman marching to ISIS headquarters for thirty day straight demanding release of political prisoners, which ISIS finally did.44 85 McCarthy  Economic pressure would be applied on all armed actors fueling the flames of war, such as those buying oil from ISIS. Rather than mostly ad hoc attempts, a more coordinated strategy would be developed for using credible messengers to entice defections from armed groups such as ISIS. Further, significant reduction in the flow of arms would be promoted. We ought to note that ninety-two percent of civilians in Syria who lived in ISIS territory opposed the U.S.-led bombing, and fifty-six percent opposed it in Iraq.45 Key Questions and Implications for the Church In such violent situations, but particularly in mass atrocities, what might be the role of the Church? To answer this question, we should recall that the mission of the Church is to draw people to a loving relationship with God by illuminating God’s way in the person of Jesus. This calls the Church to be a sacrament of our ultimate unity as children of God and with all creation. Hence, Cardinal Peter Turkson has said that “all killing is fratricide,”46 or the killing of a close family member, and that no war is “morally good.”47 Using a pastoral approach when a large-scale lethal threat is near and grave, what if the Church —as the People of God—focused on active nonviolence by using a just peace ethic before, during, and after such events? Further, what if the Church advocated for nonviolent strategies for protection of those at risk and for transforming the conflict while also pointing to societies’ underinvestment in developing these strategies? If governments or the U.N. decides, based on international law, in favor of military action in situations where atrocities are being committed, the Church’s role should be to insist that the answer is not war or killing, but protection and transformation.48 Further, the Church should name the atrocities and the violent response of military action as a tragedy, or as the World Council of Churches said “a failure and obstacle on the way of just peace,”49 and make clear that they are both inconsistent with human dignity and a culture of human rights for all. As Pope John Paul II said, “violence is evil” and “violates our dignity.”50 The Church does not need to and should not either provide explicit justification, or even signal legitimation for violent responses.51 When the level of dehumanization is so high, what is necessary is more creativity together with the willingness to risk one’s life, without killing, for the sake of the dignity of all people. In brief, the Church’s role should be to keep a just peace ethic front and center. Thus, the Church would not be abandoning The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic 86 the responsibility to protect. Instead, it would be shifting the focus to how we might protect communities consistent with methods that better ensure sustainable transformation of the conflict. The just peace ethic would likely better enable us to protect all life, but even more so illuminate the sacred dignity of all persons and creation. Now that I have explored what a just peace ethic looks like and how it might function for the Catholic Church, I can engage more directly and effectively the question about the future of the just war ethic as a Catholic approach. In order to have clearer eyes in analyzing the just war ethic, I think it is crucial that we name just some of the costs of war today. Nearly 66,000,000 people are displaced by war and violence, which comes out to one in every 113 people, with children making up half of all refugees.52 The Syrian war has killed about 475,000 people, the Iraq War more than 268,000, the Afghanistan/Pakistan war more than 160,000, the bombing of ISIS at least 9,000 civilians, and the war in Yemen more than 10,000 civilians, plus one person every hour dying from cholera.53 The U.S. has spent over $5.6 trillion on war since 9/11.54 In addition, we have to reckon with the significant amount of indirect deaths, trauma, suicide, domestic violence, sexual assaults and rape, child soldiers, environmental damage, and blowback violence, such as ISIS attacks in numerous countries. In this reality, a just peace ethic likely would better enable us to transform conflict by addressing structural and cultural violence. By cultural violence, I mean those aspects of culture that can be used to justify or legitimate either direct or structural violence. Examples include language, conflict habits, symbols, ideology, moral frameworks, media, racism, and sexism.55 The very language of “just war” too often functions, even if unintentionally, as a form of cultural violence that legitimates direct and structural violence. Further, the just peace ethic also poses less risk of abuse than the just war ethic does, which has mostly functioned to justify or enable war. 56 This has too often occurred in the political arena, despite Catholic leadership’s drawing, at times, on a restrictive account of what constitutes just war. The issue here is more about the concept of war as morally justifiable and all that flows from it and less about versions of a just