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[Expositions 13.2 (2019) 113–136] Expositions (online) ISSN: 1747–5376 

 

Catholic Nonviolence: Transforming Military Institutions 

 

ELI S. MCCARTHY 

Georgetown University 

 

 

How do we build a robust, comprehensive future of nonviolence in the Catholic Church? First, I 

will explore how a Catholic commitment to nonviolence as a “style of politics for peace” could 

function to orient and transform military institutions as we begin to re-imagine protection 

mechanisms. Second, in this re-imagining I will draw on a Eucharistic orientation for an inquiry 

into actual and possible nonviolent protection mechanisms in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Third, 

in order to create more space for such nonviolence, I will respond briefly to some recent 

scholarship that critiques my thinking on the just war framework. My core argument is that if the 

Catholic Church commits to offering a sacramental imagination of nonviolence to the world, then 

we will more effectively transform military institutions toward trans-armament and offer more 

credible nonviolent forms of defense.  

The recent trajectory of the Catholic Church has been steadily moving toward a more robust 

affirmation of active nonviolence. The power of active nonviolence in many or most conflict 

situations is often affirmed by scholars who argue for the continued use of just war thinking. 

Militaries themselves increasingly recognize their own limits and the need for more nonviolent 

strategies. Recognizing the good faith of conscientious and stringent just war thinkers, I want to 

begin here by building on some of what we have in common as we transform the Church together. 

My primary purpose in this essay, therefore, is to lay out a thought experiment imagining what it 

would look like for Catholics working to transform the world’s militaries according to a just peace 

ethic.  

A quick summary of the just peace ethic I am referring to includes: (1) developing virtues and 

skills to engage conflict constructively through spiritual disciplines, key virtues,1 nonviolent 

education and skills, participatory processes, and the formation of nonviolent peacemaking 

communities; (2) breaking cycles of violence via reflexivity (i.e., keeping means and ends 

consistent), re-humanization, conflict transformation and dialogue, nonviolent direct action, and 

integral disarmament, and the acknowledgement of responsibility for harm2; (3) building 



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sustainable peace through relationality and reconciliation, robust civil society and just governance, 

respect for human dignity and rights, ecological sustainability, as well as economic, racial, and 

gender justice.3  

 

A Nonviolent Just Peace Ethic: Transforming the Military Institution 

If the Catholic Church develops its official teaching on nonviolence, how would a just peace ethic 

enable Catholic advocates to impact and transform military institutions? The “nonviolent horizon,” 

grammar, or logic of this ethic includes the outlawing and ending of war.4 However, as we 

transition in ways consistent with and toward this horizon, this ethic can better enable military 

institutions to take key transformative steps. 

This ethical orientation would draw the military community to increasingly speak out and 

directly advocate for growing investment, resources, and strategic commitments to nonviolent 

approaches. For example, this might include promoting a normative shift for governments to a 

“right to assist” nonviolent resistance campaigns as central for preventing mass atrocities.5 It is 

often said that the military community is the most reluctant to engage in war, so to the degree there 

is truth in that claim this ethic will better enable such tendencies. 

In the area of strategic doctrine, the just peace ethic encourages the military community to 

change core strategic questions toward: how to engage conflict well, how to break cycles of 

violence, and how to cultivate the conditions for sustainable peace. Engaging conflict well, i.e., 

constructively rather than destructively, orients the military to help identify root causes and key 

needs of all actors, cultivate virtuous habits, as well as engage in intersectional, racial, and gender 

analysis of conflicts. Breaking cycles of violence rather than focusing on winning wars allows the 

military to re-humanize adversaries, to transform conflicts rather than merely end them, to better 

acknowledge responsibility for harm done, to turn adversaries into future partners, and to 

increasingly practice reflexivity, i.e., using means consistent with ends. Such reflexivity is crucial 

to considering how to contribute to rather than obstruct the conditions for sustainable peace. Rather 

than mere stability, this shift to a lens of sustainable peace enables the military to at least not 

obstruct environmental and structural justice, to step back and enable space for civil society, and 

to make clear commitments to outlaw and end war, not simply to avoid crimes during war.  

The U.S. Army Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies Field Manual provides an example of 

how the seeds of some just peace norms are already present and ripe for further development.6 For 



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example, the authors use the term “generational engagement” and relations between the population 

and government to identify how peacebuilding, or the norms of dialogue and relationality, can be 

actualized at all stages of conflict, even in high threat situations.7 They also explicitly point to the 

norm of participation regarding youth and civil society. The manual identifies the norm of 

sustainability and attending to root causes as in its discussion of economic development plans as 

well as the importance of defections. In a more indirect way, it refers to the pillars of support, 

which are key to strategic nonviolent resistance. These include “land reform” and “debt” as 

examples of the material resources pillar.8  

However, the authors of the Field Manual do not actualize the norm of participation because 

they exclude adversaries or “enemies” whom they intend to “isolate” or destroy.9 They also fail 

the norm of nonviolent skillsets by excluding a needs-based analysis. Instead of simply seeking to 

“isolate” the enemy or hope they lose “desire,” counterinsurgents could identify the enemy’s 

deeper needs and devise strategies that draw them toward these needs. Some of these needs might 

be respect for self and religion, livelihood, meaning, connection, effectiveness, inspiration, etc. 

This would also be essential to stimulating and sustaining adequate defections. Furthermore, the 

Field Manual does not actualize the norm of sustainability since counterinsurgents are not 

attending adequately to environmental damage of their military training and engagements. Their 

indirect references to strategic nonviolent action are insufficient since their present methodology 

is too saturated with cultural and direct violence. In turn, a nonviolent just peace ethic would 

identify and cultivate these seeds for potential growth, but would not signal moral legitimation of 

cultural, structural, or direct violence.  

Building on this approach, this ethic would enable the military to construct new pilot programs. 

