In this essay, I reflect on the question ‘how would centering nonviolence in Catholic Social Teaching impact the analysis and praxis of legitimate defense?’ This is not the same question as ‘how to prioritize nonviolence,’ which most Catholics who draw on CST or even just war reasoning already claim to be doing. The question about ‘centering’ is a deeper and more expansive question with significant implications for CST and the issue of defense. Tuning in to active nonviolence as a center of gravity in Jesus’ way, we see nonviolence as integral to the mission of the Church. This enables us to have a broader imagination of nonviolent praxis, a sturdier identity as interconnected beings, and an engrained commitment to better persist in active nonviolence even during really difficult circumstances.
This issue is again urgently relevant as the language of ‘right to defense’ has been consistently deployed to legitimate Israel’s general military strategy and ongoing U.S. provision of weapons as the policy of a Catholic president. Meanwhile, Pope Francis consistently calls for an end to the mass atrocity of war. Yet, the mass atrocities proliferate and a wider war has unfolded. Something drastically needs to change.
In this essay, I argue that centering nonviolence would shift our focus to defending dignity and alter the style of defense we affirm and spotlight. This style will center practices such as unarmed civilian protection, strategic nonviolent resistance, and nonviolent civilian-based defense.
The analysis and praxis of legitimate defense has shifted over the 2000 years of Catholic tradition. Jesus Christ risked and offered his life on the Cross to expose the sin of injustice and violence, and thus, model and defend his way of Love for all. Jesus also modeled nonviolent defense of a woman accused of adultery with a mob seeking to stone her to death. Jesus also accompanied those seeking violent resistance and defense against the Roman occupier by instead drawing them towards breaking the cycle of violence through his style of responding, ‘defense’ and transformation. Many followers in the early church nonviolently risked and offered their lives as martyrs to defend the faith, and thus, their own integrity and dignity as sacred gifts.
As the Roman Empire increasingly faced challenging wars with those they called ‘barbarians,’ Augustine of Hippo drew on Cicero and others to refashion collective defense in terms of ‘justified’ violence or war. Scholar Greg Reichberg explains that this reasoning was both to restrain and legitimize. However, he did not support the notion of personal self-defense. During this time and in the following years, most in the consecrated life communities including St. Francis focused on a nonviolent style of defense. For example, this included Francis’ attempts to break the cycle of violence during the Crusades, as well as St. Claire’s successful, prayerful nonviolent defense of Assisi in two different military attacks. In the 1200’s drawing on Aristotle and Augustine, Thomas Aquinas expanded the criteria for justified forms of war to defend the collective, and unlike Augustine, he supported the possibility of violence for self-defense. As some of these criteria found their way into international law, formal Catholic teaching primarily analyzed defense in the moral framework of justified violence or war, i.e. ‘just war.’
The Catholic Catechism has a section on “legitimate defense” (2263-2267) which affirms the potential use of violence for both self-defense and collective defense, i.e. the ‘common good.’ Previously it also affirmed the death penalty as far as it defends the community, although this has recently been declared inadmissible due to recognition that dignity is not lost even when one commits serious crimes. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church also has further reflections on these positions (494-512), including a more robust sense of how to build peace. Notably, they include the argument that “violence destroys what it claims to defend: the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings” (496).
Some U.S. theologians have argued in a similar way to the Catechism regarding legitimate defense through armed, violent, lethal methods. Scholars Gerry Beyer and Anna Floerke Schied are two prominent examples. For instance, Beyer made this case regarding the war in Ukraine. Yet, diplomatic opportunities were thwarted, nonviolent resistance was under-resourced, and this war continues today with massive human rights violations from all parties along with generational trauma. Floerke Schied has extended the notion of ‘legitimate defense’ in terms of armed revolution.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis has been deepening our reflection on peace, active nonviolence, defense and war. He has been moving active nonviolence to the center of Catholic teaching, including situations of conflict and war. This centering of comprehensive nonviolence entails an integration across all sectors of the church, not merely a priority for nonviolence as some suppose. It is a center of gravity, or like a flower seed that blossoms in all directions, or a sun with rays that light the entirety of the church. Similar to integral human development, active nonviolence is integral to the mission of the Church.
Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Maung Bo wrote a powerful 2023 letter to the Synod called “Our Mission as Active Nonviolence.” He called for a “dramatic shift…to the paradigm of just peace and nonviolence.” U.S. Cardinal Bob McElroy says this “new moment” calls the Church to make nonviolence the “dominant prism through which to evaluate decisions in situations of deep conflict.” He argues that the framework of “comprehensive nonviolence” is now “the central point of reference for the Church on armed conflict.”
In Francis’ analysis, he proclaims, “Especially in situations of conflict, let us respect this, our ‘deepest dignity,’ and make active nonviolence our way of life.” This is in large part because “to be true followers of Jesus today also includes embracing his teaching about nonviolence.” Increasingly centered on active nonviolence, Francis has taken an even stronger position against war. He not only critiques war and the arms industry, but also argues there is no just war, and we should no longer even be using such language. At the same time, he acknowledges the legitimacy in principle of some form of defense and the need to stop aggressors. How to defend and what one is defending is still somewhat a gray and developing area for Francis and Catholic social teaching.
Regarding the how, recent research has helped learn much more about the power of active nonviolence, including as a form of effective defense. David Cochran unpacks how we have also learned much more about the harm and cycles of violence, even when drawn on for defense, such as generational trauma, corruption, habits of domination and distrust, gender-based violence, military coups, and other wars. We also have a deeper, more expansive sense of human dignity, including what distorts or harms our dignity as well as what actions light up or are in accord with our dignity. What does this mean for Catholic analysis and praxis of defense, as well as for Catholic social teaching more formally?
Renowned theologian Lisa Sowle Cahill argues persuasively that killing violates our dignity. It is significant to note that Anna Floerke Schied, who has argued for the moral justification of some wars, similarly acknowledges that “violence, including killing, harms [violates] human dignity.” This inconsistency with human dignity is demonstrated by the advancing scientific recognition of trauma, perpetrator-induced syndrome, moral injury, and at times brain damage of the one who kills another in war. It is also dehumanizing by obstructing empathy, failing to be a gift to others, devaluing the sacred gift of others, and generating ongoing trauma not only in the parties directly involved, but also in other community members. So, is there another way forward that is consistent and congruent with human dignity, and that illuminates the way of Jesus for our human community in accord with the mission of the Church?
Nonviolent Defense
The proven nonviolent practices of unarmed civilian protection and nonviolent resistance campaigns, along with the examples and potential of nonviolent civilian-based defense strategies offer a pragmatic way forward for Catholic praxis. Robust research has demonstrated the significant effectiveness of unarmed civilian protection units in war zones, such as Nonviolent Peaceforce, and in violent community conflicts, such as Cure Violence. This research demonstrates that UCP saves lives; helps communities avoid displacement; enables human rights work and humanitarian aid to be delivered; changes behavior of armed actors; creates space for negotiations; and re-humanizes conflict parties. Cure Violence works in active gang areas and has robust research showing 40-70% reductions in shootings within the neighborhoods they work.
David Cochran and Felip Daza (Ukraine) gather recent research on the effectiveness of nonviolent resistance campaigns against the aggression and injustice of invasion, occupiers and dictators. For example, the research demonstrates that nonviolent resistance was twice as effective compared to violent resistance in challenging dictators and occupation from 1900-2006; and has been 3 times more effective over the last decade. Successful nonviolent resistance campaigns are 10x’s more likely to lead to durable democracy vs. successful violent campaigns; and even unsuccessful nonviolent campaigns are 4x’s more likely to lead to a durable democracy.
