 Depending on where in our wide world you're watching from, I bid you good morning, good afternoon, or perhaps good evening. Welcome to the United States Institute of Peace. I'm David Yang, Vice President for Applied Conflict Transformation at USIP. Thank you for joining us today for this forum on the Catholic Church and Peace Building. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. So said Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, and so began the long peace building career of the Catholic Church. In our times that career has included diplomatic efforts at the highest levels, such as Pope John the 23rd's critical role in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis. It has also included the Church's support in the 1980s for the solidarity movement in Poland and the original People Power movement in the Philippines. This duality, the actions of the Catholic Church to support top-down and bottom-up peace building, explains our subtitle for today's discussion, bridging the gap between people power and peace processes. We would like to explore how the Catholic Church deftly juggles its roles of diplomat and mediator on the one hand and the people's champion for social justice on the other. As a former altar boy and a continuing student of the Catholic Church, I would observe that while this duality might pose tactical challenges, it is nevertheless rooted in a holistic strategy of Catholic peace building. In the contemporary history of the Church, this grand strategy of sorts dates from Pope John the 23rd's Pachamen Terrace, Peace on Earth. The April 1963 encyclical that Pope John issued shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis the previous October and shortly before his death that June. In the encyclical, Pope John states that God created human beings with a conscience so that we can all understand the natural order of the universe. Indeed, peace on earth depends on our proper understanding of natural laws. In Pope John's view, natural law governs three sets of relationships in our lives. First relations among our fellow humans, second relations among individuals in the state, and third relations among states. First in our relations with each other, Pope John echoes the natural law tradition of human rights. He writes that every human has, quote, the right to live, the right to bodily integrity, and to means necessary for the proper development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and finally the necessary social services. Unquote. He proceeds to explain other natural rights in the political, economic, social, and cultural spheres. This first section of the encyclical was in perfect harmony with the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. Pope John then turns to the relations between individuals in the state. He acknowledges that human society cannot thrive without the presence of those who invested with legal authority, preserve its institutions, and do all that is necessary to sponsor actively the interest of all its members. But Pope John also proceeds to say that governmental authority must also recognize natural law and the natural order of the universe. For him that means the primary purpose of government is to ensure that the aforementioned natural rights must be recognized and protected. Finally Pope John explains relations between states. These relationships he writes must also be in sync with natural law. Specifically states must treat each other in accordance with the dictates of truth, justice, willing cooperation, and freedom. Further he states states should act with mutual trust, sincerity, and negotiation, and the faithful fulfillment of obligations assumed. In essence, although Pope John did not use these terms, his historic encyclical presented a vision of peace based on human rights, democratic institutions, and collective security. Pope John's successor, Paul VI, inspired by Potcherman Terrace, established the church's tradition of the World Peace Day on January 1st, 1968. Pope Francis used the occasion of the 50th World Day of Peace in 2017 to add an important coda to Potcherman Terrace. Pope Francis entitled his message, non-violence, a style of politics for peace. He observed that while the last century experienced two world wars, today sadly we find ourselves engaged in a horrifying world war fought piecemeal. By piecemeal, Pope Francis meant, quote, wars in many countries and continents, terrorism, organized crime, human trafficking, the abuses suffered by migrants, and the devastation of the environment. He said, violence is not the cure for our broken world. We must instead be true followers of Jesus by embracing his teaching of non-violence. The Pope cited the examples of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, and of Lima Bowie in Liberia. Pope Francis said, peace building through active non-violence is the natural and necessary complement to the church's continuing effort to limit the use of force by the application of moral norms. And he noted that the best manual, as he put it, for the strategy of non-violent peace building was the eight Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. Finally, he wrote, I pledge the assistance of the church in every effort to build peace through active and creative non-violence. So in my view, Pope John's 1963 Pachamen Terrace plus Pope Francis' New Year message and Coda together provide a holistic strategy of contemporary Catholic peace building. USIP has long been interested in the leadership of the Catholic Church on peace. Our oldest thematic program focuses on the role of religious actors who are working for peace. It seeks to bring attention and support to religious peace builders who advocate with great courage for peace, non-violence, human rights, and good governance. Our newest thematic programs at USIP focus on support to peace processes and non-violent action respectively. In this work we are broadening participation in peace processes to expand the voices who are critical to shaping the contours of governance in society. Through our non-violent action program, we're providing support that recognizes how ordinary people can engage in collective action that builds power from the ground up to challenge injustice and to address the root causes of conflict. In particular, our research on the role of religious actors in formal peace processes is exploring the intersection of these three fields and aims to better understand how the inclusion or exclusion of religious leaders and communities in these complex peace processes can impact their outcome both negatively and positively. In this research we're unpacking some of the most common roles the Church has played such as mediating disputes and channeling communication between conflicting parties, as well as serving as fierce advocates to bring peace and end suffering for those most affected by violence and conflict. And