For example, drawing on their stated commitments to protection, this ethic invites and challenges 

them to pilot an unarmed protection unit. The proven practice of unarmed civilian protection 

(UCP) by international organizations, such as the Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP), Peace Brigades 

International, and Cure Violence, can serve as models and resources for such a pilot. For instance, 

in South Sudan, Nonviolent Peaceforce’s protection units, which engage all armed actors, has 

reduced sexual assaults and rape by armed actors from regularity to zero in the areas NP patrols 

and directly saved fourteen people from an armed militia attack. This attack was occurring in a 

U.N. protection site. As people were running and being shot, fourteen women and children rushed 

into a mud hut with two NP officers. Three different times, the armed militia came in demanding 



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that the NP officers leave, but each time they refused, saying they were unarmed, non-partisan, 

and humanitarian. Amazingly, the fourteen women and children survived the deadly attack. One 

of the NP officers said, “If we had a gun we would’ve been shot immediately; so without arms we 

can find other ways.”10 In addition, there are instructive examples from other militaries, such as 

the Australian Department of Defense.11 Further, the U.N., including the Department of 

Peacekeeping, already has some unarmed elements in their deployments and is increasingly 

endorsing this methodology more formally and broadly, even at the U.N. Security Council.12  

Some might wonder if this would make soldiers less secure and less capable of protecting 

others. This is an important concern. However, much of this dynamic depends on what else the 

government or other parts of their military is doing. For example, if the government of this 

unarmed protection unit is enacting crippling sanctions on the people, extracting resources, de-

humanizing the leaders, and even bombing other parts of the country, then such a unit will be much 

less secure, and their protection impact will be impeded but not necessarily insignificant. A key 

characteristic of unarmed protection is being and working with credible messengers in the social 

context. Hence, civil society organizations are more often much better positioned to offer unarmed 

protection. Nevertheless, if the destructive actions mentioned above and other similar approaches 

are absent, such unarmed programs would enable persons in the military to build better trust with 

key stakeholders on the ground, to gather more credible intelligence to prevent violence, to better 

de-escalate destructive conflicts, to create more space for nonviolent civil society leaders and 

campaigns, to displace less communities and refugees, and, thus, to ultimately protect more people 

over the long-term.13 As lessons are learned from the pilot programs, potential shifting of military 

resources as well as expansion in partnerships and types of conflict situations can ensue.  

Furthermore, drawing on the just peace norms and the military’s stated commitment to defense, 

advocates could promote a pilot program in nonviolent civilian-based defense (CBD) as some 

countries have done. Nonviolent CBD entails using nonviolent resistance to defend against 

military invasion, occupation, or coups d’état. For instance, the resistors do not necessarily 

physically prevent invading troops from entering their territory. At the same time, most people in 

some way participate in the resistance, taking more responsibility for their own defense rather than 

simply delegating it to an elite group.14 This primarily entails strategic noncooperation with some 

orders from the opponent and perhaps the creation of parallel institutions or government, to the 

point of making it inconvenient to nearly impossible for the occupying force to benefit or even 



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remain. When such a large-scale, coordinated nonviolent refusal to resource the opponent’s 

governing ambitions is clearly demonstrated in advance, some opponents may even be deterred 

from an attack in the first place.15 

Nonviolent CBD has taken different forms and been developed a number of times in the past 

century, and some governments recently incorporated it into their defense planning. Past examples 

include the 1923 resistance to Wolfgang Kapp’s attempted coup d’état in Germany, the Norwegian 

and Danish resistance against German occupation during World War II, the Czechoslovakian 

resistance against Soviet occupation in 1968, the People Power Revolution in the Philippines in 

1986, the drive for independence in the Baltic countries in 1990–1991, and Russians preventing 

the Soviet coup attempt in 1991.16 Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, and Lithuania have incorporated 

CBD into their defense planning by providing research and development funds to create nonviolent 

methods to prevent military occupation.17  

Others have written about such a strategy from a Gandhian perspective, or more recently, as a 

way to counter Russian hybrid warfare.18 For instance, Robert J. Burrows, drawing on Gandhi, 

explains that any CBD approach must not rely too much on elites and limited system reform. Any 

form of “nonviolent defense” should assist civil society organizers and ordinary people in their 

struggle to satisfy human needs.19 Orienting such defense toward identification with all humans 

will decrease fear and create more space for the necessary courage for nonviolent defense.20 Key 

tactical elements would include more dispersion than concentration, contingency plans, advance 

personal contact with opposing troops to reduce their fears and counter any de-humanization of 

the occupied population, the generation of resistance or defections in such troops, and the alteration 

of the will of key social groups in the domestic constituencies of the opponent’s elite or those in 

allied countries. Nonviolent CBD is less likely to produce significant casualties in part because it 

can foster a more trusting political climate, less threatening physical circumstances, and a 

reduction in negative emotional states as well as increased humanization.21 Much more study and 

experimentation can and should be done in this area. A nonviolent just peace ethic will better 

explore and sustain such transformation of defense approaches.  

However, the transformation of overall military strategy and structural programs can only go 

so far unless formation is significantly addressed. A just peace ethic would form people to enter 

more nonviolent institutions and careers; however, it could also considerably enhance the 

formation of all persons who otherwise end up in the military. One of the key issues in military 



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training is the de-humanization of adversaries in order to increase the willingness of soldiers to 

kill. Yet, this de-humanization of others also contributes to the de-humanization of the soldiers 

themselves, such as through displacement of responsibility and decreasing empathy.22 The just 

peace norm of re-humanization as well as the norm of dignity and human rights would challenge 

this intentional strategy to de-humanize others. It would also supplement this with formation in 

key just peace virtues such as compassion, humility, and empathy.23 Will this make soldiers much 

less willing to kill? Yes. But it will also enhance critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and habits 

of creative, nonviolent actions to sustainably accomplish legitimate objectives that a defense 

institution may have. 

This ethic will also help us recognize that killing itself distorts and violates our human dignity. 

The advancing scientific acknowledgement of trauma, perpetrator induced syndrome, moral injury, 

and brain damage from killing illustrate this reality.24 Thus, the just peace ethic enables a deepening 

and clarifying of the virtue of courage to the practice of suffering out of reverence for the dignity 

of others (and self) by risking, perhaps even giving one’s life, without killing. Although it may be 

a dilemma to refuse to kill in difficult, rare situations, human flourishing and just peace norms, 

especially virtues, dignity, and the ever-surprising, creative dynamics unleashed by nonviolent 

action, draw us to risk life rather than to take life, especially if we are Christian. Pope John Paul II 

called us “not to follow those who train us in how to kill,” because “violence destroys our 

dignity.”25 Pope Francis said, “The commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ has absolute value, and 

concerns both the innocent and the guilty, and even criminals maintain the inviolable right to life, 

the gift of God.”26 

In turn, a just peace ethic can cultivate healthier action choices and tactics by military personnel 

when they operate in conflict zones. A just peace ethic can cultivate healthier action choices and 

tactics by military personnel when they operate in conflict zones. Several common military actions 

will not meet the just peace norms, but soldiers could strive towards these norms and, at a 

minimum, make much less harmful choices. Nonetheless, Catholics and other just peace advocates 

would maintain high standards. For instance, bombing a set of tanks or armed vehicles with 

military persons in them during a war might be less distance from the just peace norms than 

bombing a hospital. It may be “less harmful,” but it would not satisfy the just peace norms, and 

thus would not be considered morally justified.27 Just peace advocates would instead promote a 

broad set of creative, nonviolent actions. In contrast, a just war framework could describe such an 



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action as morally justified, and thus perpetuate supporting components (structural violence, 

cultural violence, cycles of direct violence, “collateral damage,” etc.) that normally attend such 

choices. 

