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1. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Eli McCarthy, Anna Blackman

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nonviolence and just peace: colonialism, intersectionality, and interfaith

2. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
SimonMary Asese A. Aihiokhai Orcid-ID

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Realizing that the survival of the Church within the Roman Empire was at stake as the empire experienced constant attacks and invasions from the so-called barbarians, the early Church articulated a vision of peace that used war as a legitimate means for realizing it. What is most important in this response to war is the reality of the sociopolitical markers defining the era. Contemporary societies are faced with different sociopolitical realities. The fact that the nation-state is coded with its own existential markers as a political entity that defines the contemporary world makes it necessary to articulate a vision of peacebuilding that does not necessarily follow the response of the early Church in a slavish manner. Consequently, the African palaver approach to peacebuilding is a deliberate attempt to respond to the signs of the times such that it leads to the cultivation of socio-cosmological harmony.
3. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Daniel P. Castillo

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The Beatitudes have long functioned as a cornerstone for spiritualities of nonviolence. In that tradition, this essay explores how active nonviolence, rooted in the hope of the third Matthean beatitude—“Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth”—can be understood as a response to the interrelated cries of the earth and the oppressed within history. To concretize the demands of a political ecology of nonviolence, the essay then examines how the legacies of Western extractive colonialism have shaped the contours of the contemporary planetary emergency, an emergency that is social, cultural, economic, and ecological in nature. The essay concludes by considering how the practice of meekness, in response to the interrelated cries of the earth and the oppressed, might be lived out within the contemporary historical moment.
4. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Eliane Lakam

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Violence is often understood as a phenomenon characterized by direct physical harm customarily motivated by willful malice. In his 2017 World Day of Peace Message, Pope Francis challenges this narrow definition, noting that violence is not confined to physical harm but also includes environmental devastation, which, as he points out, disproportionately harms the most vulnerable members of the planet. Following this claim, this article probes the interrelationship between care for creation, nonviolence, and racial justice, highlighting the significance of this intersectionality within Catholic social teaching. It reflects on Francis’s reading of Gospel nonviolence and his notion of integral ecology, and concludes with a case study that demonstrates the practical application of Francis’s social teachings on creating a more just, nonviolent, and sustainable world.
5. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Erin M. Brigham, Orcid-ID Jonathan D. Greenberg

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In his writings, Pope Francis describes a culture of interfaith and intercultural encounter as the foundation of lasting peace, friendship, and reconciliation among peoples. Far from superficial, a culture of encounter is built upon the slow work of honoring differences and forming social bonds across differences. In the first part of this paper, the authors investigate correspondences between the theology of encounter in the teaching and witness of Martin Buber and Pope Francis, in which the sacred, the ground of reality, and the potential for redemption are revealed in the engaged space “between” self and other. In the second part of the paper, they explore how these ideas are actualized in practices of nonviolence, such as dialogue. In conclusion, they identify how these ideas and role models suggest a road map to build a culture of nonviolence and just peace through encounter within fractured societies throughout the world today.

nonviolence and just peace: catholic formation and parish life

6. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Anna Blackman

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In his 2022 World Day of Peace Message, Pope Francis argues that education serves as an essential mechanism in building “lasting peace.” However, though an ethic of nonviolence has been gaining traction within Church teaching, education for nonviolence remains far from mainstream. This paper will argue that education has a vital role to play in the flourishing of a nonviolent Church. In doing so, it will question how an education for nonviolence might be approached, drawing on Dorothy Day as an exemplar of both pedagogy and praxis.
7. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Casey Mullaney Orcid-ID

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Pope Francis’s encyclical Fratelli tutti elevates some key themes of his papacy. Using the parable of the Good Samaritan as a framing narrative, Francis outlines an active, nonviolent style of politics and social engagement based on practices of attention and hospitality toward one’s neighbors. Francis refers to this mode of engagement as “social friendship.” Francis’s pastoral letters and homilies draw from the content and methodologies common to Latin American liberation theology, but many of his insights are mirrored in an Anglo-American context through the witness of the Catholic Worker movement. This paper looks to the Catholic Worker for a mode by which the Gospel of social friendship can be lived out through asceses of attention and hospitality to the unhoused. Social friendship leads one to responsible action, and universal membership in the Body of Christ calls into question the structures that oppress the vulnerable.
8. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Marc Tumeinski Orcid-ID

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One underappreciated aspect of the practice of nonviolence and just peace is the imperative for the Church to welcome those on the margins, including children and adults with physical and/or intellectual impairments who are vulnerable to dehumanization. Too many children and adults with impairments and their families have not been fully welcomed as sisters and brothers in their local parish. Catholics can draw on a rich theology of peacebuilding in Scripture, Tradition, and Church teaching to respond to these vulnerabilities. Such ongoing transformation is a sign that the Church is being built up in peace and offers a model of communion among a diversity of people.