we at USIP want to build on the essential role that religious actors have played throughout history, roles in engaging with non-violent movements in support of peace with justice, from hosting non-violent action trainings in church basements, to offering safe harbor to activists fleeing repression. We applaud in particular the work of Pax Christie International, a project of the Catholic Non-Violence Initiative. Since its founding in 2016, Pax Christie has worked to promote and develop non-violent practices and strategies within the framework of a Catholic just peace. USIP is honored to be joined by distinguished panel today led by Reverend Robert McElroy Bishop of the Diocese of San Diego. Bishop McElroy was born in San Francisco, indeed a fifth generation San Franciscan. He was educated at Harvard, Stanford, and St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park California. He served as the parish priest throughout Northern California. He was later appointed to be auxiliary bishop of San Francisco in 2010. Pope Francis appointed him to be bishop of San Diego in 2015. He also serves as the vice president of the California Catholic Conference as a member of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. He's written two important books, The Search for an American Public Theology, and The Second Morality and American Foreign Policy. He's widely recognized for his moral and ethical advocacy and a variety of issues, including the church's support for peace and justice through non-violence. Bishop McElroy will offer introductory remarks and then moderate our panel. I'd like to welcome on behalf of all of my USIP colleagues. I'd like to welcome and thanks all of our panelists. Bishop McElroy, I thank you for your continuing leadership. Welcome and as fellow San Franciscans of the same generation, I hope if you've become a San Diego Padres fan as I've become a Washington Nationals fan that we still have Willie Mays in the number 24 in our hearts. Welcome. Yes, I am a Padres fan. When I came down here for the first dinner they had for me, the team gave me a Padres uniform with my name on it so I wear it once a year to the games. But San Francisco is still in my heart so thank you very much. And I thank the Institute in particular for having the initiative to reflect upon these themes of peace-building and non-violence in the life of the Catholic community in as many dimensions. And I thank them for the Institute for bringing together all of us to understand better and to think how we can move forward in terms of the life of the Catholic community to make it a more productive actor in the international arena at all levels to build peace in our world. I would say that just as a basic structure, I think there are really four dimensions within the Catholic community that contribute to peace-building and non-violence. The first is at the international level in terms of the institutionalized role of the Catholic Church, the Pope and the various participants in the central decision-making and action of the Church in the world. That the Catholic community is, you know, a billion people throughout the world. It's also the oldest continuing functioning bureaucracy in the world, and it has relations with the great majority, official diplomatic relations, with the great majority of nations in the world. And it's an oddity in that. It has a unique identity in that set of diplomatic relations because it is a nation-state, a small nation-state, the Vatican. But the diplomatic relations which the Vatican has with every nation are not governmental, not between an individual government, the Vatican. It's between an individual government and what's called the Holy See. In other words, it's the moral and spiritual dimension of the Catholic Church that has these diplomatic relations. It's not a country acting as a country. And I think that that speaks to what the Catholic Church is understanding that that universal dimension and the the role of the Pope and the group of individuals and leadership seek. They look on their identity in the international system in the formal sense as to build peace and to bring spiritual and moral reflection and opportunities to advance the principles of Pachamen-Terras. So as an actor in the international system, the Catholic community is like an NGO in many ways, and yet it's a nation-state. But it looks on its role in all of those elements as moral and spiritual. Now, at times, that role focuses on particular areas of interest to the Catholic communities around the world. For example, religious liberty issues in various countries. But I just want to emphasize that overall the Church's own self-understanding of what its international role is in its institutional form is to help uplift and form a dialogue with the spiritual and moral dimensions of the human community to build solidarity and look for ways to advance human rights and to advance the cause of peace in crucial sectors. So much of what the diplomatic corps does in the Vatican, much of that is focused on specific ways when conflicts are developed or when there are opportunities for dialogue to advance peace-building to focus on that. The second dimension beyond the Church's kind of universal institutional intervention in the world and dialogue with the world in these questions is within the particular national churches. Within each country there are Catholic communities, again, that have an institutional form. And the churches in those nations often have critical roles in the society to try to build up solidarity, to try to and in times of conflict to be interveners, to try to mediate, to try to advance the cause of peace, to try to point out both injustices on the human rights level but also injustice in terms of internal peace in countries. And thus the Catholic community in each country often takes on a role within the nation itself, similar to that in the universal one that takes place at the Vatican, but within each country there are often opportunities and very dramatic opportunities which the national churches have to advance the cause of peace. So that would be the second dimension. The third would be that there exists now, have always been, and a series of communities within the life of the Catholic Church around the world that have taken up this role of peace building in very profound and specific ways. So they are like laying seeds of peace building within the life of the church community and in the society as a whole. Marie Dennis is going to speak about Pax Christi. Pax Christi is one of those organizations. The San Egidio community which exists in Rome is one of those organizations which its whole culture and ethos is oriented toward peace building throughout the world. And thus it's able been able to have effective mediating roles in various countries that have been very important San Egidio. And yet San Egidio is just a group of