But, more importantly, Catholics would call persons in the military to actions during violent 

conflict which are in accord with the just peace norms. Soldiers have prior experiences with these 

alternatives and would be more inclined to pursue them. For example, some soldiers do talk with 

respect and empathy to the people they encounter, such as ordinary civilians, in a violent conflict 

zone. Some soldiers do include local people in some decision-making about how to proceed in a 

community. Some do help build schools, electric grids, bridges, houses, etc. Some do converse 

deeply with enemies or prisoners and develop some empathy. Some do try to avoid harming 

essential, life-giving infrastructure. Some do stay back and let local nonviolent resistance 

campaigns have social space. Some do advocate for governments to invest more in peacebuilding 

and diplomacy not only before but during violent conflict. Some do lay their weapons down when 

engaging with some individuals, families, or groups in order to build trust and lower the sense of 

threat. Some do transport internally displaced persons (IDPs), and refugees to safety. The just 

peace ethic would enable these actions to happen much more often and give more moral 

legitimation for them as we sustainably transform both the conflict and the military institution at 

the same time. 

One might respond that such formation could be helpful, but soldiers still need to be trained 

and willing to kill in today’s militaries. Otherwise, how would militaries be an adequate threat to 

violent aggression? Or, how would they actually stop such violent aggression? There is solid 

empirical evidence to at least question if not considerably doubt the overall effectiveness of violent 

responses.28 However, my point here is that the role of Catholics, if not all Christians, is not to 

morally justify, legitimate, or label such killing necessary. For militaries, there is a domestic and 

international legal system in place which claims to permit, manage, and limit armed conflict. As 

we work to solidify a commitment to nonviolence in the Catholic community, there must also be 

persistent efforts to mainstream just peace norms in the legal system.29 This would include a clear 

commitment to outlaw and end war. Thus, as part of the transformation of military institutions, we 

can increasingly reduce and perhaps at some point root out their killing. However, the role of 

Catholics, and perhaps all Christians, would shift to a nonviolent just peace ethic to guide our 

actions and to gradually but steadily transform the military.30 



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This transition process is oriented by a commitment to trans-armament, i.e., the process of 

preparing a society structurally and culturally to move from a military-based defense to a 

nonviolent civilian-based defense. Pope Francis uses the term “integral disarmament” to refer to 

the internal disarmament of our hearts, sensibilities, and habits as well as the external disarmament 

of weapons and militaries. While Catholics work to transform military institutions from within as 

one key line of effort, an essential complementary part will be for the Catholic Church to work 

outside military institutions to build on these nonviolent practices, such as unarmed civilian 

protection and nonviolent civilian-based defense, as their own models in our communities and 

countries. This will be necessary for militaries to “see” what is going on around them and the 

impact these practices can have to motivate their own internal transformations. The Catholic 

community has significant resources and institutions to do this work, especially in coalition with 

other religious or civil society organizations. There is a broad network of educational institutions 

that can do the research and consistently teach the upcoming generations. There is major convening 

power of the Vatican and other Catholic institutions to bring key stakeholders together. There are 

significant advocacy institutions in the Vatican’s diplomatic corps, national Bishops’ conferences, 

and religious/lay advocacy organizations. I sense that Catholics have an urgent call to scale-up 

local peace teams that offer unarmed civilian protection, as well as the international UCP 

organizations that deploy to conflict zones. These include especially the Nonviolent Peaceforce, 

Cure Violence, Peace Brigades International, Christian Peacemaker Teams, and Operation Dove. 

Catholics can support and pilot more nonviolent civilian-defense programs in towns, cities, 

countries, and internationally.  

It is crucial for Catholics to attend to these creative, nonviolent practices of protection and 

national defense as we see similar trends in international relations scholarship. For instance, 

Richard Jackson explains that “it is more likely that in employing violence to protect a group of 

innocent people in the present, the long-term effects will be to reinforce the discourses and 

psychological mechanisms that encourage future resorts to violence and the entrenchment of an 

ongoing cycle of violence, thus perpetuating rather than relieving the suffering of the innocent.”31 

As Catholics reflect on the more general need to protect all life in the context of salvation history, 

we might more clearly envision healthy protection mechanisms through the lens of the Eucharist. 

The Eucharist is God’s expression through Jesus of nonviolent love, risking and offering life for 

others without killing. Jesus risks his life to save and protect us from the ultimate death of being 



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disconnected from God, and thus models for us ultimate and sustainable protection. When we 

participate in the Eucharist, we are empowered and called to embody this kind of risking of life 

for others. This represents Jesus’s saving work to the world and thus draws us all further into the 

way of salvation, which is the authentic protection of our lives and the illumination of our sacred 

dignity. “In the silence of the Cross, the uproar of weapons ceases and the language of 

reconciliation, forgiveness, dialogue and peace is spoken.”32 With this focus on risking of life 

without killing, Catholics would promote the saving of every life as the constitutive orientation for 

any institutional mechanism focused on protection.33  

 

An Inquiry into the Rwandan Genocide 

Such a Eucharistic orientation toward protection approaches would increase our attentiveness, 

open our imagination, and deepen our commitment to creative, nonviolent initiatives even in 

highly difficult situations. I will not provide a full analysis of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, but 

I will reflect briefly on this case with this Eucharistic orientation and a nonviolent just peace ethic 

to draw out a few reference points for further consideration. 

One of the first steps in such an inquiry is to become adequately aware of the root causes of the 

horrible spike in violence that occurred in April 1994 in Rwanda. The just peace norms of 

nonviolent skills and conflict transformation includes such an analysis. Like many conflicts in 

Africa, this one has roots in the violent habits formed through colonialism. For example, Paul 

Kagame, the present President of Rwanda, grew up in nearby Uganda after his parents fled Hutu 

violence in 1959 during Rwanda’s struggle for independence from colonial rule. Later, he joined 

an armed group in Uganda which deposed its president. Shortly afterwards, in the late 1980s he 

and other Tutsi leaders plotted the overthrow of the Hutu government in Rwanda. Meanwhile, the 

French had been the political, economic, and military supporters of the Hutu government, 

particularly in the early 1990s. In 1990, Kagame studied at the U.S. Army Command College in 

Kansas. After a failed attack by the Rwandan Patriotic Front on the Hutu government, Kagame 

soon became the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).  

These attacks continued on and off in the early 1990s, with various attempts at negotiations. 

