💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › tom-cornell-christian-nonviolence.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 14:16:07. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-07-09)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Christian Nonviolence Author: Tom Cornell Date: December 22, 2017 Language: en Topics: christianity, pacifism, non-violence, religion, The Catholic Worker Source: Retrieved on 3rd August 2022 from https://www.lacatholicworker.org/2017/12/22/christian-nonviolence-theory-and-practice/ Notes: Tom Cornell is a longtime editor of The Catholic Worker newspaper and former co-founder of the Catholic Peace Fellowship. In a slightly different form his essay was published in the December 2017 issue of The Catholic Worker. With Jim Forest and Robert Ellsberg, he co-edited A Penny a Copy, an anthology of writings from The Catholic Worker.
“To me nonviolence is the all-important problem or virtue to be
nourished and studied and cultivated” (Dorothy Day, Diaries, Oct. 1968).
And Thomas Merton agreed: “You are right going along the lines of
satyagraha [Gandhi’s term for nonviolent action; literally the power of
truth]. I see no other way….” Merton held nonviolence to be essential.
Nonviolent action embodies a moral truth in response to a serious moral
crisis by way of protest and acts of resistance, including civil
disobedience, that do no harm, conducted in openness and truth with
willingness to pay the legal penalties. Nonviolent action may be acts of
witness only, but they may also lead to mass mobilization and real
change.
U.S. military troops had been engaged in the Vietnam civil war for five
years. Fifteen thousand of them had been killed when, on October 27,
1967, Father Philip Berrigan and three accomplices entered the Baltimore
Selective Service headquarters carrying a pitcher of blood. They opened
the file cabinets containing the records of men eligible for the
military draft and poured the blood over the files. The Baltimore Four,
as they came to be known, were convicted six months later on felony
charges. Days before they were to stand for sentencing, Philip Berrigan,
together with his brother (and fellow Catholic priest) Daniel and seven
others, raided the Selective Service offices in Catonsville, Maryland,
hauled hundreds of draft files out onto an adjacent parking lot and
incinerated them using homemade napalm, hardly a plea for leniency.
On hearing of the Berrigans’ action, we at the Catholic Worker house in
New York City were astounded by their escalation of tactics. Philip was
a dear friend–he had baptized my daughter the year before–and now I
admired his daring, wanting to believe that he had enlarged the
boundaries of nonviolent action. Not everyone was so enthusiastic.
Dorothy Day, the radical pacifist founder of the Catholic Worker, while
not criticizing the Berrigans publicly, remarked pointedly: “These acts
are not ours.” Property damage, in her view, was not part of the
nonviolent arsenal.
The Catonsville Nine, as they were called, received prison sentences of
two to six years. The Berrigan brothers and three others refused to
surrender and went underground. Dorothy considered this a major breach
of nonviolent principles. Consistent with Dorothy’s reservations, the
Catholic Worker newspaper remained largely silent about the Catonsville
action and the trial that followed, despite widespread coverage in the
mainstream media. (An article in June 1968 was the lone exception.) And
in the four decades that followed, we published virtually nothing on the
Berrigans and the Plowshares movement that, in 1980, they would help
launch. Then we gave over an entire issue to Dan Berrigan on his death.
For the past thirty years or so, Carmen Trotta and I have argued, no,
tried to reason together, about Plowshares. Is it genuinely nonviolent?
Is it just? Should we encourage, discourage? And, “What would Dorothy
say?” These acts may not be ours, but many of the people are, and so
many of them so transparently genuine, loving people, not least of them
Fr. Dan Berrigan, Greg Boertje-Obed, Michael Walli and Sr. Megan Rice.
The May 2014 issue of The Catholic Worker featured an eloquent tribute
to the Transform Now Plowshares, by Patrick O’Neil, entitled “Sr. Megan,
Mike & Greg, Thanks!” On July 2012, they had broken into the Y-12
National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which houses the
world’s biggest supply of enriched, weapons-grade uranium. Cutting
through four perimeter fences, they reached the site’s Protected Area
unobserved, and hammered on the uranium storage structure, while pouring
human blood they had brought, and hung banners and crime-scene tape. The
action garnered international attention, largely because it exposed the
vulnerability of nuclear-weapons sites. So we have come to some kind of
terms with Plowshares. But what matters is nonviolence itself.
From the Christian point of view, weapons that are intended to kill the
innocent may surely be destroyed in justice. Justice may even demand it.
But is it nonviolence? Is it disarmament? Disarmament occurs when people
lay down their weapons, not when their weapons are taken from them. That
only moves belligerents to procure more and better weapons if they can.