people of faith who come together with a common aim and seek to realize it. But it gives them a status as independent actors to come in and be helpful in moments of great conflict or potential conflict. So and then the final the fourth dimension of the work of the church beyond that of the universal church the national Catholic communities and then communities who have formed to advance the cause of peace as a moral and spiritual ground. The fourth is how does the Catholic church as a community of faith speak to the issue of war and peace and violence within our world now? How does it help to form an ethos within the world as a whole in which peace building and conflict resolution are right at the center of public thinking at every level? And so that's where Pope Francis' recent statement is so important because it signals the desire within the Catholic community to move from an ethic of war and peace where the churches you know the church helped develop the ethic of war and peace but it was meant at its beginning to be a way of limiting war and peace in so many ways as it all through its development in the medieval period. But now has become just a permission for countries to go to war. So how do we move from that to an ethic of issues of war and peace and conflict and peace in which non-violence is at the center and the heart of the discussion? So those four missions I say fall to the Catholic church at this time and have been historically shaped but at this moment and I know our panelists are going to speak to how they have been worked out on the ground. So I would turn first to the question of asking the panel you know how has the in your area of experience expertise observation and participation how has the role of the church functioned and changed and been vibrant and made a difference? Professor Appleby maybe you could go first. Thank you Bishop. I'll talk about six moments of evolution if we will over the last since Potrimon Terrace. I'll do it in seven minutes. I think six highlights. We take many of these for granted now but they are relatively new things since Potrimon Terrace. The first I would mention is development is the new name for peace. Pope Paul VI mentioned this in 1967 this that was his banner headline if you will in Papallorum progressio but it's so important and we've understood over the last 50 years or so that peace builders cannot work in settings effectively where poverty and hunger greed conflict and development workers and development professionals also recognize the connection between stability security peace cessation of shooting and there are many dimensions to this but we recognize that we can't isolate peacemaking peace building from the work of development and that those sets of professionals activists and church advocates need to work together so development is the new name for peace we'll say more about all these later I imagine. Secondly in my experience when I first started oh maybe 25 years ago working in Catholic peace building I came to it with the assumption that bishops and priests being disciples apostles of the Prince of Peace were natural peace builders and then which was a dumb naive assumption peace building is is certainly rooted in our theological and religious and spiritual commitments to peace but it's also a set of practices and we had to recognize in the community that not all bishops were trained when they were in seminary when they were prepared and priests as well clergy and religious more generally that it wasn't just like falling off a log let's become peace builders and so what we've seen evolve in a wonderful way over the last several decades is the clergy women religious and late people all moving beyond an affirmation of an importance of peace kind of a spiritual orientation to peace and adding expertise if I can ways to think about mediation and conflict resolution that ties to the third development over the last several decades and that is when we think about peace and when we ask our bishops and clergy and lay leaders to advocate peace we are talking about something quite specific capacious but specific an arc sometimes we call it strategic peace building different forms of peace building elicit of peace building but that means that we're we're active around the world the church is on an arc of peace building that begins with efforts of conflict prevention at education early warning of conflict and the church of course is everywhere and and grassroots and so that early warning that prevention that continuing attention to peacemaking is part of a larger comprehensive process that also leads to mediation and resolution the bishops have been very involved in some parts of the world in actual mediation resolution and then there's a whole phase of post-acord transitional justice and institution building now there's a lot of literature on this and most people certainly everyone on this call and many in our audience recognize it i'm simply pointing the fact that this is blossomed over the last four or five decades and certainly last 20 years unawareness that this is an interrelated process and that we have to be present at all levels from prevention to education to witness early warning mediation resolution and then the very hard work of implementing an agreement if it's signed then in a way you don't start all over but you've got a whole new set of problems and challenges and the church is present now around the world here and there at every phase of this comprehensive peace building a notion a process that's the third fourth women women are recognized and that i'd like to say more lavishly that women are at the center of our awareness and of our activism in fact they are but they've been hidden as they have been in society in the church and over the last several decades we've come to recognize how important women are to peace building to this over not not one accord not one moment but a gradual process over many years we can begin in a range here so to speak again of women's involvement it begins with the fact that in many of our conflicts that involve Catholics on both sides of the firing line or former Catholics it's a Catholic country a country like Colombia for example or the Philippines the women are the mothers the sisters the daughters of the combatants they can often be incredibly effective just in their role as the glue to the family then you move across the spectrum to women who have been in leadership positions in advocating for non-violence in advocating for social justice i won't go through the the list of aims but but they are they are profound and there's more and more awareness of how central and how much attention we need to give to the special ministry and calling of women there's been some uh again literature on this i i'll name check Susan Hayward and and Catherine Marshall there are others who have written about women and peace building it's a