The French support and presence of military forces empowered hardline Hutu elements to continue 

their violence (including the killing of civilians) and propaganda, and ultimately the intense spike 

in bloodshed known as the 1994 genocide. Meanwhile, U.S. and Ugandan support for the RPF and 



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Kagame perpetuated their ongoing campaign of violence, which stoked the fear of ordinary Hutus 

and enabled the success of their propaganda to attack Tutsis more broadly. Both France and the 

U.S. had many points along this violent conflict cycle when they could have pressured their 

proxies, withdrawn economic/political/military support, mitigated the violence, and ultimately 

prevented or defused the genocide. For instance, French banks were instead complicit in 

transferring funds for the Rwandan government during the genocide.34 The citizens of these 

democratic countries also had opportunities to influence their governments to pursue more positive 

strategies. The just peace norms of reflexivity (consistency of means and ends) and just governance 

would be particularly helpful to stimulate such activity. 

For example, both the Hutu political and military sectors as well as the Tutsi-dominated RPF 

were clearly starting to train and mobilize civilians to use arms against the civilians of the 

adversary. This began in late 1990 for the Hutus as a “self-defense” operation along with more 

formally trained militias. The RPF also did this, especially in early 1994 before the genocide. After 

the assassination of Rwanda’s Hutu president on April 6, 1994, which followed the October 1993 

assassination of Burundi’s Hutu president, there was another clear moment for potential nonviolent 

intervention. Within the next twenty-four hours key moderate Hutu leaders, including the prime 

minister, were killed by the government’s armed forces. These figures were central levers for 

maintaining previous negotiations.35 

As the killing again escalated, France evacuated French citizens but also evacuated high-

ranking Rwandan government officials from the regime involved in the killings while refusing to 

evacuate Tutsis, even those who worked at the French embassy.36 Likewise, other Western 

countries, including the U.S., evacuated their own citizens and generally refused to evacuate 

Tutsis. However, if the just peace norm of human rights and human dignity was followed, hundreds 

if not thousands of Tutsis and others could have been saved.  

Another key driver of the killing was the de-humanizing propaganda, which is common to all 

wars and violates the just peace norm of re-humanization. In this case, the Rwandan government, 

military, and other Hutus used the radio to condition and exacerbate the killing of Tutsis.37 Another 

plausible and meaningful nonviolent intervention would have been to cut off that radio signal. The 

U.S. Department of Defense considered this but chose against it primarily due to respecting 

national “sovereignty.” This sort of propaganda and other types of rumor-spreading before and 

during the 1994 genocide was key to creating fear and the willingness to kill. Notable examples 



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are known of intentional rumor-spreading by officials leading to civilians killing other civilians 

even back in 1990.38  

A proven practice for dispelling rumors and preventing them from causing or escalating 

violence is the practice of unarmed civilian protection, which fits the just peace norm of nonviolent 

direct action. Organizations like Peace Brigades International and Nonviolent Peaceforce use UCP 

to generate trust and lines of communications with all actors. This practice could have been 

implemented to mitigate and prevent the spreading of deadly rumors before and during the 1994 

genocide.39 This would have been particularly pivotal after the assassination of the president. 

Furthermore, at times this practice can also offer direct protection, especially for civilians. As 

mentioned above, two Nonviolent Peaceforce officers directly protected fourteen women and 

children during an armed militia attack at a U.N. compound in South Sudan. We also know of this 

spontaneously happening in Rwanda, whether it was some courageous Hutus protecting Tutsis, 

such as Hutu Muslims using mosques40 and the story of Hotel Rwanda, or the Catholic sisters of 

the Missionaries of Charity who protected many Tutsi children.41 These were the kinds of 

nonviolent actions that could have been better resourced, coordinated, and promoted by key 

governments like the U.S. and France but also by civil society leaders within and outside Rwanda. 

For instance, too many Catholic leaders in Rwanda who were credible messengers in their 

community failed to offer such unarmed protection, and even at times enabled and directly 

participated in the killing.42 A number of such key social groups could have been strategically 

engaged to join in nonviolent defense and noncooperation to reduce the violence.43  

Meanwhile, Kagame’s RPF, which appeared to play a key role in ending this genocide, was 

still involved in massive human rights violations before, during, and after the 1994 genocide. 

Foreign Policy journalist James Traub describes, as a “typical episode,” the RPF  

 

kidnapped refugees, many of them women and children, and brought them to a 

camp, allegedly under the pretext of returning them to Rwanda. The refugees were 

then brought out in small groups. From the report: “They were bound and their 

throats were cut or they were killed by hammer blows to the head. Their bodies 

were then thrown into pits or doused with petrol and burned. The operation was 

carried out in a methodical manner and lasted at least one month.”44 

 



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Although the genocide of 1994 seemed to subside, the cycles of horrendous violence which pre-

dated the genocide were mostly simply displaced and continued afterwards, particularly moving 

into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where the carnage continues even today. Of course, 

access to Congo’s rich supply of minerals offers an economic boon to Western companies, 

especially from the U.S. Hence, most analysts recognize the connection between Kagame’s 

military training in the U.S., his violent expansion into the DRC, and the economic interests of the 

U.S. in that region.45 Protection of all life certainly has not been the primary, if even a significant 

driver in the responses to violence by this collection of armed actors. 

This brief inquiry into the Rwandan genocide illuminates the critical contributions of a 

Eucharistic orientation to protection and a nonviolent just peace ethic. At minimum, it 

complexifies a situation that is often portrayed as a binary choice between violent intervention and 

being a bystander to genocide. Furthermore, it better illuminates that violence which appears 

“justified” or “humanitarian” to some still leads to indefensible, ongoing cycles of bloodshed. But, 

more importantly, the Eucharistic orientation and just peace ethic offers analytical methods, norms, 

and creative, nonviolent protection mechanisms that we may miss or under-value. For Catholic 

advocates and even those Catholics in government, this invites and challenges us to better commit 

and focus on these alternatives. The institutional Church and Catholic advocacy organizations have 

a critical opportunity to fully embody and offer to the world this sacramental imagination of 

nonviolence. In some rare situations of extreme difficulty, it may not be appropriate for Catholics 

to morally critique certain actors who may resort to violent protection, including “lethal force.” 

But rather than being a voice of justification, legitimation, or endorsement of violence, this is a 

call to focus our formation, discernment, resources, advocacy, intervention, and bodies to 

accompany such persons toward creative, nonviolent approaches that prevent and defuse violent 

conflict even in such difficult situations. 

 

Recent Discourse on Just War 

In order to create more space for such nonviolence, I will respond briefly to some scholarship 

referencing my arguments related to a just war framework. I have discussed some of my concerns 

about the just war approach in a previous Expositions essay.46 Here I would like to clarify some of 

this thinking and address some subsequent arguments on this topic in order to further shed light 



125  McCarthy 

 
 

on the need to move us closer to the Catholic Church fully embodying and offering to the world a 

sacramental imagination of nonviolence. 

