In June, the bishops of South Sudan, citing the Rome conference, called their congregations to work for justice, peace, and reconciliation to end their country’s civil war. Peacebuilding is a mandate for the global church as well
This reminds me of MLK letter and his speech. A calling for peace is what both was used for
The church everywhere must be urged, motivated, and expected to promote peacebuilding. This is a mission in which U.S. Catholics and most of their leaders have fallen grievously short.
This reminds me a little of MLK. In his letter he talks about how he has broken has broken laws a a leader. Here we see that peacebuiding is something US Catholics and their leaders are trying to build on eventhough they have fallen many times to this.
More controver-sially, however, the conference document demands that Catholics “no longer teach or use just-war theory.” There is no “ just-war,” it claims, and “ just-war theory” is used more to endorse war than to prevent or limit it.
My thing is that how easy will it before for this to be taught now that for so long they were using the just-war theory.
“Just peace,” not just war, should be the distinguish-ing mark and calling of the global Catholic Church.
This is what they are trying to get people to be accustomed to now. I feel like its easy to say it, but when the time comes and the first thing that comes to mind is war, how will they react?
Just peacemaking does not reject all uses of armed force, recognizing the legitimacy of humanitarian interven-tion. This was a bone of contention between pacifists and just-war theorists engaging with Stassen’s project, but they agreed that just-peacemaking practices, now incorporated into jus ante bellum, would diminish the likelihood of war and underscore that war truly should be a last resort—which is a criterion for just war under jus ad bellum.
It states that peacemaking does not reject all uses of armed forces. Again something I don't think MLK would agree with. War should truly be the last resort and before anything, problems should be approached in a peaceful way.
The first, jus ante bellum, refers to a robust and perpetual commitment to proactive and just peacemaking practices.
This is something I think MLK would agree with more. Commitment to proactive and peacemaking practices. In his Letter from Birmingham that's what he really talked about and made known that that was what he stood for. Violence was never an option.
an understanding that war is never a good in itself, but at best morally justified as the right or necessary thing to do, even with the many evils, moral or not, that result from it;
Like it says, war is never good in itself, but is morally justified as the right or necessary thing to do. When looking at this I think of MLK and how he would go about this. I personally don't think he would agree just because of everything he stood for but I do believe that someone could put up a good argument on why this is reasonable.
“An Appeal to the Catholic Church to Re-Commit to the Centrality of Gospel Nonviolence,” has been hailed as a “landmark” and “groundbreaking” proclamation calling on the church to embrace pacifism and move away from its traditional just-war teaching. The statement was the result of an April confer-ence at the Vatican sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and Pax Christi International.
I wonder what brought this idea up. What made them want to embrace pacifism and move away from the just-war teaching.