war ethic.57 The crucial point is that the just war approach has not adequately fulfilled the intended effect to prevent and limit war. Recently, U.S. Bishop Robert McElroy claimed that just war principles have “become only a little bit less than a green light” for war, and that the Church must “recognize the increasing incapacity of the just war tradition to be an effective constraint on warfare in the modern age.”58 It is true that all moral frameworks are 87 McCarthy susceptible to abuse; however, with the just war ethic, we not only have strong evidence of consistent abuse over the last sixteen hundred years, but enormous and horrendous consequences from such abuse.59 Even wars that appear “just” to some based on just war criteria still inevitably get us stuck in vicious cycles of violence, as we saw with WWII leading to the Cold War and numerous proxy wars, such as Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan in the 1980s. That war in Afghanistan yielded the resentment and conditions that gave birth to Al-Qaeda, the blowback of 9/11, the ongoing war of seventeen years in Afghanistan, the growth and spread of Al-Qaeda, the misguided frenzy to attack Iraq in 2003, and the eventual morphing of much of Al-Qaeda into ISIS.60 Breaking these vicious cycles is precisely a key focus of the just peace ethic. Some argue that, even if the ad bellum criteria have been mostly abused, the in bello criteria have proven useful to limiting killing in wars. The in bello criteria may have restrained some actors in militaries as well as contributed to the development of international law, and this of course is a good thing. However, the gains achieved by limiting some violence in war are still outweighed by the rampant abuse of the in bello criteria, the legitimation of war, and the overall immense suffering caused by ongoing wars. For example, WWII had about seven times more civilian deaths than WWI as well as two to three times more civilians killed than military persons.61 In the early 1900s, about ten percent of deaths in war were civilians; since 2000, about eighty-seven percent have been civilians.62 These numbers do not even include indirect deaths of civilians—about three to fifteen times more than direct deaths—from lack of clean water, sewage, electricity, and medical supplies.63 Meanwhile, proportionality as used in a just war framework is ambiguous and vague, and thus too often easily abused.64 It is also arguably inconsistent with the orientation of Christian scripture.65 Further, relying on these criteria, as well as expending energy on enhancing and refining them, likely will distract us from the Church’s explicit call to “strain every muscle” to “outlaw war.” In contrast, the just peace ethic could function to limit war (and strengthen international law) as the in bello norms intend, but likely more effectively, more broadly, and more sustainably, while supporting the movement to outlaw war. Some have responded to the limitations and abuses of the ad bellum and in bello by articulating post bellum and even ante bellum criteria.66 I would argue that some of the concepts and values inherent in these developments could be integrated into the just peace ethic, rather than embellishing the just war framework and possibly justifying war. Likewise, Lisa Sowle Cahill The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic 88 describes such developments, “combined with the continued scourge” of war and violence, as ultimately opening “the door to ‘just peace’ as a more adequate way to respond to military and societal violence than the application of just war theory, both from a Christian and from a political or humanistic standpoint.”67 Another advantage of the just peace ethic is that it is less likely to cultivate the structural violence that is perpetuated by massive preparations for war. These preparations divert and consume massive resources. The U.S. spends over $600 billion a year on the Pentagon, a sum that is going up, and only $50 billion a year on the Department of State, which is getting cut along with both domestic and international poverty programs. Consider as well the development of increasingly destructive and autonomous weapons, the arms trade, and a war system increasingly embedded in our economy and politics. The just peace ethic will better help all of us, but particularly Catholics, to imagine, develop, and commit to nonviolent practices. Thus, it will better form us as peacemakers. Gerald Schlabach argues that “just-war theory cannot be counted as useful if it only works consistently among specialists, and not to mobilize stringent scrutiny of warfare in pews and populace.” Just-war theorists, he goes on, “must […] recognize the theory’s failure to help the people of God scrutinize and resist unjust war.”68 Some just war supporters will argue that we just need better formation programs. That may help a bit. However, if the just war ethic has been the primary moral framework for the Catholic Church over the last sixteen hundred years and we still haven’t figured out effective formation methods, it seems eminently reasonable if not urgent to seriously consider another moral framework. Not only has the