In my previous article, I identified the concern about how the just war criteria have mostly been 

used to justify rather than prevent or limit war. There appears to be considerable agreement about 

this, even from perspectives that still uphold the just war concept.47 However, some of these same 

supporters have gone so far to claim that I and others fail to see how just war theory has been used 

to argue against war and to restrain war.48 They further suggest that since it has been used in this 

way, then this legitimates the ongoing use and refinement of just war theories. 

Yet, I and others have previously said that the just war criteria have “mostly” or “too often” 

been used, not always been used, to justify rather than prevent or limit war.49 I recognize that some 

scholars, religious leaders, and political leaders have drawn on just war criteria to speak out against 

a particular war or actions in war.50 However, even though this happens, it still primarily has 

functioned to create the social conditions for the likelihood of war and to endorse wars. Hence, I 

have quoted Bishop McElroy, who said the “just war principles have become only a little bit less 

than a green light” for war.51 Further, Gerald Schlabach has argued that “just war cannot be counted 

as useful if it only works consistently among specialists, and not to mobilize stringent scrutiny of 

warfare in pews and populace.” Just war theorists, he goes on, “must [...] recognize the theory’s 

failure to help the people of God scrutinize and resist unjust war.”52 He responds directly to 

scholars who argue that the misuse of something is no argument against its proper use: 

 

[this] principle […] is simply not convincing as applied to the just war theory. For 

in order to override both the plain words of Jesus and early Christian scruples 

against all bloodshed, and to justify exceptional recourse to violence in order to 

prevent more violence, the best and perhaps only argument has always been some 

claim of greater realism. But as I argued, the persistent manipulation of just war 

discourse is itself a data point concerning reality, a “hard fact” with which its 

advocates must grapple far more. To evade such grappling by insisting it could still 

work in theory is something of a bait-and-switch.53 

 

In other words, they argue that just war is a necessary concession to the reality of the human 

condition in a so-called fallen world, i.e., it would work better than the alternatives, but then they 



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appeal to its value as an ideal. This is a bait-and-switch: it is either realistic or it isn’t.54 The strong 

evidence of consistent abuse over time to the ad bellum and in bello criteria has led to enormous, 

ongoing, and unacceptable consequences for countless people and the earth.55 In addition to the 

reality that the just peace ethic could better prevent and limit war, as some had hoped the just war 

tradition would adequately do,56 these tragic realities significantly de-legitimate this moral 

framework as an official teaching in the Catholic Church, even if some specialists try to use it 

primarily to speak out against war.  

In addition to a pattern of enabling direct violence, the just war approach too often functions to 

enable structural and cultural violence, as I alluded to briefly in my previous essay.57 A moral 

framework focused on whether violence is morally legitimate, even in a restricted form, too often 

enables governments to expend significant energy on preparing to win a possible “just war” rather 

than invest in nonviolent resources or other basic human needs. This structural violence often 

includes the arms trade and a war system increasingly embedded in our economy and politics. 

Also, this ethic frequently enables cultural violence in the form of de-humanizing social habits 

generated by training for war, media propaganda to support preparation for war, and generational 

trauma from the experience of war. Further, such structural and cultural violence often exacerbates 

the root causes of violence and inhibits sustainable peace. 

Others have suggested that I claim anyone who uses just war theories to assess war are trying 

to “prepare” for or “seek a just war.”58 This is not an accurate portrayal of my position. It is 

normally governments that directly prepare for “just wars.” My position is that too often when we 

utilize just war theories to assess wars, we risk signaling to others the possibility of a just war 

whether we intend to or not, and whether we are arguing against a specific war or not. This provides 

cultural legitimization that functions in a society and a government to generate mental, emotional, 

material, and institutional resources to prepare for the possibility of a just war. For instance, 

international relations scholar Helen Dexter argues that this discourse of “just war theory” has 

“made it increasingly difficult to oppose war.”59  

Whether we intend it or not, our collective moral imagination for nonviolence gets truncated 

through the cultural legitimation of war and the cultural violence mentioned above. Some scholars 

have responded to this by expanding their personal imagination and then using it to further develop 

a just war framework.60 However, I am not saying that any imagination is limited by utilizing the 

just war approach. I am referring to the moral imagination for the adequate range of nonviolent 



127  McCarthy 

 
 

possibilities, and more precisely the collective moral imagination more so than the personal 

imagination.61 

Rather than “providing no evidence,” as some have claimed,62 for how this limiting of 

nonviolence has been playing out in the Catholic community and beyond, I and others, such as Fr. 

Francisco de Roux, S.J., of Colombia, have offered several examples.63 For instance, too many 

spend little if any time trying to imagine how to humanize or illuminate the dignity of our enemies, 

which is a Gospel mandate and essential to overcoming mass violence. We rarely hear religious 

and political leaders speak about or promote nonviolent resistance, especially boycotts, strikes, 

and civil disobedience, etc., to injustice and violence. When Pope Francis said not to “bomb or 

make war” on ISIS, most U.S. Catholic press and many political/religious leaders left out this 

phrase. They fixated on his call “to stop the aggression” and claimed an openness from the Pope 

to some military action, focusing their discussion on how much. Instead, the Catholic community 

may have better faced the call to not “bomb or make war” by working together to identify creative, 

nonviolent responses. Another example is how the depth and range of education on nonviolent 

theory and practice is much better in most Mennonite or Quaker schools compared to most 

Catholic institutions. 

We could look in recent history to see more evidence for how this framework has functioned to 

limit nonviolent potential by Catholic leaders. U.S. leaders, such as the United States Conference 

of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), limited nonviolent imagination and options by supporting the war 

in Vietnam as a “just war” during the 1960s.64 In the Gulf War of 1991, U.S. Catholic leaders, 

including bishops, offered various positions despite the criticism of Pope John Paul II. For 

example, Cardinal Bernard Law expressed clear support for the war effort. The lack of a consistent 

message too often enabled the status quo and the subsequent cycles of violence that continued 

twenty-five years later through destructive economic sanctions and further war in Iraq. Additional 

examples also exist.65 

Although the turn to a just peace ethic would significantly enhance our nonviolent imagination, 

development, and commitment, some argue that this ethic simply increases the threshold for last 

resort and thus should simply fit within the broader just war framework. Yes, it would to some 

extent increase the space for nonviolent action; however, Cahill argues that attempts to incorporate 

just peace components into a just war framework in our present context of continued violence 

“opens the door to ‘just peace’ as a more adequate way to respond to military and societal violence 



