Category: WM Special

We have spent the last 1,700 years denying Jesus’ final command. We have justified warfare, led our crusades, and stamped every bombing raid and nuclear weapon with our blessing. But the commandment remains: “Put down the sword.”

The great theologian David Tracy recently said, when asked what the future of theology in the U.S. would look like: “For the next 200 years, we’ll be trying to catch up with Merton.” It was this hermit, this mystic, this peace fighter who once wrote: “The chief difference between violence and nonviolence is that violence depends entirely on its own calculations. Nonviolence depends entirely on God and God’s word.”

Gandhi was convinced that much of the violence in society and in our personal lives stems from the passive violence that we commit against each other. He even made a list of the “seven pillars” of this kind of daily violence.

The principle of nonviolence launched a century ago by Mahatma Gandhi is invoked and taken up by the Church today as a call to action for the international community to overcome divisions caused by wars and terrorism.

About six years ago, the Filipinos were distinguished with two rare peace prizes. About a century ago, Gandhi was arrested by South-African authorities for civil disobedience, launching a nonviolent movement that, in the long term, led to India’s peaceful independence. When the world is living one of the most dangerous and violent periods of its history, it’s time to remember that peace is possible and non-violence is the key God puts in our hearts and our hands to achieve it.