When activists destroy weapons, do they effect any conversion or change
of heart in their opponents? Do they lead any to lay down their arms?
Are such actions what we need?
There are practical concerns as well. The secrecy involved in Plowshares
activities invites infiltration by spies and agents provocateurs.
Openness and truth must be laid aside. Secrecy breeds suspicion within
the group and creates a class system of those “in the know,” the
“serious,” and those who merely attend to chores or lend moral or
financial support. At trial, too often, it has come out that many “in
the know” were actually spies.
A nonviolent army has no cannon fodder. Many in the antinuclear movement
have literally put their lives on the line, risking being shot when they
entered restricted areas. When Sister Megan was asked about these risks
in an NPR interview, she answered that she was perfectly at peace with
the possibility of being killed. Straight to heaven for her, no sweat!
But how about the young security guard who might be obliged to shoot
her? What of his mental and spiritual health after that?
The basis of Christian nonviolence is the same premise that underlies
all of the Church’s social teaching: that every man, woman, and child is
created in the image and likeness of God. Persons are never a means to
an end; they are ends in themselves, and thus are not to be violated in
any way, either in body, mind, or spirit. Persons are not disconnected
individuals in a war of all against all, as in the capitalist model; nor
are they to be subsumed into a larger whole, as in the collectivist
model. Instead, all are formed in, by, and for community. Thus Pope John
XXIII, in his 1963 encyclical, Pacem in Terris, grounded his hope for
peace in human rights. But how to establish and protect human rights?
Most people throughout history have assumed this is only possible
through physical force. An ancient Latin adage goes, Si vis pacem, para
bellum–if you desire peace, prepare for war. That’s like saying, “If you
desire grapes, sow briars.” Christian peacemakers would rather say, Si
vis pacem, para pacem–if you desire peace, prepare for peace.
Christian discipleship will be judged by the criteria of the Last
Judgment: the works of mercy that Jesus describes in Matthew 15. War may
be judged by these same criteria, for the works of war are the exact
opposite of the works of mercy. Feed the hungry? No, destroy their
crops! Give drink to the thirsty? No, poison their wells! Shelter the
homeless? No, bomb their village! The weapons of Christian nonviolence
include the spiritual works of mercy; again, the works of war are the
exact opposite. Instruct the ignorant? No, lie to them! Counsel the
doubtful? No, draft them or imprison them! Console the bereaved? Give
them more deaths to grieve!
Forgive injuries? Not on your life! Make them pay, ten times over!
Authentic nonviolence must be revolutionary because the social,
political, economic order we live under violates the human person in
fundamental ways–body, mind, and spirit. The present order is more
accurately called disorder. It kills and maims the body by war and by
withholding the means to life from the poor. It violates human
intelligence because it thrives on lies–truth is always war’s first
casualty. And it violates the human conscience, which instinctively
shrinks in horror from killing our own. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a West
Point psychology professor pioneered the conditioning technique known as
killology to overcome our natural aversion to homicide, a prime task of
military training. Wars can be fought only by stilling the voice of
conscience. By contrast, nonviolence recognizes the humanity of the
opponent and appeals to “that of God in everyone,” as the Quakers put
it–that which the Creator breathed into our first parents and which we
all share, even the boss, the landlord, the racist, the oppressor, the
warmonger.
In struggle, the nonviolent activist does not seek victory but
reconciliation, the redemption of opponents, never their humiliation
much less their annihilation. Therefore, the nonviolent activist always
allows the opponent a way to retreat with dignity, an honorable way out
of any conflict. The principal weapon of nonviolence is dialogue.
Genuine dialogue assumes the good faith of partners and avoids invidious
language and ad hominem argument. Dialogue may be suspended at an
impasse, but resumption is always a goal. The nonviolent armory includes
protest, public dissent, noncooperation, and active resistance, but
always with the purpose of re-establishing dialogue. Civil disobedience
is the last weapon to be used, not the first, and should be undertaken
after careful discernment under spiritual direction.
Christian nonviolence is a way of life, not a tactic. Often adopting
nonviolence is part of a conversion process. The nonviolent activist is
a man or woman of spiritual discipline, who has peace within, for one
cannot give what one does not have. In order to practice Christian
nonviolence we have to prepare ourselves through study– nonviolence
doesn’t come naturally for most of us. Thomas Merton pointed to the
superficiality of much of what he saw coming out of the peace movement
of the 1960s. The years since have seen worse. We Christians need to
recover what our ancestors in the faith knew about peacemaking. And we
need a revolution of the heart. To purify our wills we need to pray. To
tame our lusts we need self-control, discipline, and fasting in one way
or another. Only then can we come to the study of nonviolence with the
realistic hope of putting it into useful practice. One need not be a
saint, but the intellectually slothful and the self-serving will not
make effective nonviolent practitioners. The way of nonviolence must
proceed person by person.