just war ethic largely failed to form us as peacemakers, but the ongoing legitimation of it by the Catholic Church at least distracts from or even obstructs the development and commitment to nonviolent practices. For example, we spend little if any time trying to imagine how to humanize or illuminate the dignity of our enemies, which is not only a Gospel mandate but an essential step in overcoming mass violence. When Pope Francis said not to “bomb or make war” on ISIS, most U.S. Catholic press and many political and religious leaders discerned some openness to some military action. The Catholic community would have better faced the call not to “bomb or make war” by seeking to identify creative nonviolent responses.69 A just peace ethic better avoids such distraction and obstruction because it is more clearly consistent with Jesus’ call to love the way he loved us. With a clearer grounding in the scriptures, 89 McCarthy this ethic helps us to see Jesus’ concrete way of nonviolence, to put on the “mind of Christ,”70 and to become nonviolent peacemakers in our daily lives. It calls for love of friends and enemies in concrete, visible, and comprehensible ways, not merely by way of good intentions or emotions.71 Thus, we are drawn to creative nonviolent responses rather than killing enemies, because they too remain our neighbors and have sacred dignity. Cahill puts it more bluntly: “killing is patently incompatible with love of neighbor and the example of Jesus.”72 Others might argue that we need to prioritize the most vulnerable in conflict situations, which may entail choosing to kill the aggressive party. I would respond that, while we may take greater risks for those who are most vulnerable, we recognize that the sacred dignity or “that of God” in every party involved is honored and illuminated by relying on creative nonviolent risks.73 Overall, a just peace ethic is more likely to prevent, limit, and move us toward outlawing war.74 Thus, it may better fill the space Pope Francis named as the Church’s “efforts to limit the use of force by the application of moral norms.”75 Further, it also better transforms conflict, breaks cycles of violence, builds more sustainable peace, and is more clearly consistent with Jesus’ call to love the way he loved us. In light of these significant advantages and the urgent needs in our society for creative nonviolent transformation of conflict, my argument is that the Catholic Church should at least shift its focus and primary moral framework to a just peace ethic. This corresponds with Lisa Sowle Cahill’s argument that “just peace, not just war, should be the distinguishing mark and calling of the global Catholic Church.”76 Bishop McElroy goes a little further in saying “we need conversion from the logic of war to the logic of peace.”77 In this process of shifting or conversion, I suspect that we will discover that the just war ethic at a minimum distracts and too often obstructs us from more fully living the nonviolent ways of a just peace ethic. More important, it also appears to distract and obstruct the Catholic Church from more fully living its mission to illuminate and draw people to loving relationship with Jesus, the merciful one of God. In turn, I suspect we will soon discover the need for the Catholic Church to let go of the just war ethic as a Catholic approach. If the Catholic Church lets go of the just war ethic, then the norms from the just war tradition would still remain in international law at least in the near-term. However, Catholics would be invited and challenged to focus on a just peace ethic in our education, mobilization, investments, and advocacy.78 This would help the global community and political decision-makers to move toward scaling up nonviolent initiatives and abolishing war.79 The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic 90 Conclusion I will end with two instructive and hopefully inspiring quotations from leaders of very different institutions. U.S. General Douglas MacArthur fought in WWI, WWII, and the Korean War. After these experiences, he realized “you cannot control war; you can only abolish it […]. Those who lack the enterprise, vision, and courage to try a new approach when none others have succeeded, fail completely the simple test of leadership.”80 More recently, Pope Francis proclaimed, “In the silence of the Cross, the uproar of weapons ceases and the language of peace is spoken.”81 Into this holy silence, I pray that the Catholic Church might better embody the courageous nonviolent creativity of the gospels by shifting to a just peace ethic. Notes 1. “About the Nonviolence and Just Peace Conference,” https://nonviolencejustpeace.net/about/. 2. This characteristic is based on the recognition that each person has a piece of the truth to offer. Gandhi used the term satyagraha, meaning “clinging to truth,” to describe his nonviolent movement. Thus, if we kill others, we make it more difficult to see the fuller truth. 