it's a growing literature and we need more attention to it but it's relatively new like many of the things i'm mentioning relatively new over the last number of years the important role of women fifth um and that is the the growing trajectory we'll talk more about of non-violence and we're we're gonna say a lot about that but uh there are internal differences within church that we know about non-violence about the importance of non-violent witness and that peace building has to be non-violent full stop we have an internal dialogue within the Catholic Church on so many issues one of which is just war versus uh non-violence and as approaches but this consistent witness of the Pope's has been on the side of non-violence not only Pope Francis has been a terrific champion but Pope John Paul II was an early advocate right after right when he began his papacy he went to Ireland and gave an impassioned speech saying non-violence is the only way to build peace we'll say more about that later it's led to tensions within the church because Catholics are actors within conflicts on all sides and I can say more later about how difficult it is for these actors who are in shooting wars to actually practice non-violence or to even acknowledge it as a church teaching oddly when it's been a consistent witness not only of the Pope's but of the church from top to bottom for the last decades finally one of the things we're more aware of now over the last number of years is the challenges there are to actual peace building from the church itself among the church itself I'll say one my little anecdote and then my time is up uh I was having a beer with a newly ordained priest in Burundi several years ago and he's just been ordained and this was after a period of intense violence in the region and we were talking about his ethnic ties or ethnicity in that context what what goes deeper in a person is that ethnicity is it tribe is it region is it people or is it the broader teaching of the gospel this is a newly ordained priest and he was struggling with this I said if your family was threatened and you needed to you thought do violence to support your people uh but your priesthood and your apostolic calling said no non-violence is the way what would you do very sensitively he said I would defend my family and by whatever means and I think that's a microcosm of the struggles of ethnicity clan loyalty family in conflict settings but a calling to this uh work of real uh apostolic virtue of actual non-violence it's difficult it's a challenge we'll say more about that so six lessons or six evap moments of evolution over since potcherman terrorist sorry that went quick and too long but there it is thank you scott Sergio could you just focus for us uh in in the concrete experience particularly in Nicaragua what are the on-the-ground roles that the church has in advancing or being unable to advance uh priest building and non-violence before answering the question I think that it is important to mention that in Nicaragua the Catholic Church and in other countries in Latin America has a very strong tradition of involvement in politics and not any politics it's a very turbulent politics since Nicaragua is by itself uh has an inclination for uh contentious politics we have had revolutions civil wars and different kind of expressions that are about the institutional level of the politics by itself but in all these episodes or events of violent conflicts or uh very conflictual situations the Catholic Church has displayed two important roles the first one as professor Appleby was saying is like uh it was working as an early system an early word in system trying to identify some indicators that possible conflicts will emerge this kind of diagnosis of problems is very important and we we have seen this in the in all the decades before but uh mainly in the most recent uh conflict in Nicaragua the 2018 wave of protest i'm going to explain this later but the church has been able to identify signs of deterioration in the institutionality in the country in the politics uh some expression of the treatment of values in the country that tend to create conflicts at the local level and also at the national level so that kind of diagnosis of problems is a first role that we can identify in all these conflicts of and turbulent history in Nicaragua and the second dimension or the second role is that prognostic role the church is always using this kind of prognostic frames for the specific conflicts that the country is facing and they have been very clear that they for instance as bishops uh i am talking at the bishops level with the Nicaraguan bishops conference they have been very clear that they do not offer technical solutions for the conflicts and Nicaragua is always in the record they are offering uh like moral guidance and also they are putting all the church infrastructure human resources to help to solve the conflicts the church they are very clear in this they do not have technical solutions for the many problems that are always uh uh related to the political conflicts in this but this has this happening of course at the bishops level as i was saying but we can identify this role of prognosis this role of putting the church infrastructure in order for the in order for the peace building and the mediation of conflicts also at the local and regional level so those two roles are we can see that happening in all the conflicts in Nicaragua this happened with the Sandinista revolution in 1979 the church early alerted sign of deterioration for human rising under the Somoza dictatorship and also supported the Sandinistas that year with uh with the uprising in the PMAX of the revolution in 1979 and then of course the church alerted about the signs of the new authoritarianism in the in the with the Sandinistas in 1980s and of course denounced the alignment of the Marxist ideology with the new government in that year and that and that kind of human rights violations also and then for the democratic restoration in 1990 the church also was trying to influence the politics internal politics in the in the country also in this role of prognosis proposing some ways to influence and to have this kind of influence in the in the national politics and with the personal president Nortega in 27 the church at the very beginning of course was pointing so many strengths in the government with policies related to education related to the economy and the institutions for instance but also it was pointing since the very beginning signs of deterioration in the institutionality and was allerting to the country and even for the opposition that possible conflicts were going to emerge since the very beginning of the return of president Nortega and with its consolidation of authoritarianism in all these years in 2018 a wave of protests erupted in the country left more than 300 casualties and a lot of repressions