Johansen/Martin, Schlabach, Sharp, and Holst help us see how a pattern of examples of usually spontaneous nonviolent civilian-based defense against the aggression of invasion, such as Czechoslovakia 1968 against the Soviet Union and Denmark 1940-45 against the Germans, or against military coups offers a sign of the potential for transforming national defense strategies, especially if we prepare, train, and invest. For example, when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 the political and military leadership decided not to violently resist. Yet, many civilians spontaneously refused to cooperate with the Soviet troops. Actions included, strikes, refusing supplies to invading troops, cutting airport services, blocking trains, switching radio signals, removing house numbers to protect leaders, undermining troop loyalty through fraternization, etc. This became a critical defense movement that generated key immediate political concessions, and cultivated the community networks and skills for more complete liberation from the Soviets in the 1980’s.
Some countries, such as Lithuania, have formally integrated training in unarmed civilian-based defense into their overall strategy, while some other countries have set up other structural conditions amenable to this style of defense by not having a military institution (ex. Costa Rica, Iceland, Mauritius, Panama, Vatican City).
In this context of emerging research and re-imagining defense, the ethical and pastoral implications suggest there may be value in focusing on a just peace moral framework and a pastoral praxis of accompaniment in accord with the way of Jesus. The just peace framework offers normative guidance and practical reasoning for engaging conflict constructively, breaking dynamics of violence, and building a sustainable peace. As Jesus modeled accompaniment with the Jewish Zealots seeking violent resistance to the Roman repression and occupation; the praxis of accompaniment affirms and admires those who are willing to take a high-risk stand against aggression rather than to be passive, as well as acknowledging the pressure-packed decisions that may be made about how to resist. At the same time, the praxis of accompaniment focuses us on how to nonviolently break cycles of violence, rather than justify war, methods of war, or enabling dynamics of violence to perpetuate and spread, which would significantly harm all parties to the conflict.
Such an approach, consistent with the trajectory of Pope Francis’ praxis, suggests our shared dignity as the primary object of our defense.
Catholic Social Teaching: Recommendations for Catechism and the Compendium of Social Doctrine
In Cardinal Bo’s letter to the Synod (2023), he states:
“An official Church teaching on nonviolence and just peace and inclusion in the Catechism of the Catholic Church of a robust description of nonviolence, key nonviolent practices, and the norms of a just peace ethic would deepen Catholic understanding of and commitment to Gospel nonviolence and help inspire a global embrace of nonviolence.”
In turn, I offer the following recommendations to update the Church’s teaching in the Catechism and Social Compendium:
- A robust section on Gospel Nonviolence and just peace moral reasoning. This would include a clear call for the Church to center/focus on nonviolence and just peace, a broad description of nonviolence, key nonviolent practices to scale-up (ex. nonviolent communication, unarmed civilian protection, nonviolent strategic resistance, restorative justice), including the meaning, strategies, and impact of nonviolent defense, and the guiding norms of a just peace ethic.
- Because we are each endowed with sacred, inviolable dignity, the Church affirms both the right to life and the right to nonviolent resistance; or somewhat related to what Pope Francis refers to as ius pacis, i.e. the “right to settle all conflicts without violence,” (Francis, Oct. 2022) which implies our corresponding responsibility to be consistent with and illuminating human dignity. In turn, we need a consistent ethic of dignity. Governments have a responsibility to transform conflict in a sustainable way consistent with just peace and human dignity. As a Church we will embody, invest, and advocate for creative, effective nonviolent forms of defense.1
In sum, centering nonviolence in Catholic social teaching and praxis may transform how we analyze and embody “legitimate defense.” This orientation draws us to live in accord with a deeper sense of dignity, a more realistic, evidence-based approach to conflict and set of nonviolent practices, and a pastoral praxis of nonviolent accompaniment. There will continue to be gray areas and dilemmas in the human journey. However, these are key steps we can take to grow closer to Jesus and to more fully become the Beloved Community.
1 Building on the Compendium’s recognition that “the Church’s social teaching proposes the goal of “general, balanced and controlled disarmament” [par. 508], defense relying on lethal methods may only be temporally considered legal in some contexts if there is a clear, public commitment, with time-bound benchmarks, to progressive disarmament and a process of “trans-armament.” Transarmament is the process of changing the type of armament from one relying on military forces and weaponry to one depending on an increasing majority of the population using the psychological, social, economic, and political nonviolent strategies of defense.