At this point, a reasonable objection confronts the pacifist. Jesus
counsels that I turn my own cheek, not my neighbor’s. Do we not have an
obligation to protect the innocent? Does it not happen sometimes that
the only effective way to protect the innocent is by force, even force
of arms? Is it not a crime that cries to heaven that the international
community did not intervene to stop the genocide in Rwanda and in Sudan?
Refusal to support military force in defense of the innocent for reasons
of conscience does not extricate anyone from this moral dilemma.
Advocates of nonviolence have pioneered peaceful ways to resist
aggression or home-grown tyranny. Religious groups such as Maryknoll and
the Quakers have long prepared for re-entry into conflict areas in Asia.
Other groups such as Christian Peacemaker Teams and Voices for Creative
Nonviolence have sent trained activists into conflict areas such as
Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, and Central and South America as
“accompaniment teams” to document abuses and to train others in the work
of resistance and reconciliation.
Another response, suggested by Gandhi, is to build up community,
creating “cells of good living” in a violent world. This is what
Catholic Worker groups, the Bruderhof, and other intentional communities
strive to do in ever increasing numbers. All the same, there is weight
to arguments for forceful intervention to protect the innocent. The
innocent do need protection, and the world as we know it does need a
police force. International police action is different from war. It is a
perversion that, in this country, the police are being militarized.
There has to be another way. Imagine solid ranks of Catholic
conscientious objectors heeding the call of Pope Paul VI at the United
Nations on October 4, 1965: “No more war, war never again!” His message
was echoed by Pope John Paul II when he addressed the youth of Ireland
at Drogheda in 1979: “On my knees I beg you to turn from the paths of
violence and return to the ways of peace…. Violence only delays the day
of justice. Violence destroys the work of justice…. Do not follow any
leaders who train you in the ways of inflicting death. Love life!
Respect life, in yourselves and in others. Give yourselves to the
service of life, not the service of death…. Violence is the enemy of
justice. Only peace can lead the way to true justice.”
The Catholic Church is becoming, if not a pacifist, then a peace church.
In his 1991 encyclical, Centesimus Annus, John Paul II again pleaded,
“No, never again war, which destroys the lives of innocent people,
teaches how to kill, throws into upheaval even the lives of those who do
the killing and leaves behind a trail of resentment and hatred, thus
making it all the more difficult to find a just solution of the very
problems that provoked the war.” And Pope Benedict XVI: “I would like to
call out to the consciences of those who form part of armed groups of
any kind. To each and every one, I say: Stop, reflect, and abandon the
path of violence!” (Angelus message, Jan. 1, 2010). And more: “It is
impossible to interpret Jesus as a violent person. Violence is contrary
to the kingdom of God; it is a tool of the Antichrist. Violence never
serves humanity, but dehumanizes” (Angelus message, Mar. 11, 2012). Let
us hear no more, “Yes, but….”
When war is outlawed, as it must be if humanity is to survive its
penchant for self-destruction, our progeny will look back on
justifications for war with the shame we do today on justifications for
slavery by Christian theologians a mere one hundred and fifty years ago.
If Christians are not in the vanguard of the war against war, if that is
left to nonbelievers, then we will have deserted the field, cowards
indeed, and other generations, if there be any, will have to restore the
credibility of the gospel of the Prince of Peace and the integrity of
his Church. Disarmament must be a top priority. Most people would agree
in principle–popes and presidents included–but there is no will to do
it. It’s been over fifty years since we had a broad-based disarmament
movement in the United States or the world. Meanwhile the nuclear threat
has only become more severe as nuclear weapons capability proliferates.
In the Catholic Church, a grassroots peace movement among the laity has
been growing–and not just among the usual suspects in the Catholic
Worker, Pax Christi, and Plowshares movements. Academic groups such as
the Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame are contributing too.
Merton again: “The duty of the Christian in this [present] crisis is to
strive with all his power and intelligence, with his faith, his hope in
Christ and love for God and man, to do the one task which God has
imposed upon us in the world today. That task is to work for the total
abolition of war” (The Catholic Worker, Oct. 1961).
So let us get to work. The first words I ever heard Dorothy Day speak,
sixty-four years ago: “There are great things that have to be done, and
who will do them but the young?” No cause is more noble or more
necessary. I’m old now; it’s your turn, young people. Pray and study,
then get out there!