By Ken Butigan

The attack on Iran launched on February 28 has underscored the unmistakable choice facing our world: we will either finally learn, practice, and institutionalize the ability to transform conflict nonviolently, or we will increasingly suffer the consequences of unimaginable violence, including the horrific destruction that domination systems are willing to mete out in their voracious quest for power and control.

Those consequences were experienced directly by the women, men and children killed in the punishing assault unleashed by the United States and Israel on Tehran and other cities in Iran, and by those in turn killed by the retaliatory missile attacks launched by Iran across the region. Much more suffering will likely follow. As U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres declared during a special session of the Security Council called to address the crisis, “Military action carries the risk of igniting a chain of events that no one can control in the most volatile region of the world.”

As with previous wars initiated by the United States in the Middle East, there is no telling what will come of this, on the ground and internationally. Geopolitically, this “war of choice” is strategically suspect, as many commentators and analysts have said when they stress that no substantial rationale has been advanced by the Trump administration for taking such dubious, risky, and lethal action.

But the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative does not oppose this precipitous war only in light of a “strategic calculus” gauging potential geopolitical fallout. Fundamentally, this stance is rooted in a conclusion it has been driven to both theologically and pragmatically: violence is the titanic spiritual crisis of our time that violence cannot quell. Violence—any personal, interpersonal, or structural behavior, policy, or condition that destroys, dominates, disinherits, or dehumanizes—does not resolve conflict; it deepens and broadens it. It unleashes trauma and deep grief. It desecrates the humanity of its victims. And it extends this unresolved conflict into the future. Violence touches off either the explosive and unpredictable counter-violence of retaliation and escalation—or it feeds a smoldering resentment and revenge, increasing the likelihood of future combat.

This spiral of violence—nurtured by dreams of overweening power on one side and the hatred and fear stoked by powerlessness on the other—may present for a time as a kind of “peace,” but it is the peace of empires, the “peace of the grave.”

This is what is so revolutionary about the message and life of Jesus, who lived under an imperial occupation with its so-called “Roman Peace.” From the Sermon on the Mount to the length and breadth of his earthly ministry, he revealed Gospel Nonviolence: a spirituality, a way of life, a method of change, and a universal ethic, which combined the rejection of violence with the power of love in action. With all of this, he called his disciples—and us, today–to break this cycle of violence.

Sr. Angie O’Gorman illuminates Jesus’ nonviolent alternative to “the logic of violence” (as Pope Leo calls it) when she writes that “love of enemies” is a powerful force “by which Jesus meant wanting wholeness and well-being and life for those who may be broken and sick and deadly. It was meant to be the cornerstone of an entirely new process of disarming evil; one which would decrease evil instead of feeding it as violence does.”

Or as Pope Francis declared when he reflected deeply on the moment in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus is being arrested and he commands his disciples not to respond with violence: “’Put your sword back into its sheath.’ The words of Jesus resound clearly today …In the Gospel of Luke’s version of the story, Jesus tells his disciples, ‘Stop, no more of this!’ Jesus’ sorrowful and strong, ‘No more,’ goes beyond the centuries and reaches us. It is a commandment we cannot avoid. ‘No more’ swords, weapons, violence, war.” (Peace on Earth: Fraternity is Possible).

Pope Leo has also taken up this episode. In his 2026 World Day of Peace message, he stresses that the disciples, huddled together in the garden, are troubled by Jesus’ “nonviolent response: a path that they all, Peter first among them, contested; yet the Master asked them to follow this path to the end,” including when “he firmly repeats to those who would defend him by force: ‘Put your sword back into its sheath’ (Jn18:11; cf.Mt26:52).”

In the days before his arrest and execution, Jesus wept over Jerusalem, foreseeing the destruction of the city and declaring, “”If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!” (Luke 19:42). In our own time, Pope Francis, echoing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, puts it this way: ‘It is no longer a question of choosing between violence and nonviolence, but between nonviolence and non-existence.’ The choice is up to us.” (I Ask You in the Name of God: Ten Prayers for a Future of Hope).

In this spirit, Pope Leo has called for the parties of this new war to pursue the nonviolent alternative:

“I am following with deep concern what is happening in the Middle East and in Iran during this tumultuous time. Stability and peace are not achieved through mutual threats, nor through the use of weapons, which sow destruction, suffering, and death, but only through reasonable, sincere, and responsible dialogue. Faced with the possibility of a tragedy of immense proportions, I make a heartfelt appeal to all the parties involved to assume the moral responsibility of halting the spiral of violence before it becomes an unbridgeable chasm. May diplomacy regain its proper role, and may the well-being of peoples, who yearn for peaceful existence founded on justice, be upheld. And let us continue to pray for peace.”

But even more to the point in many ways, His Holiness got to the heart of the matter in an address last June:

“It is truly distressing to see the principle of ‘might makes right’ prevailing in so many situations today, all for the sake of legitimizing the pursuit of self-interest. It is troubling to see that the force of international law and humanitarian law seems no longer to be binding, replaced by the alleged right to coerce others. This is unworthy of our humanity, shameful for all mankind and for the leaders of nations. After centuries of history, how can anyone believe that acts of war bring about peace and not backfire on those who commit them? How can we think that we are laying the foundations of the future apart from cooperation and a global vision inspired by the common good? How can we continue to betray the desire of the world’s peoples for peace with propaganda about weapons buildup, as if military supremacy will resolve problems instead of fueling even greater hatred and desire for revenge? People are beginning to realize the amount of money that ends up in the pockets of merchants of death; money that could be used to build new hospitals and schools is instead being used to destroy those that already exist!”

Here is Pope Leo’s urgent cry for the nonviolent path that spells out a clear diagnosis of systemic global violence of “might makes right,” the tragic likelihood of its backfiring, and the true victims of this reckless wielding of power: the people under the rain of the bombs. None of these fosters “the common good” as it relentlessly deprives those in most need of the “hospitals and schools” and much else that make the sustaining of life possible.

In response to this cry for peace and nonviolence, the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative remains stalwart in advancing not only the vision of nonviolence but its essential role in breaking the spiral of violence and cultivating the foundations for the nonviolent shift in the Church and the world.

From Pope Leo’s foundational proclamation of the “unarmed and disarming” peace of Christ to the findings of the social sciences that have proven how nonviolent strategies are twice as effective as violent ones, CNI is inspired to nurture formation, training, and movements resisting violence—including this most recent carnage—all grounded in the ceaseless prayer for peace across our wounded and sacred world.

Ken Butigan is a Senior Advisor to the Catholic Institute for Nonviolence and the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative.  He is a professor at DePaul University in Chicago, USA, in the Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies Program.