Catholic Nonviolence: Transforming Military Institutions 128 
 

 

than the application of just war theory, both from a Christian and from a political or humanistic 

standpoint.”66 Further, when placing a just peace ethic within the just war framework it would also 

get co-opted in a way that continues to perpetuate many of the other previously discussed social 

and political problems too often enabled by the just war framework. Not to mention that many of 

the just peace norms, such as reflexivity, virtues of mercy and empathy, conflict transformation, 

human dignity, etc., are inconsistent with just war logic. There are, of course, some positive 

elements in the just war tradition that should be and are incorporated and transformed in the process 

of shifting to a just peace ethic, such as right intention, just cause, accountability, and preventing 

and reducing violence.67 Perhaps as a signal to the broader church, Lisa Cahill points out that the 

modern popes “clearly envision their role as Christian leaders and teachers, not as elaborating 

justifications of armed force, but as maximizing the visibility, appeal, uniting power, and 

effectiveness of nonviolence and just peace.”68 

 

Conclusion 

In this essay, I offered an example of how a nonviolent just peace ethic could contribute to the 

transformation and trans-armament of military institutions. Reflecting on how such trans-

armament relates to re-imagining protection mechanisms in the light of the Eucharist, I offered a 

brief inquiry into the case of the Rwandan civil war and the genocide of 1994. In light of this 

potential for nonviolence, I responded to some recent discourse around the just war framework to 

help create more space for the Church embodying a sacramental imagination of nonviolence. The 

central argument is that if the Catholic Church commits to offering a sacramental imagination of 

nonviolence to the world, then the Church will not only get closer to becoming a church of mercy 

and a sacrament of nonviolence,68 but we will more effectively transform our military institutions 

toward trans-armament and offer more credible nonviolent protection mechanisms. 

 

 

Notes 

1. Such as mercy, empathy, humility, courage, nonviolence, solidarity, and compassion. 

2. Including restorative justice and trauma-healing. 

3. Eli S. McCarthy, “A Virtue-Based Just Peace Ethic,” Journal of Moral Theology 7.2 (June 

2018): 92–101. For a fuller elaboration, see A Just Peace Ethic Primer: Building 



129  McCarthy 

 
 

Sustainable Peace and Breaking Cycles of Violence, ed. Eli S. McCarthy (Washington, 

DC: Georgetown University Press, forthcoming 2020). See also “Just Peace Ethic,” 

handout at Path of Nonviolence conference at the Vatican, April 4–5, 2019, 

https://nonviolencejustpeacedotnet.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/jp-

handout_cni_workshop_2019.pdf.  

4. Pope Francis quoted in Gerald O’Connell, “Pope Francis to Theologians in Naples: One 

Cannot Do Theology without Freedom,” America June 21, 2019,  

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/06/21/pope-francis-theologians-naples-one-

cannot-do-theology-without-freedom. 

5. Peter Ackerman and Hardy Merriman, “Preventing Mass Atrocities: From a Responsibility 

to Protect to a Right to Assist Campaigns of Civil Resistance,” International Center on 

Nonviolent Conflict Special Report, May 2019. 

6. The United States Counterinsurgency Field Manual: U.S. Army Field Manual 3–24: 

Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3–33.5 (Washington, DC: United States Depart-

ment of the Army, 2014), https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf. 

7. Ibid. 10–2. 

8. Ibid. 10–61. 

9. Ibid. 10–26. 

10. “NP Workers Andres Gutierrez and Derek Oakley on Their Experience of the Violence in 

South Sudan,” YouTube, May 12, 2014,  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WcFwpcIMcE. 

11. They endorsed this practice of soldiers being unarmed in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea 

in the late 1990s. They said, “relying on the people to ensure the safety of the peace 

monitors reinforces their responsibility for peace” and “although it caused some angst in 

the soldiers, there were a number of occasions when things could’ve been worse if they 

were armed and when the people assisted patrols in difficult circumstances,” quoted in Rolf 

Carrière, et al., Civilian Peacekeeping: A Barely Tapped Resource, ed. Christine 

Schweitzer (Belm-Vehrte: Sozio-Publishing, 2010),   

http://www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org/images/publications/CP_A_Barely_Tapped_Resour

ce.pdf. 



Catholic Nonviolence: Transforming Military Institutions 130 
 

 

12. United Nations, High-Level Panel on Peace Operations, Uniting our Strengths for Peace: 

Politics, Partnership and People, June 16, 2015, http://peaceoperationsreview.org/wp-

content/uploads/2015/08/HIPPO_Report_1_June_2015.pdf; U.N. Women, “Preventing 

Conflict, Transforming Justice, Securing the Peace: A Global Study on the Implementation 

of United Nations Security Council resolution 1325,” 2015, http://wps.unwomen.org/en; 

United Nations, General Assembly, Report of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping 

Operations, A/72/19 (2018), https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/1627951/files/A_72_19-

EN.pdf. In addition, the concept was included for the first time in a United Nations Security 

Council (UNSC) mandate in 2016, with unarmed civilian protection in the South Sudan 

mission mandate. In addition to advocating for investment in stand-alone unarmed civilian 

protection organizations, advocates have pushed for peacekeeping troops and U.N. civil 

affairs staff to be trained in and to utilize unarmed civilian protection (“Strengthening 

Civilian Capacities to Protected Civilians: Unarmed Civilian Protection,”  

https://www.unitar.org/event/full-catalog/strengthening-civilian-capacities-protect-

civilians-unarmed-civilian-protection-0). 

13. Mel Duncan and John Ashworth, “Living Just Peace in South Sudan: Protecting People 

Nonviolently in Midst of War,” in A Just Peace Ethic Primer. 

14. Michael Nagler, Is There No Other Way? The Search for a Nonviolent Future (Berkeley, 

CA: Berkeley Hills Books, 2001), 252–253. 

15. Jack Salmon, “Can Nonviolence Be Combined with Military Means for National 

Defense?” Journal of Peace Research 25.1 (1988), 71. 

16. Gene Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century 

Potential (Boston: Porter Sargent, 2005); and Nagler, Is There No Other Way? 

17. Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle 516; Sharp, Civilian-Based Defense: A Post-Military 

Weapons System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 125; Gravina 

Miniotaite, “Lithuania: From Nonviolent Liberation towards Nonviolent Defence?” Peace 

Research: The Canadian Journal of Peace Studies 28.4 (1996): 19–36. 

18. Robert J. Burrows, The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach (Albany, 

NY: State University of New York Press, 1996); and Maciej Bartkowski, “Nonviolent 

Civilian Defense to Counter Russian Hybrid Warfare,” White Paper, International Center 

for Nonviolent Conflict, Johns Hopkins University, March 2015.  



131  McCarthy 

 
 

19. Burrows 161. 

20. Burrows 205. 

21. Burrows 240–243, 256–264. 

22. Lt. Col. David Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War 

and Society (Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1995); Jessica Wolfendale, “Developing Moral 

Character in the Military: Theory and Practice,” presented at International Symposium for 

Military Ethics, Springfield, VA, January 24–25, 2007, http://isme.tamu.edu/ISME07/ 

Wolfendale07.html. 