so the church was early alerting that this country was going to emerge and when it happened the church got involved participated with the protesters and also was ready when even the government asked the church to mediate that particular country and this had a lot of challenge that I am sure that we will have the opportunity to talk a little bit later but these two frames these two roles diagnosis and prognosis of the conflicts and possible solutions are always there in the politics in the country and I'm sure that it is also the case for other countries in Latin America great thank you so much Sergio and from diagnosis and prognosis to the to the question of moving minds and hearts I would ask Marie Dennis from Pax Christi to speak to the role of peace building within Catholic communities and with and launched by Catholic communities in the larger society to address that you need to take your mute off Marie thank you Bishop McElroy yes the the conversation is a very large one the Catholic Church plays so many different roles that are very important in the task of building peace I think what what I'd like to emphasize particularly is that in addition to more formal roles the the church can play a very very important role in preparing the ground for peace preparing Catholic people to both begin to build or continue to build cultures of peace and also to understand the the role of non-violence as a very deep belief in the Catholic tradition that Catholic non-violence initiative that I am part of is a part of Pax Christi International it exists to encourage the Catholic Church to move active non-violence to the center of Catholic life and teaching we're talking about non-violence as a very deep and wide practice it's a spirituality it's a way of life it's a global ethic it's an effective and powerful tool for interrupting or preventing violence for protecting vulnerable people and so on but we think of non-violence as different from pacifism and in many ways as that middle road between the use of violence and passivity or doing nothing so what we have seen in the last short while is the very important role that the that the institutional church is able to play in building a groundswell if you will and deepening the tools that Catholic people around the world have to apply non-violence in sometimes very difficult situations but also to live non-violently it's a it's a it's a very broad concept and we think that what the church has been doing and can do is almost the work of tilling the soil to build a more peaceful world what we ask what if 1.3 billion Catholics around the world had a full understanding of the power and effectiveness of active non-violence and the connection of non-violence to the heart of the gospel we think that could make a tremendous difference and where the church has assumed that role as a formator a teacher it has been very effective that the classic example of course is the Philippines during the revolution or as the revolution was approaching to oust the dictator Marcos the Catholic church played a very important role in encouraging the education about how to use non-violence in in the form of civil resistance it's it's one example but I think a very a very effective one after a significant period of of training members of the church at every level the Catholic community in the Philippines was able to make a significant contribution to sustaining a non-violent presence even in a very difficult situation we know that the Catholic church has a very well developed a network of universities seminaries religious communities local parishes publications and media outlets as you said our Bishop McElroy the church has a diplomatic presence in almost every country and at all of the major international organizations as well as a rich theological and spiritual resource that could make a really tremendous contribution to the development and acceptance of nonviolent approaches to a peaceful world I think in the last what 50 years or so as the church has seen practical examples of non-violence in action and seeing the possibility of non-violence actually being an effective tool even in challenging governance situations where good governance is very needed that the church has more and more sort of moved in the direction of how do we how do we not only prevent war stop violence but how do we also build a more peaceful world and we believe that the contribution that the church has already made as as was described not only in the in recent times but since Pachamen Terrace to building an understanding of a nonviolent way of life it is very significant and we hope that that will continue thank you Marie in so many ways what you've all been talking about is a process of conversion at various levels how do we convert local communities to understand the capacity they have to be builders of peace how do we help convert national communities which are in conflict to understand the pathways that are available to them even in periods of tremendous conflict and historic conflict and then within the international arena and Pope Francis's statement on the World Day of Peace really is a new stage of what has been an ongoing trajectory in the life of the Catholic community at the international level and that is wrestling with the questions of nonviolence of peace and the the institute itself of peace and Maria Steffen's research has been particularly helpful in showing the ability of nonviolent means to be powerful of propellance toward peaceful resolution of even seringly difficult conflicts but given all of that what what opportunities do you see for the Catholic Church at various levels to be builders of this conversion or promoters of this conversion you conversions at the heart of what Catholicism is how can we be converting people communities nations to peace building in this robust sense because one of the difficulties our history comes with us and and our history has been rooted in recent times in the in the just war tradition which is not centered on on nonviolence it is an effort to avoid war but it's been defanged in so many ways in terms of its limitations in recent years i think back to pox christie which Marie was speaking about the work of pox christie pox christie means the peace of christ pox christie was in the medieval period wasn't it and it was it was a way of building peace even within conflicts in the traditional way this but how can we so for any of you with scott or sir to america any of you have a thought on how the church can move forward in being an agent of conversion toward nonviolence institutionalized nonviolence nonviolence of the heart not strategic nonviolence within the situations in the world well i'd like to pick up on that with a with a few suggestions i think that the the the moment in which we are now that we're living through right now with the pandemic with the tremendous challenges that that are