3. See Rose Marie Berger, “Game Changer,” in Sojourners, December 2016, 17–23, on Sister Nazik’s contribution to the conference. As Berger quotes her: “Which of the wars we have been in is a just war? In my country, there was no just war. War is the mother of ignorance, isolation, and poverty. Please tell the world there is no such thing as a just war. I say this as a daughter of war. We can’t respond to violence with worse violence. In order to kill five violent men, we have to create ten violent men to kill them. This encourages the spiral of violence up and up. And the people are so exhausted because they don’t know what’s happening. It’s like a dragon with seven heads. You cut one and two others come up [...] [so] we try to create an environment of nonviolence.” 4. See videos from the conference at https://nonviolencejustpeace.net/videos-nonviolenceconference-fishbowl-sessions/. 91 McCarthy 5. The specific nonviolent practices identified were nonviolent resistance, restorative justice, trauma-healing, unarmed civilian protection, conflict transformation, and peacebuilding strategies. See “An Appeal to the Catholic Church to Re-commit to the Centrality of Gospel Nonviolence,” April 13, 2016, https://nonviolencejustpeace.net/final-statement-an-appealto-the-catholic-church-to-re-commit-to-the-centrality-of-gospel-nonviolence/. 6. Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, www.nonviolencejustpeace.net. 7. “Organizational and Individual Endorsements of the Appeal,” https://nonviolencejustpeace.net/organizational-and-individual-endorsements-of-theappeal/. 8. Pope Francis, “No Matter What the Crime,” Catholic News Agency, March 20, 2015, https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-no-matter-what-the-crime-thedeath-penalty-is-inadmissible-89127. 9. Luke 6:20, Matthew 5:21–26, 25: 31–46; Mark 1.40–45, 8:34–38; John 18: 36–38. Also see Glen Stassen and David Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2003); Dan Harrington, Historical Dictionary of Jesus (Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 7; N.T. Wright, “Kingdom Come: Public Meaning of the Gospels,” Christian Century, June 17, 2008, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2008-06/kingdom-come; and Walter Wink, “Beyond Just War and Pacifism: Jesus’ Nonviolent Way,” Review and Expositer 89/2 (1992): 197–214. For more explanation of these claims about Jesus, see Eli S. McCarthy, Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers: A Virtue Ethic for Catholic Social Teaching and U.S. Policy (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2012). 10. Pope Francis, “Nonviolence: A Style of Politics,” World Day of Peace Message, January 1, 2017, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/peace/documents/papa- francesco_20161208_messaggio-l-giornata-mondiale-pace-2017.html. 11. Glen Stassen, “The Fourteen Triads of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5.21–7.12),” Journal of Biblical Literature 122/2 (2003): 267–308. Consider, for example, Mt 5:38–42: an eye for an eye gets us stuck in a vicious cycle of retaliation or violence, so we need to The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic 92 assert our dignity, i.e., turn the other cheek, to throw the oppressor off balance and initiate a nonviolent social movement. 12. Pope Francis signals this sense of nonviolence as a virtue by calling us “to cultivate nonviolence in our most personal thoughts and values” and “daily gestures.” See his “Nonviolence: A Style of Politics.” 13. See further McCarthy, Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers. 14. See Christopher Marshall, Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime, and Punishment (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), and Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Restorative Justice (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2002). 15. Pope Francis, “Nonviolence: A Style of Politics.” 16. Pope John XXIII, Pacem in terris, April 11, 1963, §127, http://w2.vatican.va/content/ johnxxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem.html. 17. Pope Paul VI, “On Evangelization in the Modern World,” 1975, §37, http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_pvi_exh_19751208_evangelii-nuntiandi.html. 18. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of Social Doctrine of the Church (2004), §496, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justp eace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html. 19. Pope John Paul II, Homily at Drogheda, Ireland, Sept. 29, 1979, https:// w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/1979/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19790929 _irlanda-dublino-drogheda.html. Yet, in 1993 he did affirm the international “duty to disarm the aggressor” in situations where populations face unjust aggressors. See his “Address to the Diplomatic Corps,” January 16, 1993, §13, https:// w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/1993/january/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_ 19930116_corpo-diplomatico.html. How the aggressor is disarmed becomes the challenge to be worked out. 93 McCarthy 20. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of Social Doctrine of the Church (2004), §438. Cf. Pope John Paul II, Centesimus annus, 23: AAS 83 (1991), 820–821. 