23. Another key virtue is mercy, which is especially relevant for Christians, as Leo Guardado 

argues in his essay in this volume. Jim Keenan, S.J., describes mercy as the willingness to 

enter into the chaos of another so as to answer them in their need; see his Moral Wisdom: 

Lessons and Texts from the Catholic Tradition (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 

2004), 124. 

24. Rachel MacNair, Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress: The Psychological 

Consequences of Killing (Lincoln, NE: Praeger/Greenwood Publishing, 2005). 

25. Pope John Paul II, quoted in Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of 

Social Doctrine of the Church (London: Continuum, 2004), 496; and in “Holy Mass in 

Drogheda, Ireland,” The Holy See, September 29, 1979, 

http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/1979/documents/hf_jp-

ii_hom_19790929_irlanda-dublino-drogheda.html. However, in a 1993 address to the 

diplomatic corps, he did affirm the international “duty to disarm the aggressor” in situations 

where populations face unjust aggressors. How the aggressor is disarmed becomes the 

challenge and what role the Catholic Church has in that situation is where a just peace ethic 

should come into play. 

26. Quoted in “Pope Calls on International Leaders to Abolish Death Penalty,” Catholic 

Herald February 22, 2016, https://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2016/02/22/pope-calls-on-

international-leaders-to-abolish-death-penalty/. 

27. “The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic,” Expositions 12.1 (2018), 85–86, 

https://expositions.journals.villanova.edu/article/view/2322.  

28. See David Cochran’s essay in this volume. 



Catholic Nonviolence: Transforming Military Institutions 132 
 

 

29. Part of this is happening with the Sustaining Peace agenda at the U.N. See Youssef 

Mahmoud and Anupah Makoond, “Sustaining Peace: What Does it Mean in Practice,” 

International Peace Institute, April 2017, https://www.ipinst.org/2017/04/sustaining-

peace-in-practice. 

30. Duane Friesen, “In Search of Security: A Theology and Ethic of Peace and Public Order,” 

in At Peace and Unafraid: Public Order, Security, and the Wisdom of the Cross, eds. Duane 

K. Friesen and Gerald W. Schlabach (Scottsdale, PA: Harald Press, 2005), 73. 

31. Richard Jackson, “Pacifism and the Ethical Imagination in IR,” International Politics 56.2 

(April 2019): 212–217. 

32. Pope Francis, “Vigil of Prayer for Peace,” The Holy See, September 7, 2013,  

http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2013/documents/papa-

francesco_20130907_veglia-pace.html. 

33. This paragraph is largely drawn from the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative’s unpublished 

research document, “Advancing Nonviolence and Just Peace in the Church and the World: 

Biblical, Theological, Ethical, Pastoral and Strategic Dimensions of Nonviolence,” July 

2019. 

34. Fiona Cumberland, “France: Proud of her Role During the Rwandan Genocide?” E-

International Relations June 4, 2012, https://www.e-ir.info/2012/06/04/france-proud-of-

her-role-during-the-rwandan-genocide/; Tracy McNicoll, “French Bank Had Role in 

Rwandan Genocide,” The Independent July 10, 2017, https://www.independent.co.ug/ 

rwanda-french-bank-role-rwandan-genocide/. 

35. “The Rwandan Genocide: How It Was Prepared,” Human Rights Watch 1, April 2016, 

https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/africa/rwanda0406/4.htm.  

36. Rene Lemarchand, “Reconsidering France’s Role in the Rwandan Genocide,” Africa Is a 

Country, June 13, 2018, https://africasacountry.com/2018/06/reconsidering-frances-role-

in-the-rwandan-genocide.  

37. Ibid. 

38. Ibid. For example, the killing of hundreds of Tutsi in the Kibilira commune.  

39. Rolf Carrière, “Rwanda’s Genocide @ 21: A Reflection,” Nonviolence Peaceforce, April 

13, 2015,  

https://www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org/blog/420-rwanda-s-genocide-21-a-reflection. 



133  McCarthy 

 
 

40. “Hutu Muslims Saved Tutsis during Rwandan Genocide,” Al Jazeera April 7, 2009, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0U5AZFsBrc. 

41. Carrière, “Rwanda’s Genocide.”  

42. Conor Gaffey, “Catholic Church Apologizes for Role in Rwandan Genocide,” Newsweek 

November 21, 2016, https://www.newsweek.com/catholic-church-apologizes-role-

rwandan-genocide-523289; “Rwanda Genocide: Catholic Church Sorry for Role of Priests 

and Nuns in Killings,” Guardian November 20, 2016,  

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/21/rwanda-genocide-catholic-church-

sorry-for-role-of-priests-and-nuns-in-killings. 

43. Robert J. Burrows, “A Nonviolent Strategy to Defeat Genocide,” Global Research June 

21, 2017,  

https://www.globalresearch.ca/a-nonviolent-strategy-to-defeat-genocide/5595512;  

and “Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy: Strategic Aims,” June 4, 2016, 

www.nonviolentliberationstrategy.wordpress.com. 

44. James Traub, “Foreign Policy: Holding Rwanda Accountable,” NPR September 7, 2010, 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129696478.  

45. Juan Carrero, “U.S./U.N. Coverup of Kagame’s Genocide in Rwanda and Congo,” Global 

Research September 21, 2010, http://whale.to/c/carrero.html. 

46. Eli S. McCarthy, “The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic.” 

47. Gerald F. Powers interviewed by Gretchen Crowe, Our Sunday Visitor, April 20, 2016, 

https://www.osv.com/Article/TabId/493/ArtMID/13569/ArticleID/19722/Powers-

Catholic-social-doctrine-is-%E2%80%98just-peace%E2%80%99-.aspx; Mark Allman 

and Tobias Winright, “Protect Thy Neighbor: Why Just-War Tradition Is Still 

Indispensable,” Commonweal June 2, 2016, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/ 

protect-thy-neighbor; response to Allman and Winright by Marie Dennis and Eli 

McCarthy, “Jesus and ‘Just War?’ Time to focus on Just Peace and Gospel Nonviolence,” 

Huffington Post October 1, 2016, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jesus-and-just-war-

time-to-focus-on-just-peace-and_b_57ec6282e4b0972364deab50. 

48. Anna Floerke Scheid, “Christian Peace Ethics: Trends in the International (Anglophone) 

Debate,” Jahrbuch fur Christliche Socialwissenschaften 59 (2018): Peace and Justice, 272–

273. 