presented by that reality what we are seeing is that that that many different expressions of violence have been made visible uh both uh direct violence but also structural violence the violence of uh poverty the violence of of uh environmental destruction and so on right now that the church thanks to uh the leadership of pope frances um has focused enormous energy on um uh articulating describing what kind of a future we can move toward uh after this pandemic and um with a lot of focus on the uh 2015 encyclical la dow to see we believe that of an essential component of the building of a new normal if you will in uh in the in the uh with the vision of la dow to see of a of a world where of a reality where humans and uh the rest of creation live in right relationship what we believe is that nonviolence has to be a part of that uh move into a new normal first because it it describes the kind of conversion uh pope frances talks about an ecological conversion an ecological conversion has to be a conversion to nonviolence because nonviolence has to describe our relationship with the natural world as well as with each other besides that i think that the kinds of changes that are that are going to be needed in a post pandemic period of time are tremendous deep systemic transformations that will probably only be possible if there is a well-prepared um well-supported uh clear nonviolent um social movement to make that happen we as people have to be ready to accept significant changes and i think that they are precisely the kinds of changes that uh that um nonviolent movements are best equipped uh to accomplish so deep education preparation formation investment in um sorting out what are the most effective nonviolent strategies to use in what situations and um which the kind of research that maria and her colleague Erica Chenoweth did um how do we know what to do when and then i think that the other piece that i think the church can do um uh that is extremely important right now is to listen to the experience of local people living in contexts of violence uh of war yes but of all kinds of violence that the um synod on the amazon was a very interesting important example of that but i think it's also important because the the it is local communities living in specific contexts that understand best what nonviolent action will look like in their context and when uh uh nonviolence can be particularly effective so um i think uh that those are the directions in which uh the catholic church right now at a global level um is very well positioned uh to to leave the world thank you Marie i was a delegate to the amazon synod and it was interesting to me that the beginning every day uh there was at the front of the room the pictures uh and photos of the the from the amazon region the martyrs to nonviolence a hundred more than a hundred of them but there is a constant reminder to us of both the cost of promoting nonviolence and conversion and the opportunities there and the necessity for it so uh Sergio or Scott do you want to say anything i would like to add something about um what we were discussing right now is that there is also an working that we have to consider uh in how the church can contribute to the these processes and i think that this is related to what you were saying bishop this is which level of the catholic church we have to activate in some conflicts because we cannot see all the levels activated in some particular conflicts or violent situations and the nicaraon case is very illustrative in this regard for instance we saw the catholic left the community level the grassroots level of the church being very involved with the protester defending the human rights and the people on the streets on the context of a lot of oppression and that's a matter of coherence right with the gospel with the social doctrine of the catholic church but on the other side we had the bishops level we have the bishops organizing a dialogue a process of negotiation and that happened and then they were also supporting the protesters in a different manner and on the other side we had on the upper level you said the diplomatic level the pojo noon school and all the structure of the transnational church behind and that they these kind of three dimensions that were all of them in the conflict like trying to to to have the different roles in the company in power in 2018 and I think that when we see or at least that represents itself as a unique body and a unique dimension in this regard I think that that might be a kind of problematic in some conflicts and the truth has to the church and also have to to present itself with three different dimensions and being very clear which one is a being participate of some process of negotiations and when we don't see this line and or the limits are very blurry that can be very problematic in some cases I would add just to build on what both Marie and Sergio said on Marie's point I think what we're recognizing is that non-violence is a is a way toward conversion more generally Catholics are always in need of metanoia of turning around of rethinking their relationship to the world and non-violence is such a radical idea at first blush but so also is the gospel turn the other cheek love your enemy this is a way more broadly certainly for peacebuilding but form broadly to revitalize and renew the Catholic community locally nationally worldwide to have the Catholic community struggle with in the best sense of that term what it means to live a life that is radically one of service and issues all forms of a violence that in itself is a conversion moment for the church so I just want to amplify all the great things Marie was saying on Sergio's point take it in a direction too there there are folks many good in fact many peacebuilders at least at a time who weren't familiar with the Catholic Church and from outside you look at the Catholic Church and you might think boy it has its act together it's hierarchical it's got a pope it's got the bishops it's got all these people working around the world and we when we draw those folks into peacebuilding conversations we don't tell them hey the little secret is we don't agree on every level and we're always fighting with one another so that's that's that's part of any any human community including the church from the time of the apostles but the point I want to make is that as Sergio was saying you need all levels and Marie talked about the social movement which is a really a revolution in the church non-violence and peacebuilding at the center so my hope would be that because more and more bishops and priests here I'm going to talk about that thin slice of the church so to speak numerically but the how important it is that the people on the ground the social movements the people who are implementing the people who work for the church recognize that they their activities are being blessed by