Nonviolence is a spirituality rooted in the Gospel (CNI, 2020, 57-59) and this is the main reason the Catholic Church should use it as a guide in its search for a just peace. According to Matthew’s narrative, after calling his first disciples, Jesus taught them the importance of trusting in God and being disposed to do his will. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (Mt 5:9), the Lord stated. In Luke’s version of these teachings Jesus said “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly” (Lk 6:27-28).
As a way of life that actively opposes all kinds of violence, nonviolence must be at the center of Catholic Social Teaching. Pope Francis has made important advances in this direction, especially in his encyclical letters Laudato Si´ and Fratelli Tutti, but also in his message for the celebration of the 2017 World Day of Peace through his invitation to “make active nonviolence our way of life” (Francis, 2017, 1) and to face frictions “constructively and non-violently” (Francis, 2017, 6).
Some resources that can help to center nonviolence in Catholic Social Teaching are (1) the notion of quality of life as a concretion of human dignity and Human Rights, (2) the conception of the common good extended beyond the human species, and (3) the solidarity with the victims of war and all other sorts of violence. These three resources could help move nonviolence from the margins of Catholic Social Teaching to its center.
Quality of Life as a concretion of Human Dignity and Human Rights
According to Catholic Social Teaching, “at play in society are the dignity and rights of the person, and peace in the relationships between persons and between communities of persons” (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2004, 81). Peace is one of the Human Rights declared by the international community (UN, 1948) and these rights have to do with the satisfaction of human needs, but especially with the effective exercise of freedom. Peace is a condition to promote freedom and to guarantee all other Human Rights (UN, 2016).
Freedom is the most evident shape of human dignity and is directly related to a just peace between persons and peoples. Nonviolence is inspired by a humanizing transformation, as the transformation proposed by Catholic Social Teaching,
a humanism that is up to the standards of God’s plan of love in history, an integral and solidary humanism capable of creating a new social, economic, and political order, founded on the dignity and freedom of every human person, to be brought about in peace, justice and solidarity (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2004, 81).
Real freedom depends on the means people have to overcome their needs. Some ways to constrict personal and communal freedom use direct visible violence. Still other ways involve violent denial of the conditions needed to develop daily life with dignity. Nonviolence moves to actively resist both kinds of violence in economic, social, juridic, political, environmental, and cultural spheres.
It is indispensable that people have access to a set of means that allow them to lead a life according to what they consider valuable. Anyway, public or private property should not be seen as an absolute right to which other rights must be subordinated, otherwise it can annul the ownership of oneself that corresponds to the dignity of each human being (Van Parijs, 1995).
For Catholic Social Teaching the “proper exercise of personal freedom requires specific conditions of an economic, social, juridic, political, and cultural order” (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2004, 137). Human rights encompass the political, social, economic, cultural, environmental, and reproductive spheres. This makes them important references to concretize the universal notion of human dignity, as they give a complete picture of the conditions in which people live.
As transformative love at work, nonviolence requires participation because people must engage in discussions about their needs and conflicts. Participation is a key issue for quality of life because it includes the real exercise of freedom. The conceptualization of human needs must be a free and participatory exercise, leading to the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of public policies based on the notion of human dignity. Freedom is twice as relevant because of its intrinsic importance and its usefulness in achieving the objectives of human rights (Sen, 1999).
Quality of life is a criterion that allows us to focus on people’s capacity to influence their environment and to direct their lives by what they consider most valuable. This implies conceiving development as an expansion of freedoms but not as an increase in wealth or disposable income (Sen, 1999).
The notion of quality of life, related to freedom and agency, not only concretizes human dignity and Human Rights but also points out the need to address evident and discrete forms of violence through pacific means. Political participation promotes nonviolence by reaching public policies to overcome deprivations such as hunger, malnutrition, morbidity, illiteracy, misinformation and unemployment (López, 2009, 36-39).
Common Good Beyond the Human Species
The common good is an ethical criterion that prevents individual interests from disarticulating society and imposing the will of the strongest. However, this principle which seeks the realization of the members of a community in the convergence of the individual good of its members and the good of the whole, to which they belong, cannot be restricted to the particular good of any group.
For Catholic Social Teaching, the common good has special demands, which “concern above all the commitment to peace, the organization of the State’s powers, a sound juridical system, the protection of the environment, and the provision of essential services to all, some of which are at the same time human rights” (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2004, 166).