Catholic Nonviolence: Transforming Military Institutions 134 
 

 

49. McCarthy, “The Gospels Draw Us Further: A Just Peace Ethic”; Gerald W. Schlabach, 

“Just War? Enough Already,” Commonweal May 31, 2017, https://www. 

commonwealmagazine.org/just-war-0; Schlabach, “Appeal to Catholic Church to Re-

Commit to the Centrality of Gospel Nonviolence,” Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, April 

11, 2016,  

https://nonviolencejustpeace.net/final-statement-an-appeal-to-the-catholic-church-to-re-

commit-to-the-centrality-of-gospel-nonviolence/. 

50. For example, some point to the restrictive use by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops 

to question the 2003 Iraq War. But they did not clearly resist it even when the Pope was 

against it and this enabled the conditions for ongoing abuse in Iraq including the rise of 

ISIS. Yet, the USCCB also legitimized the 2001 war in Afghanistan resulting in the 

ongoing war that continues eighteen years later. 

51. McElroy quoted in Joshua J. McElwee, “Pope Condemns Possession of Nuclear Weapons 

in Shift from Church’s Acceptance of Deterrence,” National Catholic Reporter November 

10, 2017, https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/pope-condemns-possession-nuclear-

weapons-shift-churchs-acceptance-deterrence. 

52. Schlabach, “Just War? Enough Already.” 

53. Schlabach, “Letters: More Just War: Schlabach Replies,” Commonweal September 20, 

2017, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/letters-more-just-war. 

54. Further explanation from Schlabach in email exchange with the author. 

55. McCarthy, “Gospels Draw us Further” 86–87. In the early 1900s, about 10% of deaths in 

war were civilians but that climbed steadily to about 87% in wars since 2000; see Center 

for Systemic Peace, “Global Conflicts Trends,” 2017, especially figure 8, 

http://systemicpeace.org/conflicttrends.html. These numbers don’t even include the 

enormous numbers of indirect deaths of civilians, at a rate of about 3–15x more than direct 

deaths, due to the lack of clean water, sewage, electricity, and medical supplies. See Todd 

Whitmore, “Peacebuilding and Its Challenging Partners,” in Peacebuilding: Catholic 

Theology, Ethics, and Praxis, eds. Scott Appleby, Robert J. Schreiter, and Gerard Powers 

(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2010), 163–167; Geneva Declaration, “Global Burden of Armed 

Violence,” 2008, http://www.genevadeclaration.org/fileadmin/docs/Global-Burden-of-

Armed-Violence-full-report.pdf. See also Robert J. Delahunty and John Yoo, “From Just 



135  McCarthy 

 
 

War to False Peace,” Chicago Journal of International Law 13.1 (2012): 1–45. Consistent 

abuse can be traced from Cicero and the Roman Empire (7–10), through medieval times 

with the popes and Crusades (12–13), the years of conquest in the “New World” (14–15), 

and the modern period with the “sovereign state” logic of war (16–17). Even Hugo Grotius 

acknowledged that “just war theory contributes to the likelihood and ferocity of war” (19). 

For other resources to look at this issue during the Twentieth Century, see Johan 

Verstraeten, “De Bellum Iustum Traditie en het Vredesdenken 1914–1964,” in Van 

Rechtvaardige oorlog naar Rechtvaardige Vrede. Katholieken tussen Militarisme en 

Pacifisme in Historisch-Theologish Perspectief, eds. Roger Burggraeve, et al. (Leuven: 

Universitaire Pers, 1993): 89–112.  

56. McCarthy, “Gospels Draw us Further.” 

57. McCarthy, “Gospels Draw us Further” 86, 88.  

58. Scheid, “Christian Peace Ethics” 275, 278.  

59. Helen Dexter, “Pacifism and the Problem of Protecting Others,” International Politics 56.3 

(December 2017): 243–258. 

60. Scheid, “Christian Peace Ethics” 273–274, referring to Winright. 

61. Cardinal Peter Turkson said, “It [just war theory] can undermine efforts to develop 

alternative capacities and tools for conflict to be overcome and transformed.” Quoted in 

Christopher Lamb, “Pope Urged to Abolish Creed of ‘Just War,’” Sunday Times April 24, 

2016,  

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pope-urged-to-abolish-creed-of-a-just-war-spm5jzjg8.  

62. Scheid, “Christian Peace Ethics” 273, referring to Winright’s argument.  

63. Examples can be found in my earlier essay “Gospels Draw Us Further” 88, as well as on 

the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative website on the FAQ page. Another prominent example 

is Fr. Francisco de Roux, S.J., of Colombia, who explained, “In my Catholic country, our 

nuns and priests joined the guerrillas because of the just war paradigm […]. The Catholic 

paramilitaries pray to the Virgin before slaughtering people because of the just war 

paradigm. This is awful. Help us to stop this paradigm and build up a new one” 

(Nonviolence and Just Peace Conference, the Vatican, April 11–13, 2016,  

https://nonviolencejustpeacedotnet.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/nonviolence-justpeace-

session-3-transcript.pdf). 



Catholic Nonviolence: Transforming Military Institutions 136 
 

 

64. Don Lattin, “‘The Vietnam Years’: How the Conflict Ripped the Nation’s Religious 

Fabric,” Religion News Service, Sept. 8, 2017, https://religionnews.com/2017/09/08/the-

vietnam-years-how-the-conflict-ripped-the-nations-religious-fabric/. 

65. More examples could be cited regarding Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003 (USCCB raised 

questions without clearly refuting and organizing against), and Libya in 2011. 

66. Cahill, “Catholic Tradition on Peace, War, and Just Peace,” in A Just Peace Ethic Primer. 

Referring to similar refinements of a just war framework, such as jus post bellum, she 

suggests that “Even so, it might be better (or at least more consistent with the direction of 

recent papal thought) to understand such arguments, not as expanding ‘just war theory,’ 

but as applications of positive concepts of CST such as human dignity, the common good, 

and sustainable just peace” (Cahill, “The Future of (Catholic) Just War Theory: Marginal,” 

Expositions, 12.1 (2018): 26–27, 

https://expositions.journals.villanova.edu/article/view/2318). 

67. “Advancing Nonviolence and Integral Peace in the Church and the World”; McCarthy, “A 

Virtue-Based Just Peace Ethic.” For more on key concerns about just war framework, see 

McCarthy, “The Gospels Draw Us Further” and Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, “Key 

Concerns about Just War Framework,” 2019,  

https://nonviolencejustpeacedotnet.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/ what-are-key-concerns-

about-the-catholic-church-continuing-to-legitimate-the.pdf. 

68. Lisa Sowle Cahill, “Catholic Tradition on Peace, War, and Just Peace,” in A Just Peace 

Ethic Primer. 

69. Leo Guardado, “Nonviolence: The Witness of a Church of Mercy,” in this volume. 