the church in its institutional sense and of course we have wonderful bishops who do that and over these last number of years we have more and more bishops and priests in particular who have had direct experience in peace in peacebuilding around the world so it's not as if this is not a not a movement within the church that is unknown there are more and more advocates and but not everyone's converted in the hierarchy not everyone's converted in the clergy and so my hope would be that the the bishops Pope Francis's leadership but not only the pope not only the bishops not only the clergy but there's nonetheless an institutional momentum that links the importance of peacebuilding and non-violence to overall conversion which bishops are always calling us to to renewal and conversion if that link can be made and so you take it a little bit displaced a little bit from this or that that just war debate and talk about it as a way of life the way of the gospel boy it would be great to have more and more of of the hierarchy in particular singing from the same hymn book and more and more are but they're parts of the world where there are people who are in the church who are not helpful frankly and and we need to we need to do better there we're now come to the time in which we're moving to questions uh from the uh those who are participating from afar and so I would just remind you you could submit questions to the event page on the U.S. Institute of Peace website and we've been perceived some so uh one goes to where you left off Scott uh what keeps Pope Francis from issuing an encyclical on non-violence now I have to say if I hadn't been watching Marie on the screen this whole time and no she couldn't type anything without my seeing it I would have thought she submitted that because that has been a very significant issue a significant initiative from pox christy to try to get an encyclical from Pope Francis on the question of non-violence and so there are complications in an encyclical and uh wish you had discussed many times they're different uh whether encyclical is the right instrument for i'm not sure but I think where we are both agreed is that uh it is important to shift in the teaching of the Catholic Church and in the articulated doctrinal tradition of the church as it has emerged in the present day that peacemaking non-violence is the primary way for the church avenue for uh the in Catholic teaching to approach issues of conflict resolution not a secondary I think the the way it is now is that just war theory is the primary way and and I I think uh I would I would certainly agree that and I think this is where Pope Francis is moving is that the primary avenue in Catholic thinking for conflict resolution it even complex international conflict resolution is that of of the pathway of non-violence and as I say uh the the just war theory has a a fine tradition it was originally meant to limit war but that is just the guts of it have been torn out frankly and so it's used by countries to justify going to war and groups to justify conflict rather than acting as a constraint on conflict which was its original intention so does anybody else have any uh question on this encyclical question any comment well maybe just a a word or two since we have been asking for an encyclical for a number of years but recognizing that have come to recognize that although we hope someday there will be an encyclical on on non-violence and just peace uh that there are other ways that the church uh can teach and signal a move in that direction uh even other uh other ways of expressing a magisterial document um the world they've peace message was very important we're hoping that perhaps there could be a year of non-violence or a commitment to non-violence within the dicastry in terms of staff um partly because one of the challenges I think is that yes we want the church to to make a statement about non-violence but maybe even more important is encouraging a deep a deeper uh dive into an understanding of non-violence of of seeing non-violence as a spectrum of possibilities from diplomacy to trauma healing to restorative justice and civil resistance and so on and I think that the world they've peace message really began to do that um I think there have been other ways in which Pope Francis has been doing it we hope someday it will be gathered together in in one major document but um in the meantime a lot is happening. Sergio. In this regard I just want to highlight the the power of these words that not necessarily are in the encyclicals but also in the speeches of different the the folks or the bishops in the 2018 way of protesting in caragua it was common to see the priests and religious nuns always framing their participation in protests and they're supposed to protestor by the words of Pope Francis or different encyclicals or different phrases that he always used in his speeches for example in Spanish the youth participate in in politics and that kind of stuff and that constant frame of the social teaching of the person the more recent influence of Pope Francis in this involvement in in social life and also the peace building perspective involvement in this kind of conflicts it is very important and the power of words is really relevant in the concrete and very Michael level. Thank you Sergio. The next question is Professor Appleby spoke about the importance of women's involvement in Catholic peace building could the panelists share more concretely what an inclusive approach to Catholic peace building looks like including engagement of youth and women. Scott do you want to? Yes I will I'll simply refer to some of my own experience watching and admiring women in Mindanao the Philippines friends of mine colleagues who have worked with the church and with Catholic Relief Services bringing the the church and Catholic Relief Services and to even closer alliance and my my experience talking about Mila Leguro many people know Mila but her colleagues they're doing others who work in Mindanao in very difficult situations in this long-standing conflict and their agency has been I put it this way without them nothing happens because not only are they the people who bring the bishops and the priests and the and the laity together in terms of mapping the area knowing the church knowing the social network so they're the they're the people who are the coordinators but also they themselves are exemplars of patience endurance courage in the face of violence fortitude they're actually embodiments of this ethic of non-violence and an ethic of peace and so what I've observed is that the the dilemma I think in a way is that they are servants and yet I've also seen them subordinated and and you know I wanted at one point to say let's every let's all these guys shut up and would you please now that would embarrass them but that their insight into the community into the dynamics