As well as the convergence of the individual good with the good of the community must be sought, the convergence of the particular good of each human community with the good of humanity must also be sought. However, even if the double convergence of the particular good of individuals with the particular good of each community and the latter with the good of all human beings is achieved, it is not enough to restrict the common good to the human species.
Until now one of the limitations of Christian ethics, as well as of Catholic Social Teaching, has been to restrict this principle to humanity. In this sense, it is very worthy that nonviolence has to do with the harmonical relations between human beings and human communities, but also with their relations with other subjects that conform to nature.
Anthropocentrism has historically placed the interests of humanity above the interests of other species and the needs of human life above the needs of other forms of life (López, 2023). Hence the relevance of extending the scope of the common good to all of humanity, but also to all of creation. Human violent action against nature has considerably reduced nature’s resources and richness. About the loss of diversity, Pope Francis states,
It is not enough, however, to think of different species merely as potential “resources” to be exploited, while overlooking the fact that they have value in themselves. Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see because they have been lost forever. The great majority become extinct for reasons related to human activity. Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right (Francis, 2015, 33).
The way humanity violently uses the environment through an irrational exploitation has endangered the very survival of the human species. If our life is nourished by the rest of life (Gn 1:29-30); this does not mean that we should submit nature to an instrumentalization that irrationally becomes its destruction, which is our destruction.
A human dignity set against the dignity of the rest of creation is not truly human. As Pope Francis has stated, “environmental degradation and human and ethical degradation are intimately linked” (Francis, 2015, 56). Peace among human beings depends on reconciliation between humanity and the nature of which we are a part.
As an integral ecology is also made up of simple daily gestures that break with the logic of violence, exploitation, and selfishness (Francis, 2015), the daily practice of nonviolence can be centered in Catholic Social Teaching if the common good is extended beyond the human species.
Solidarity with Victims of War and Other Sorts of Violence
The global interdependence of the human species imposes the need to work everywhere for the common good. John Paul II expressed this in his teaching on solidarity by saying that: “when interdependence becomes recognized in this way, the correlative response as a moral and social attitude, as a ‘virtue’, is solidarity” (John Paul II, 1987, 38). Far to be just “a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far” (John Paul II, 1987, 38), solidarity is linked with the active exercise of nonviolence.
Solidarity is a core element in Catholic Social Teaching and points out to Christians the obligation to live in solidarity and to work with other human beings to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth (López, 2001). According to the Catholic Church, “true peace is made possible only through forgiveness and reconciliation” (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2004, 517) which does not “eliminate the need for justice” (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2004, 518).
War is the most evident failure of humanity and the current armed conflict in Ukraine as well as the genocide in Palestine show how important it is “to choose solidarity as a way of making history and building friendship in society” (Francis, 2017, 6). These two terrible dramas of our contemporary life, as well as other less known dramas in other parts of the world, make evident the relationship of nonviolence with peace and justice. Historical dispute for the territory is a key issue in these conflicts and peaceful management of conflicts promoted by nonviolence can help to break the circles of ancient hatred among peoples.
In memory of the Lord’s passion, Catholic Social Teaching must call for solidarity with the victims and Christians learning from people who return good for harm. “When victims of violence are able to resist the temptation to retaliate, they become the most credible promoters of nonviolent peacemaking” (Francis, 2017, 1).
Repressive regimes, unfair international relations, and all forms of discrimination show how injustice produces violence, creates victims, and inflicts them suffering that is against their dignity and makes it difficult to reach the common good. On the contrary, promoting solidarity, nonviolence opens the space in history for the resurrection of humanity beginning with the poorest and victimized people.
Solidarity with war victims, but also displaced, refugee, and migrant people, poor peasant sectors, black and indigenous marginalized communities, as well as women and LBGTQ discriminated groups, is mandatory for Christians in our effort to reach a just peace. This must be the evidence of the love we preach in the name of Jesus, an effective love that resists all kinds of violence and expands opportunities for human beings and members of other species.
Conclusion
To conceive the notion of quality of life as a concretion of human dignity and Human Rights helps to embed freedom in real contexts of people avoiding universal abstractions. It makes evident real human needs, particular social relationships, and connections of the human with the whole creation. The global crisis which is both social and environmental has to be confronted by an extended conception of the common good that cares about other species, as well as nature. Only solidarity with the victims of war and other sorts of violence can change humanity’s fate and their violent relationships with the environment. In this way quality of life, common good, and solidarity can move nonviolence from the margins of Catholic Social Teaching to its center.
