Catholic peace traditions

Because of its long history and breadth of geographical and cultural diversity, this Catholic tradition encompasses many strains and influences of both religious and secular peacemaking and many aspects of Christian pacifism, just war and nonviolence.

[2] The history of peacemaking in the Catholic tradition reflects the religious meanings of peace, tied to positive virtues, such as love, and to the personal and social works of justice.

"[20] When the Empress Justina sought to have the new basilica in Milan turned over to the Arians, Ambrose, supported by the faithful, occupied it himself in what Egan identifies as an example of non-violent resistance.

[7] Augustine of Hippo agreed strongly with the conventional wisdom of his time, that Christians should be pacifists philosophically, but that they should use defense as a means of preserving peace in the long run.

[21] There is a long historical tradition that has collected ample evidence to show that the Roman Empire itself was undergoing profound social, economic, and spiritual changes that were only hastened by the invasions.

Among the more important figures of active peacemaking or of intellectual life worth further study were Martin of Tours, Salvian of Marseilles, Nicetas of Remesiana, Germanus of Auxerre, Severinus of Noricum, St. Patrick, St. Genevieve of Paris, Columban, and St. Boniface of Crediton.

Monasticism was, in a sense, a continuation of martyrdom, reaffirming the contradiction between the Church and the world, by fleeing from the corruption of civilization in order to seek a greater treasure.

[28] The Carolingian period saw the emergence of both a renewed Roman Empire of the West and the beginning of fresh barbarian invasions from the north and east and the rise of Islam.

The Carolingian Empire thus brought a renewed militarization of society that sought to protect Christendom from external threat, while it used the hierarchical bonds of feudal oaths and vassalage to bring the new class of mobile horse warriors, the milities, to some semblance of central authority.

As a successor of Columba of Iona, Adomnán had sufficient prestige to assemble a conference of ninety-one chieftains and clerics from Ireland, Dál Riata, and Pictland at Birr to promulgate the new law.

As Carolingian authority began to erode, especially on the outskirts of power, as in southern Gaul, the episcopate took steps to protect their congregations and their holdings against the encroachments of local nobles.

It included the clergy and their possessions; the poor; women; peasants along with their tools, animals, mills, vineyards, and labor; and later pilgrims and merchants: in short, the vast majority of the medieval population who neither bore arms, nor were entitled to bear them.

[38] It confirmed permanent peace for all churches and their grounds, the monks, clerks and chattels; all women, pilgrims, merchants and their servants, cattle and horses; and men at work in the fields.

[37] In his Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas expands Augustine's arguments to define the conditions under which a war could be just:[39] Religious thinkers and secular writers attempted to incorporate the controls of the Peace and Truce of God into the existing warrior ethic by "Christianizing" it into the Crusades and the cult of chivalry.

The symbols allowed for a physical reminder to knights and military men that God was supporting their efforts, providing protection to those soldiers as well as the assurance of a victory over their enemies.

Majorcan Franciscan Blessed Ramon Llull (1232-1315) argued that the conversion of Muslims should be achieved through prayer, not through military force, and pressed for the study of Arabic to prepare potential missionaries.

Other important figures include Bartolomé de Las Casas and Peter of Saint Joseph Betancur Émeric Crucé was a French monk who took the position that wars were the result of international misunderstandings and the domination of society by the warrior class, both of which could be reduced through commerce, as that brought people together.

There was little or no violence, and the new Roman Catholic Center Party won a quarter of the seats in the Reichstag (Imperial Parliament), and its middle position on most issues allowed it to play a decisive role in the formation of majorities.

It has since grown into "Caritas Internationalis", a confederation of 165 Roman Catholic relief, development and social service organizations operating in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.

[62][63] Pope John XXIII (1958–63) set off a revolution in Roman Catholic thought and life that harkened back to an earlier period for its models and inspiration and brought the church into a new age.

Russell Hittinger describes the encyclical Pacem in Terris "as a kind of magna charta of the Catholic Church's position on human rights and natural law".

"[66] Under the guidance of Archbishop Hélder Câmara, the Catholic church in Brazil became an outspoken critic of the 1964-85 military dictatorship and a powerful movement for social change.

[67] Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon were French religious sisters abducted in December 1977 by an Argentine death squad for their support of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in their efforts to learn the fate of those disappeared by the then ruling military regime.

[69] In the late 1970s Hurley held a daily silent protest, standing in front of the central Durban Post Office for a period each day with a placard expressing his opposition to apartheid and the displacement of people from their homes.

According to Gerald Shaw writing for The Guardian, "It was in part due to his sustained moral crusade and that of other churchmen that the transition to democracy, when it came in 1994, was accepted by white people in peace and good order.

[71] Jaime Sin was the Cardinal Archbishop of Manila, who "played a key role in the Philippines' transition to democracy following the lengthy dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.

[75] During World War II, Out of a total of 21 million Catholics only 223 claimed IV-E CO status, conscientious objection to military service; 135 were eventually classified.

The first was primarily in the area of international diplomacy; the second was the realm of canon law and of theology, in attempts to define the limits of war and violence; and the third, among the Scholastics who investigated the boundaries of individual conscience.

[80] According to Garret Mattingly, since the eleventh century, the canonists had been pre-occupied with many of the problems which we think of as belonging to public international law, with the definition of sovereignty, with the sanctity of treaties, with the preservation of peace, with the rights of neutrals and noncombatants, and with the mitigation of the rigours of war.

[80] The papacy, in fact, can be regarded as the originator of many of the most basic elements of modern diplomacy and international law: the protection and safe conduct of ambassadors, the secrecy of diplomatic negotiations, the insistence that treaties and their terms, once made, are to be strictly adhered to, the condemnation of violations, provisions for the release of prisoners and hostages and their humane treatment while in detention, the protection of exiles, aliens, and racial minorities, and the condemnation of unjust wars all derive from the papal position both as the leader of Christian society and as a force for international unity among secular states.