21. Pope Benedict XVI, Midday Angelus, February 18, 2007, https://w2. vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/angelus/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20070218. html. 22. Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, March 11, 2012. Benedict acknowledges the emerging principle of responsibility to protect, but calls for it to be implemented in “innovative ways.” See his Caritas in veritate (“On Integral Development in Charity and Truth”), 2009, §67, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben- xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate.html and his “Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations,” New York, April 18, 2008, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedictxvi/en/speeches/2008/april/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080418_un-visit.html. 23. Pope Francis, Angelus, August 19, 2013, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2013/documents/papafrancesco_angelus_20130818.html. 24. Pope Francis, Laudato §56, Si’, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papafrancesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html, and speech at the United Nations, September 25, 2015, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/september/documents/papafrancesco_20150925_onu-visita.html. 25. Pope Francis, Message to Sant’ Egidio, Zenit, September 8, 2014, https://zenit.org/articles/pope-francis-message-to-sant-egidio-international-peacemeeting-in-antwerp/. 26. Francis Rocca, “Pope Francis: I Would Visit Iraq to Help Stop the Violence,” Catholic Herald, August 19, 2014, http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/08/19/pope-francisi-would-to-iraq-to-help-stop-violence/. The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic 94 27. Stoyan Zaimov, “Pope Francis Says Door of Dialogue Should Never Close,” Christian Post, November 26, 2014, https://www.christianpost.com/news/pope-francis-says-doorof-dialogue-with-isis-should-never-close-warns-fighting-terrorism-leads-to-deaths-ofinnocents-130277/. 28. Lisa Sowle Cahill, “Official Catholic Social Thought on Gospel Nonviolence,” April, 2016, https://nonviolencejustpeace.net/framing-papers/. 29. World Council of Churches, “Ecumenical Call to Just Peace,” 2011, http://www.overcomingviolence.org/fileadmin/dov/files/iepc/resources/ECJustPeace_Eng lish.pdf 30. See Susan Thistlethwaite, ed., Interfaith Just Peacemaking (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 31. Gerald Schlabach uses the categories of jus in conflictionis, jus ex bellum, and jus ad pacem. 32. Jarem Sawatsky, Justpeace Ethics: A Guide to Restorative Justice and Peacebuilding (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008), 12–13. 33. Further, this sphere would include sustaining spiritual disciplines, such as fasting, meditation, and prayer, including a Eucharistic prayer that explicitly names Jesus’ love of enemies and rejection of violence. See Rev. Emmanuel McCarthy, The Nonviolent Eucharistic Jesus: A Pastoral Approach (Wilmington, DE: Center for Christian Nonviolence, 2011). Also critical would be training and education in nonviolent communication and resistance, forming nonviolent peacemaking communities and institutions, and generating participatory processes. 34. Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth, Why Civilian Resistance Works (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 7, 213–214. This research focused on cases with political objectives to end a regime or an occupation and to gain self-determination. Yet, the judgment that nonviolent resistance is ten times more likely to yield durable democracy may actually be an underestimation. This is because, of the three cases given as “successful” violent revolutions that led to basic “durable democracies,” at least two are 95 McCarthy quite questionable and certainly not promising models. The Bengali campaign in 1971 saw major political corruption, coups, and military leaders for twenty years afterwards. The Jewish resistance in 1948 has been followed by significant habits of violence, both direct and structural, such as the occupation of Palestine. By contrast, the Costa Rica campaign ending in 1948 was quite short and mixed with significant nonviolent action, but ultimately Costa Rica decided to disband its entire military, which still holds today. 35. Some of these sources of power include: (1) authority—the belief among the people that the regime is legitimate, and that they have a moral duty to obey it; (2) human resources— the number and importance of the persons who are obeying, cooperating, or providing assistance to the regime; (3) skills and knowledge—needed by the regime to perform specific actions and supplied by the cooperating persons; (4) intangible factors— psychological and ideological factors that may induce people to obey and assist the regime; (5) material resources—the degree to which the rulers control or have access to property, natural resources, financial resources, the economic system, and means of communication and transportation; (6) sanctions—punishments, threatened or applied, against the disobedient and non-cooperative to ensure the submission and cooperation that are needed for the regime to exist and carry out its policies. See Gene Sharp, How Nonviolent Struggle Works (Boston: Albert Einstein Institute, 2013), 5–6, http://www.aeinstein.