nonviolence and just peace: ecclesiology and ethics

9. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Ken Butigan Orcid-ID

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Nonviolent action is activity undertaken to call for, struggle for, or achieve change without using violence. This paper examines St. John XXIII’s historic encyclical on world peace, Pacem in terris, and its relationship to nonviolent action. It focuses on two nonviolent actions that contributed to this historic magisterial teaching: John’s efforts to foster a resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis and a fast undertaken by the spiritual activist Lanza del Vasto during Lent 1963. It argues that the very writing of this papal letter was a form of nonviolent action and that it has inspired nonviolent action around the world since it was promulgated, including Catholic leadership in the People Power Revolution in the Philippines.
10. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Gerald W. Schlabach Orcid-ID

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Deep questions of identity are always at play in war and peacemaking, sometimes hidden yet always decisive. Thus, for Christians, peace activism needs peace theology and, indeed, peace theology needs peace ecclesiology. Efforts to transcend classic debates between just war theory and Christian pacifism by developing a just peace ethic will falter if they fail to address more basic questions of how Christians are to sustain a primary loyalty to Jesus Christ in relationship to other identities of family, tribe, nation, and global citizen. Attention to the biblical trajectory of Abrahamic community, the patristic embrace of life in exile, and Vatican II calls for the Church to be the “sacrament of human unity” by recognizing itself as a “pilgrim people” suggests that the Catholic Church can truly be a “peace church” only if it embraces life in diaspora.
11. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
David Kwon Orcid-ID

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This paper serves three purposes. First, it examines the theme of jus post bellum (“postwar justice”) as it emerges within a just peacemaking (JP) framework. Second, it defines just political participation as civil society peacebuilding reflected in Catholic social thought (CST). Third, it envisions a place for just political participation within the jus post bellum praxis specifically endorsed by the World Bank report of 2007, titled Civil Society and Peacebuilding: Potential, Limitations and Critical Factors. The paper then attends to the Church and faith-based organizations and their roles in civil society peacebuilding postbellum. In doing so, it clarifies the characteristics of jus post bellum within a JP scheme by (a) distinguishing them from the just war approach, (b) identifying JP-oriented jus post bellum thinkers such as Daniel Philpott and Larry May, and (c) incorporating civil society peacebuilding endorsed by both the World Bank report and CST.
12. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Eli McCarthy

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In this essay, the author describes the trajectory toward a just peace framework in contemporary Catholic social teaching, as well as similar trends in the broader Christian community. He articulates a refined just peace framework or process that has arisen from and within a pastoral approach that listens to the experiences and voices of people in conflict situations across various cultural spaces. He then turns to the recent and challenging case of the war in Ukraine to explore and argue for a just peace approach rooted in the praxis of accompaniment. The author also reflects on the distinction between and implications of an accompaniment approach and a justification-of-war approach to initiate more inquiry on this topic.

other topics

13. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Clemens Sedmak Orcid-ID

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In this essay, the author describes the trajectory toward a just peace framework in contemporary Catholic social teaching, as well as similar trends in the broader Christian community. He articulates a refined just peace framework or process that has arisen from and within a pastoral approach that listens to the experiences and voices of people in conflict situations across various cultural spaces. He then turns to the recent and challenging case of the war in Ukraine to explore and argue for a just peace approach rooted in the praxis of accompaniment. The author also reflects on the distinction between and implications of an accompaniment approach and a justification-of-war approach to initiate more inquiry on this topic.
14. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Shawn Copeland

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book review

15. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Léocadie Lushombo

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16. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Maureen K. Day

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17. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Stephanie Ann Puen

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18. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Ellen Van Stichel, Orcid-ID Yves De Maeseneer, Orcid-ID Valerio Aversano Orcid-ID

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honoring johan verstraeten

19. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Johan Verstraeten Orcid-ID

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The article argues against the tendency to reaffirm Catholic social thought as Catholic “doctrine” and proposes a reinterpretation in view of the participation of the Church in the transformation of the world. Revisiting Chenu’s critique of Catholic social thought as ideology, the article argues for a reinterpretation of Catholic social thought as Catholic social and ecological discernment in response to the contemporary megacrisis. That such a discernment requires reflective practice and forward-looking imagination is articulated in the light of the thought of John Paul Lederach and Otto Scharmer.
20. Journal of Catholic Social Thought: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Mathias Nebel Orcid-ID

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This paper investigates the Argentinian “theology of the people” (“teología del pueblo”) and how it might run the risk of turning Catholic social thought into an ideology. The first part focuses on the political and theological notion of people and its link to the poor. The author recalls the Argentinian roots of this theology, summarizes its main tenets, and presents Pope Francis’s understanding of the theology of the people. The second part contrasts the theology of the people with the roots of populism in Latin America. The author explores the historical construction of the notion of people in the modern nation-building process, turns to caciquism as the dominant cultural framework of political power, and reviews Nadia Urbinati’s definition of populist regimes. The conclusion proposes to build upon Francis’s principles of common good dynamics to avoid the capture and recycling of the theology of the people’s language by populist regimes.