Introduction

For much of its history within the Catholic tradition, just war theory (JWT), while accepted as the primary approach to the morality of military force, has fomented unease. Should the use of deadly force, under the criteria of jus ad bellum and jus in bello, be morally legitimate as a form of neighbor love as Augustine and others have argued, or does Christian faith require pacifism as the historic peace churches and others, such as Catholic Workers, have held? A truce, of sorts, was established with Vatican II's affirmation of pacifism and nonviolence in Gaudium et Spes as part of its call to the church to “undertake an evaluation of war with an entirely new attitude,” along with its continuation of just-war teaching that “governments cannot be denied the right to legitimate defense once every means of peaceful settlement has been exhausted.”Footnote ¹ The US Catholic bishops, in their 1983 pastoral letter, The Challenge of Peace, likewise agreed that peacemaking “is a requirement of our faith,” even while “the how of defending peace . . . offers moral options,” including absolute pacifism, active nonviolent methods, and just war.Footnote ² However, the debate about pacifism, nonviolence, and just war was reignited in the wake of the Nonviolence and Just Peace Conference, cosponsored by Pax Christi International and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and held in Rome in April 2016. The conference released a statement entitled An Appeal to the Catholic Church to Re-commit to the Centrality of Gospel Non-Violence that called on Pope Francis to write an encyclical on “nonviolence and Just Peace.” It also called on the church to “no longer use or teach ‘just war theory.’”Footnote ³

Such a rejection of JWT was momentous, given its 1,600-year significance in Catholic teaching and practice. In an early response to the Appeal, Mark Allman and Tobias Winright praised the principal aims of the conference, but challenged the Appeal’s criticism of JWT, claiming that it

• • read papal statements on peacemaking selectively, while ignoring their use and defense of JWT;

• • glossed over legitimate defense, humanitarian intervention, and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P);

• • failed to distinguish between different versions of JWT, including those that are more hawkish and another represented by many Catholic just war theorists today that is sometimes viewed as “practically pacifistic” with its strong presumption in favor of peace and strict application of the jus ad bellum and jus in bello criteria;

• • set up a false dichotomy between nonviolence and JWT, as well as conflating pacifism and nonviolence;

• • read Scripture and tradition selectively;

• • ignored the nascent jus post bellum and jus ante bellum categories in the development of JWT.Footnote ⁴

In short, Allman and Winright pointed out that the Appeal’s brief allegations were a caricature of JWT. The debate continued with articles by Lisa Cahill; Marie Dennis and Eli McCarthy; Gerald Schlabach; Drew Christiansen, SJ; and Peter Steinfels.Footnote ⁵ In addition, in his 2017 World Day of Peace message, Pope Francis called for a “politics for peace”Footnote ⁶ and offered “the most extensive teaching on nonviolence by any pope.”Footnote ⁷

Our roundtable continues this debate and offers responses from the perspective of contemporary JWT by four contributors. We begin by stressing that we agree with most of the Appeal and find much of it consistent with contemporary JWT, including the assertions that

• • all Christians are called by Jesus to be peacemakers;

• • creative and active nonviolence is an effective and underutilized method for alleviating conflict;

• • the resurging commitment to peacemaking in the church is a good thing;

• • JWT is often (mis)used to justify violence.

We especially support and embrace as consistent with JWT most of what the Appeal highlights as commitments the church ought to make to peacemaking. On the latter, the Appeal reads:

• • continue developing Catholic social teaching on nonviolence. In particular, we call on Pope Francis to share with the world an encyclical on nonviolence and Just Peace;

• • 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;

• • promote nonviolent practices and strategies (e.g., nonviolent resistance, restorative justice, trauma healing, unarmed civilian protection, conflict transformation, and peacebuilding strategies);

• • initiate a global conversation on nonviolence within the Church, with people of other faiths, and with the larger world to respond to the monumental crises of our time with the vision and strategies of nonviolence and Just Peace;

• • no longer use or teach ‘just war theory’; continue advocating for the abolition of war and nuclear weapons;

• • lift up the prophetic voice of the Church to challenge unjust world powers and to support and defend those nonviolent activists whose work for peace and justice put their lives at risk.”Footnote ⁸

Again, we agree with and support most of the Appeal. We part company with it, however, primarily over two statements found elsewhere in the Appeal and the fifth bullet point above:

The remainder of this roundtable presents each of our critiques of the sentiments expressed in the forty-five words of those three statements.