By Ken Butigan
It is said that when St Francis of Assisi died, the grief his followers felt was gradually transformed into profound gratitude and joy as they gathered to process with his body from the Porziuncola to the church of San Giorgio in Assisi.
Now, almost 800 years later, the pope who was the first ever to take the Poor One of Assisi’s name has died. It is shocking to think that Pope Francis has passed from our midst. While he was the second longest-living pope in the history of the Catholic Church, many of us hoped against hope that he would stay with us even longer, especially in this time of deep, global crisis.
But, like the followers of the saint from Assisi, our sadness at the pope’s death is also interspersed with deep thankfulness and joy at all that he brought as, day after day, year after year, he was the one global moral leader calling us to entirely and courageously embrace the great potential of being fully human.
For a dozen years, Pope Francis dramatically engaged monumental challenges of our time by tirelessly critiquing the economic order that produces widespread involuntary poverty and a widening gap between the rich and the poor; by promulgating Laudato Si’, his ground-breaking encyclical on the environment; and by actively pursuing peace in a world shattered by war and widespread destruction.
Key to responding to all of these crises was the pope’s dogged recovery of Gospel nonviolence.
Pope Francis: The Power Of Nonviolence
In April 2023, His Holiness declared, “Let us make nonviolence a guide for our actions both in daily life and in international relations. And let us pray for a more widespread culture of nonviolence that will progress when countries and citizens alike resort less and less to the use of arms.”[i]
Amid the enormous violence and injustice our world faces—what the Holy Father called “a third world war fought piecemeal,” a global culture of violence including permanent war, growing poverty, threats to civil liberties, ecological devastation, the enduring terror of nuclear weapons, and the scourge of the structural violence of racism, sexism, and economic injustice and other forms of systemic injustice—Pope Francis urged the world to confront this catastrophic suffering, not with more violence, but with a nonviolent revolution. Rather than resolving the great challenges we face, violence often perpetuates and escalates them. His Holiness insisted that there must be another way than violence to resolve conflict, foster justice, heal the earth, safeguard immigrants, and end war.
This “other way” is not avoidance, appeasement, aggression, or attack. It is a dramatically different way of being in the world, of working for peace, of building movements and systems, and of being faithful to the vision of Jesus. Pope Francis called us to this “other way”: active nonviolence, a core Gospel value that combines the rejection of violence with the power of love and reconciliation in action.
Pope Francis: The Teaching Of Nonviolence
This call was most cogently presented in his groundbreaking 2017 World Day of Peace message entitled, “Nonviolence: A Style of Politics of Peace,” where Pope Francis published the most authoritative Catholic teaching on Jesus’ nonviolence since the early Church. In this landmark statement he proclaimed that:
“To be true followers of Jesus today…includes embracing his teaching about nonviolence”; “In the most local and ordinary situations and in the international order, may nonviolence become the hallmark of our decisions, our relationships and our actions, and indeed of political life in all its forms,” and may we “make active nonviolence our way of life.”[ii] In this landmark message, His Holiness declared, “I pledge the assistance of the Church in every effort to build peace through active and creative nonviolence.”
But His Holiness not only cited the word “nonviolence” with increasing frequency. He has concretely unpacked the distinctive dynamics of nonviolence and how they are critical to the life of the Church. This was evident in a speech he delivered at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy in 2019, where he declared, “I think of nonviolence as a perspective and way of understanding the world, to which theology must look as one of its constitutive elements.”[iii] Theology, instead, must have “[an] approach that enters into dialogue with others ‘from within’, with their cultures, their histories, their different religious traditions…”[iv]
How did Pope Francis understand this nonviolent lens? For this, we turn to a speech Pope Francis gave when meeting with ambassadors from around the world in December 2016. First, as he says at this venue, nonviolence is a “universal value that finds fulfillment in the Gospel of Christ.”[v] Second, it is a way of truth that seeks the common good, which calls us to a “nonviolent lifestyle” that is “not the same as weakness or passivity.”[vi]
During a 2017 encounter with the Anti-Defamation League, he shared this understanding of nonviolence as a “perspective and way of understanding the world” by proclaiming, “Faced with too much violence spreading throughout the world, we are called to a greater nonviolence, which does not mean passivity, but active promotion of the good.”[vii] For Pope Francis, this “greater nonviolence” was composed of rejecting the temptation of violence, loving our enemies, responding to evil with good (Romans 12:17-21), breaking the spiral of violence, and creating the potential for reconciliation.[iix]
Pope Francis: Nonviolence In Action
For Pope Francis, nonviolence goes beyond words. Nonviolence required nonviolent action, something he engaged in throughout his papacy, from entering the war zone in the Central African Republic; to making a surprise visit to a refugee camp in Greece, from which he brought three Muslim families to Rome; to making a pilgrimage of repentance seeking reconciliation with the First Nations in Canada who were deeply harmed by boarding schools run by Catholic religious communities; to an unexpected action during a meeting with warring factions in South Sudan where, “In unscripted remarks, he said, ‘I beg you as a brother to stay the course of peace. I appeal to you with all my heart: move ahead as one.’ Then, unexpectedly, he stooped down and, kneeling on the floor, kissed the feet of President Salva Kiir Mayardit and those of the opposition leaders.”[ix]
Conclusion
By explicitly using the term “nonviolence” as frequently as he did—and by taking nonviolent action repeatedly—Pope Francis opened the space for theological and pastoral momentum for nonviolence in the Church and the world.