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/01/How-Nonviolent-Struggle-Works.pdf. 36. These are associated with a conflict transformation approach as distinct from conflict resolution. See John Paul Lederach, The Little Book of Conflict Transformation (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2003). 37. See Jim Fair, “Pope Stresses Need to Halt Nuclear Arms,” Zenit, November 10, 2017, https://zenit.org/articles/pope-stresses-need-to-halt-nuclear-arms/. 38. Cure Violence works in both the U.S. and in other countries. It hires credible neighborhood messengers, who have lowered shootings and homicides by 40–70 percent and even 88 percent in Honduras. See http://cureviolence.org/results/scientific-evaluations/. The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic 96 39. One of the NP officers said, “If we had a gun we would’ve been shot immediately; so without arms we can find other ways.” See https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=_WcFwpcIMcE. 40. Pope Paul VI, Gaudium et spes (“Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World”), December 7, §81, 1965, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vatii_cons_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html. 41. More specifically, the actions chosen must enhance or at least not obstruct the different norms in the three spheres. 42. Civil society groups were largely left out of negotiations as well as certain armed groups. 43. See Jesuit Refugee Service, “Syria: Finding Community at the Alberto Hurtado Centre,” https://en.jrs.net/campaign_detail?TN=PROJECT-20170317103615. 44. See See Srdja Popovic and Raphael Mimoun, “How to Beat the Islamic Network through Nonviolence,” Foreign Policy, March 14, 2016, http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/14/howto-beat-the-islamic-state-through-non-violence/; “ISIL Deserters Speak Out,” Aljazeera, October 13, 2016, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2016/10/isil-desertersspeak-161012114646472.html. Maria Stephan, “Resisting ISIS,” in Sojourners, April 2015; and Alia Braley, “This Talk is Not about ISIS,” TEDxTV, April 12, 2017, https://tedxtv.blogspot.com/2017/04/this-talk-is-not-about-isis-alia-braley.html. Another example is local businesses going on strike in Aleppo, which slowed down the ISIS operations and led to electricity’s being restored. 45. Paul Shinkman, “Poll: Syrians, Iraqis Believe U.S. Created ISIS, Don’t Support War,” U.S. News and World Report, December 18, 2015, https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015-12-18/poll-majority-of-syrians-iraqis-dontsupport-obamas-anti-isis-war-believe-us-created-extremists. Reportedly, the U.S. killed over 9,000 civilians in our “liberation” bombing of Mosul, which is likely more than ISIS fighters killed. See Associated Press, “Freedom from IS in Mosul Costs Lives of 9,000 Plus 97 McCarthy Civilians,” Washington December Post, 20, https://wtop.com/middle- 2017, east/2017/12/9000-plus-dead-in-mosul-cost-to-oust-islamic-state-group/. 46. Cardinal Peter Turkson, “Welcome Address,” at conference entitled Nonviolence and Just hosted Peace, in Rome, Italy, April 11, 2016, http://www.justpax.va/content/giustiziaepace/en/attivita1/presidente/2016/conference-onnonviolence-and-just-peace--welcome-address-by-car.html. 47. Cardinal Peter Turkson, “Christian Nonviolence and Just Peace,” at the conference entitled The Catholic Church Moves Towards Nonviolence? Just Peace/Just War in Dialogue, hosted by the University of San Diego, October 7, 2017, http://www.sandiego.edu/news/detail.php?_focus=64613. 48. Any protection effort must be concretely consistent with and serve a larger goal to become more virtuous people; address key human needs of all actors, including adversaries; and promote the welfare of the entire human community, including those in adversary nations. Focusing on a just peace moral framework and drawing the broader society and governments toward that framework will likely better enable these commitments. 49. World Council of Churches, “Ecumenical Call to Just Peace,” 2011, §23, http://www.ucc.org/justice/just-peace/pdf/ECJustPeace_English.pdf. Acknowledging the authority of the U.N. and international law, the document states that, “as Christians we feel obliged to go further” and challenge “any justifications for use of military power.” See §§22–23. 50. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of Social Doctrine of the Church (2004), §496, quoting Pope John Paul II, September 29, 1979. 51. By “signal legitimation,” I include the tactic of identifying criteria for when war or killing might be legitimate: e.g., pointing to just war criteria. 52. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, “War, Violence, Persecution Push Displacement to New Unprecedented High,” June 19, 2017, http://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2017/6/5943ec594/war-violence-persecution-pushdisplacement-new-unprecedented-high.html. The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic 98 53. Bethan McKernan, “Yemen: Almost one death per hour as cholera epidemic spreads like wildfire,” Independent, June 9, 2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middleeast/yemen-war-deaths-cholera-epidemic-dying-every-hour-a7782341.html. 54. Watson Institute of Brown University, “Costs of War,” http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures. 55. Johan Galtung, “Cultural Violence,” Journal of Peace Research 27/3 (1990): 291–305. 