FAQs

Nonviolence is an ethical-political practice that rejects all forms of violence and aggression. It opposes using violence both as a method and as an end, believing that violence only generates more violence. Nonviolence is a paradigm of the fullness of life, broader than pacifism, more than the absence of violence, and never passive.

Gospel or active nonviolence is the mission of Jesus’ nonviolent love of friends and enemies. (Matthew 5:44, John 15:9-13)

Nonviolence is a spirituality, a way of life, a method for change, and a universal ethic. It is at the heart of the Gospel, in which Jesus combined the rejection of violence with the power of love in action. Followers of Jesus are summoned to the way of faithful nonviolence, especially as we face the realities of violence in our communities and around the world.

Violence is utterly opposed to the Gospel; nonviolence is at the heart of the Gospel. Being Christian meant rejecting violence and loving one another. Being Christian meant taking up the nonviolent life as part of a nonviolent community.

Jesus’ nonviolence was the transformative power of love in action and resistance. As a way of life, Jesus calls us to develop the habits and practices of active nonviolence in our daily life.

Violence

Violence is not only hitting someone or verbally abusing them. It is any physical or emotional harm, but also every form of injustice, experienced at all levels of our wounded world: personal, interpersonal, social, systemic, and worldwide. Violence destroys, dehumanizes, diminishes, and dominates billions of people and our fragile planet. It includes the violence of racism, poverty, colonialism, gender inequality, environmental destruction, and many other forms of systemic injustice.

Nonviolence

“Nonviolence” was a word coined in English by Gandhi a century ago. Though this term was new to English ears, it was already an ancient word in Gandhi’s own language and a primordial part of humanity’s way of being in the world. Gandhi translated the 5,000-year-old Sanskrit word, ahimsa (meaning “non-tearing,” “non-harming,” “non-violence”), into the English word “nonviolence.”

“‘Ahimsa,’ a kind of double negative, actually stands for something so original that we cannot quite capture it with our weak words.” -Michael Nagler.

The term “nonviolence” has the added advantage of clearly “taking a standing against violence” even as it suggests the fullness of a life “free from violence.”

Nonviolence has increasingly been seen as key to the survival of life on earth and to the healing of our planet. Nonviolence is a more effective response than violence or passivity to war and gun violence, to indifference and domination, or the structural violence of racism, economic injustice, ecological destruction and more.

There is a crucial connection between violence and the climate crisis, emphasizing the importance of nonviolent strategies in achieving sustainable ecological integrity.

Over the course of his ten-year papacy Pope Francis has played a critical role in advancing nonviolence. His appeal for the world to pray for a nonviolent culture is just the most recent call to the Church and the world to take up the way of active and creative nonviolence in the face of a global culture of violence and injustice. This is a consistent theme of Pope Francis: confronting the reality of violence with active and transformative Gospel nonviolence.

St. Pope John Paul II said that “violence is the enemy of justice,” and “it violates our dignity”; Pope Benedict XVI said that “loving the enemy is the nucleus of the Christian revolution” and “it’s impossible to interpret Jesus as violent”; and Pope Francis said, “[T]he true strength of the Christian is the power of truth and love, which leads to the renunciation of all violence. Faith and violence are incompatible.”

With Pope Francis, we hear both the “cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (Laudato Si’ 49). We deeply recognize that our lack of connection with the environment is a form of violence and contributes to the activity of war. “Might is right” has engendered immense inequality and acts of violence, such as Iraq (82). Too often power is guided by “norms of alleged necessity, from either utility or security.” However, our “freedom fades” when handed over to such violence (105). Further, “war always does grave harm to the environment” (56), such as the water, soil, air, and influx of disease. Engaging in war is not being faithful to the wisdom we are called to protect and preserve (200). In fact, “fraternal love can only be gratuitous (about gift); it can never be a means of repaying others for what they have done or will do for us. That is why it is possible to love our enemies” (228).

Our appeal to Gospel nonviolence and just peace incorporates and orients this wisdom within a broader, faithful, and effective framework for transformation.

Laudate Deum embodies this spirit of the nonviolent way forward by standing against the power of the systemic violence destroying the planet; by proposing nonviolent approaches and strategies; and by calling for nonviolent action. In reflecting on this follow-up to Laudato Si’, it is possible to see this document itself as a form of nonviolent action Pope Francis is taking at this critical moment in history.

Pope Francis sharpens the reality of this choice for us. He does this by highlighting the concrete realities of systemic violence which are worsening the destruction of the planet and the growing climate crisis.

In the face of this violence, he points us toward a nonviolent way, underscored by two powerful convictions he enunciates in this document: “This allows me to reiterate two convictions that I repeat over and over again: ‘Everything is connected’ and ‘No one is saved alone.’” Because everything is connected, violence hurts everyone, just as nonviolence can mend the web of life in which we are all embedded. This very image makes clear his second point, that we are all in this together, and will not be saved singly.