Inspired by Pope Francis, the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, which has played a key role in this effort since its beginning—has helped nurture His Holiness’ call to this “revolution of tenderness” in the Church and the world. We are grateful for all he did to spark this emerging resuscitation of Gospel nonviolence. This would not have been possible without Pope Francis, who opened the door more widely to a nonviolent future.
About the Author:
Ken Butigan: Professor in the Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies Program (and affiliate faculty in the Catholic Studies Department) at DePaul University in Chicago (USA). Member of the executive committee of Pax Christi International’s Catholic Nonviolence Initiative. His books include From Violence to Wholeness, on Gospel nonviolence.
Endnotes:
[i] Ibid.
[ii] Pope Francis, Message, for the Celebration of the Fiftieth World Day of Peace, 1 January 2017, “Nonviolence: A Style of Politics for Peace”
[iii] Speech of Pope Francis at the meeting on the theme: “Theology of Veritatis Gaudium in the Mediterranean Context”, promenade of the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy (Naples, June 20-21, 2019), 06.21.2019 https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2019/06/21/0532/01104.html [B0532]
[iv] Ibid.
[v] “Nonviolence is a typical example of a universal value that finds fulfillment in the Gospel of Christ but is also a part of other noble and ancient spiritual traditions.” ([Pope Francis on Receiving] The Credential Letters of the Ambassadors of Sweden, Fiji, Moldova, Mauritius, Tunisia, and Burundi to the Holy See, 12.15.2016.)
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Pope Francis, Audience with the Delegation of the “Anti-Defamation League”, 09.02.2017 https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2017/02/09/0087/00213.html. Or this: “Jesus quotes the ancient law: ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ (Mt 5:38; Ex 21:24). We know what he meant: whoever takes something away from you, you will take away the same thing. It was actually a great progress, because it prevented worse retaliation: if someone hurt you, you will repay him in the same measure, you won’t be able to do him worse. Closing the contests in a draw was a step forward. Yet Jesus goes further, much further: ‘But I tell you, do not oppose the wicked’ (Mt 5:39). But how, Lord? If someone thinks ill of me, if someone hurts me, can’t I repay him with the same coin? ‘No,’ says Jesus: non-violence, no violence.’” Visit of the Holy Father Francis to Bari on the occasion of the meeting of reflection and spirituality “Mediterranean frontier of peace (19-23 February 2020) – Eucharistic celebration and recital of the Angelus, 23.02.2020.
[ix] Ken Butigan, “A Nonviolent Shift: The Growing Advance of Nonviolence in the Catholic Church and Its Potential Consequences for the Larger World,” a chapter in, “I Have a Dream”: From a Culture of Violence to a Culture of Nonviolence (London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, 2021), 1.
[xxi] South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC) Statement on Nonviolence, March 10, 2023. In addition to this powerful statement, we are seeing a growing proliferation of stances on nonviolence by other Church leaders, including Santa Fe, New Mexico Archbishop John C. Wester, who issued a pastoral letter entitled “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament” (Archdiocese of Santa Fe, NM, 2022) and Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, who made a major statement on nonviolence at the University of Notre Dame on March 1, 2023 entitled, “Our New Moment: Renewing Catholic Teaching on War and Peace.”