56. See Robert J. Delahunty and John Yoo, “From Just War to False Peace,” Chicago Journal of International Law 13/1 (2012): 1–45. This article shows that consistent abuse can be traced from Cicero and the Roman Empire (7–10), through medieval times with the popes and Crusades (12–13), the years of conquest in the “New World” (14–15), and the modern period with the “sovereign state” logic of war (16–17). Even Hugo Grotius acknowledged that “just war theory contributes to the likelihood and ferocity of war” (19). For other resources to look at this issue during the twentieth century, see Johan Verstraeten, “The Just War Tradition and Peace Thinking 1914–1964,” in From Just War to Just Peace: Catholics between Militarism and Pacifism in Historical-Theological Perspective, eds. Roger Burggraeve, et al. (Leuven: Universitaire Pers, 1993), 89–112. See also Jonathan Glover, Humanity. A Moral History of the Twentieth Century (London: Pimlico, 2001). 57. Gerry Powers, who supports restrictive just war, still affirms the point that it is too often used to endorse war. See interview with Gretchen Crowe, Our Sunday Visitor, April 20, 2016, https://www.osv.com/%22/OSVNewsweekly/Vatican/Article/TabId/719/ArtMID/13626/ ArticleID/19722/Powers-Catholic-social-doctrine-is-‘just-peace’-.aspx%22. See my response to his interview, “Shifting the Lens: Just Peace and Nonviolence,” Huffington Post, August 2, 2016, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/eli-s-mccarthy/shifting-the-lensjust-pe_b_11286824.html. 58. Joshua McElwee, “Pope Condemns Possession of Nuclear Weapons,” National Catholic Reporter, November 10, 2017, https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/pope-condemnspossession-nuclear-weapons-shift-churchs-acceptance-deterrence. 99 McCarthy 59. Gerald Schlabach argues that “the logical principle that abusus non tollit usum (misuse of something is no argument against its proper use) is simply not convincing as applied to the just-war theory. For in order to override both the plain words of Jesus and early Christian scruples against all bloodshed, and to justify exceptional recourse to violence in order to prevent more violence, the best and perhaps only argument has always been some claim of greater realism. But […] the persistent manipulation of just-war discourse is itself a data point concerning reality, a ‘hard fact’ with which its advocates must grapple far more. To evade such grappling by insisting it could still work in theory is something of a bait and switch.” See his reply to readers’ letters in Commonweal, September 20, 2017, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/letters-more-just-war. 60. Consider that about 3,000 people were killed on 9/11; meanwhile more than 160,000 have been killed in the following war in Afghanistan. 61. Estimates have about six million Jews killed by the Holocaust and about another forty million civilians killed in the war. Military deaths were about fifteen million. See “Documenting Numbers of Victims of Holocaust and Nazi Persecution,” United States Holocaust Museum, https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10008193; and “Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II,” National WWII Museum, New Orleans, https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student- resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war. 62. See Center for Systemic Peace, “Global Conflicts Trends,” 2017, especially figure 8, http://www.systemicpeace.org/conflicttrends.html. 63. Todd Whitmore, “Peacebuilding and Its Challenging Partners,” in Peacebuilding: Catholic Theology, Ethics, and Praxis, eds. Robert J. Schreiter, R. Scott Appleby, and Gerard F. Powers (Maryknoll: NY, Orbis, 2010), 163–167. 64. Examples of claimed proportionality include the atomic bombs in WWII, the “shock and awe” bombing of Iraq in 2003, and the Israeli bombing of Gaza in 2014 that decimated the area. See Johan Verstraeten, “From ‘Just War’ to ‘Ethics of Conflict Resolution’: A Critique of Just War Thinking in Light of the War in Iraq,” Ethical Perspectives, 11 (2004): 2–3. The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic 100 65. Examples include: “no one return evil for evil” (1 Thes 5:12–18); “you have heard an eye for eye but I say to you […]” (Mt 5:38–42); “not return insult for insult, but give a blessing” (1 Pet 3:9); and “feed your enemy” (Rom 12:17–21). 66. See Mark J. Allman and Tobias L. Winright, After the Smoke Clears: The Just War Tradition and Post War Justice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2010) and “Growing Edges of Just War Theory: Jus ante bellum, jus post bellum, and Imperfect Justice,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 32/2 (2012): 173–191. For a fuller response to some of Allman and Winright’s concerns about the 2016 Rome conference, see my article with Marie Dennis, “Jesus and ‘Just War?’ Time to focus on Just Peace and Gospel Nonviolence,” Huffington Post, October 1, 2016, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/eli-s-mccarthy/jesusand-just-war-time-t_b_12389472.html. 67. Lisa Sowle Cahill, “Catholic Tradition on Peace, War, and Just Peace,” forthcoming in Eli McCathy, ed., Just Peace Ethic: Virtue-Based and Case Refined (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2019). 68. Gerald Schlabach, “Just War? Enough Already,” Commonweal, May 31, 2017, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/just-war-0. 69. We also rarely hear U.S. religious and political leaders speak about or promote nonviolent resistance, especially boycotts, strikes, and civil disobedience, etc., to injustice and violence. We offer little or inadequate resistance to enormous military spending. The depth and range of education on nonviolent theory and practice is much better in Mennonite or Quaker schools compared to most Catholic institutions. Some might argue that the just war’s last resort criterion should in theory minimize distraction or obstruction. However, the evidence suggests otherwise. 70. Romans 12:10, 13:4, Corinthians 2:16, Philippians 2:5. See Fred Broom, O.M.V., “Put on the Mind of Christ,” Catholic Exchange, June 14, 2016, https://catholicexchange.com/putmind-christ. 71. Lisa Sowle Cahill, Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism, and Just War Theory (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 31. 101 McCarthy 72. Lisa Sowle Cahill, “Catholic Tradition on Peace, War, and Just Peace,” forthcoming in Just Peace Ethic. 73. John 8:1–11 tells a story of Jesus risking life by using creative nonviolence to protect a woman caught in adultery from a violent crowd. My understanding of nonviolence does not exclude some types of physical force, such as pushing someone out of the way of a threat, blocking, impeding, tackling, etc. 74. It might be asked: “If war gets outlawed, how would we enforce it?” This is a topic for another paper, but here are some preliminary comments. There are many social mechanisms involved in “enforcing” laws: political, economic, legal, cultural. The Catholic Church could focus on just peace methods and on scaling up unarmed policing mechanisms as some countries already have (England, Norway, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland). The Church need not condemn those who rely on armed police, but neither must it explicitly justify killing. We might conceive of armed policing as a temporary step within a process of progressive disarmament, or what Pope Francis calls “integral disarmament.” See Jim Fair, “Pope Stresses Need to Halt Nuclear Arms.” 75. Pope Francis, “Nonviolence: A Style of Politics.” 76. Lisa Sowle Cahill, “A Church for Peace?” Commonweal, July 11, 2016, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/church-peace. 77. Bishop Robert McElroy, “We Must Do No Less,” paper presented at the conference Perspectives for a World Free from Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament, Rome, Italy, November 10–11, 2017. 78. The Rome Conference Appeal of 2016 proposes that Catholics “no longer use or teach just war theory.” The latter phrase is addressed in the FAQ section of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative’s website: https://nonviolencejustpeace.net/frequently-asked- questions/#nolongeruse. “The Appeal is to all Catholics, but the initial focus is on the pope and magisterium. The hope is that the pope and magisterium would integrate the Appeal fully into our official teaching, including no longer validating the just war theory as Catholic, as it does in the Catechism, various bishop conference statements, and as regular The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic 102 bishop or other Catholic organizations do as part of their advocacy. However, this doesn’t mean that Catholic academics or others are being asked to not talk about just war in classes or even publications. Catholic academics might still discuss just war as a historical fact of the Church’s tradition, still debate its value, but also spend more time and resources on teaching and developing just peace and peacebuilding consistent with Gospel nonviolence. If the pope and magisterium were to change the teaching then academics at least would hopefully no longer describe just war as a valid official Catholic teaching.” 79. David Cochran has identified historical analogies when the Lateran Council of 1215 officially rejected trial by ordeal and then later in the 1300s it faded away in practice. Also, the Council of Trent banned dueling in 1536, for it to fade away in practice in the 1800s. See Catholic Realism and the Abolition of War (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2014), 119, 125. 80. MacArthur, speech to Massachusetts legislature on July 25, 1951, in General MacArthur: Wisdom and Visions (Nashville, TN: Turner Publishing, 2000), 152. 81. Pope Francis, Homily, at Vigil Prayer for Peace, September https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2013/documents/papafrancesco_20130907_veglia-pace.html. 7, 2013,