into the grassroots is so concrete that they're the ones who really in a way should be leading the discussion but they're not always welcomed in in that role and partly is because their their spirit is one of service but also because they're marginalized that people don't recognize that often that the the depth of wisdom that comes from their embeddedness in the local community again in various roles as mediators as members of families as those with real connections to the suffering they are the pulse of the community so anyway there are the more that we can empower these women who are in that embedded situation local communities to have a real voice in how we think about peace and how we come to understand and recognize the real challenges that the community has in living non-violence even as one strategy the more we see it from their eyes I think will be just wiser and more effective and more of a church thank you the next question is as many countries are entering the election season is there a role for the Catholic Church in preparing Catholics to assist in the peaceful transitions during or following elections we will have an electoral and yeah the position of the church in this electoral process will be crucial especially in how the church prepare the citizenry for their participation at least since 2011 the church hasn't called the people to participate in an electoral process because of many indicators of proud rule and manners political manners in the electoral process and if the church for instance has the voice and said it is time to vote it is time to participate and to have this electoral weight out of the current crisis in Nicaragua it will be very determined again this is part of the early system and early warning system that the church always has the church will kind of claim that if the electoral process is acceptable the electoral process will be something that the people can actually put their voices on on the process and I think that that will be crucial at least for the case of Nicaragua in particular the church is always an institution that is determinant in the elections let me just add one quick comment on that also Bishop in Colombia this is not about elections directly but in Colombia as you know the country is going through a process of implementing this these comprehensive peace accord that were signed four or five years ago it's a complicated it's a very complicated process that's fraught with tension FARC the government various roble groups it's very hard to keep it afloat the one institution I think or or one of the central institutions in Colombia is the Catholic Church and the social pastoral led by Monsignor Hector Fabio Hanau he's also in a position to convene all the parties through the national peace reconciliation and coexistence council it's absolutely invaluable what what role and absolutely essential the role that the Caritas and Monsignor and his team are playing because they have the trust and the confidence of all the players and that is so rare and there are situations around the world in which the Catholic Church is at its best able to convene to mediate to lead a process as complicated is implementing these dozens hundreds of provisions at a peace accord and to do so in a way that somehow keeps these warring parties talking and there is a commonality in Catholicism in Colombia there is a common platform it's complicated but the church is so central to these kind of processes and we have been telling these stories but there are many stories around the world of this kind of mediation and convening power of the church for peace I would say as an American bishop the ethic within our bishops conference is to support the local churches in any given country their approach to these issues and to support them but in quest their questions like in Venezuela for example we find it difficult to tangibly support in the ways that are important to them because of the restrictions so but but there just as a way of understanding more how the Catholic community functions bishops conferences in other countries defer to the situation on the ground and try to be of assistance in that the other thing I just know which maybe I shouldn't say but I never thought we'd be in our country in a moment when this question would be of relevance to us what would what will we do is Catholic bishops in the United States if there is a problem in our current election in terms of the outcome if it is heavily disputed but that will be a responsibility we may be facing here too the next question as we mentioned COVID is exacerbating the root causes of conflict around the world what can the church do to help mitigate the impact of COVID in this relation to conflict well I'll I can say just a few words about that I'm sure others can as well I think that what what the church at a global level has been doing has been a very interesting effort to listen to local communities and to begin with and to understand how the pandemic is affecting for example indigenous communities in the Alti Plano of Peru or refugees living in camps in Syria or Greece and on and on and then to both put the resources of the church through Caritas through church communications channels through the diplomatic corps and so on at the service of of doing everything possible to avert both the extreme suffering of the poorest communities in the world which is what's happening now and then the to make sure that the whatever assistance whatever ways that the church is present and can help is always done in in a in such a way that it is conflict conscious so that it it's aware of the potential for exacerbating tensions in a particular community but I think I think listening to local communities engaging local communities which the the church at a global level and at a local level is doing and then I think that this task of of not Pope Francis said don't prepare for the future prepare the future which I think is exactly what the Vatican's COVID-19 commission is about trying to do it's complicated it's huge but we need to have articulated a vision for the future beyond this crisis and I think the church can be very helpful in getting that conversation going and and supporting it which says one final question that's come what can the church in the United States do at various levels to assist peace building and non-violence on all the levels we've been talking about international one of the biggest challenges in the mediation role of the church is that most of these processes doesn't have the abiding effect like the church is there is mediating but there is no implication of what are the results besides just the will and the work of the participants I think that when the church activates its transnational dimensions and work with other let me say these are powerful churches in terms of politics like the bishops conference in the United States it can activate a kind of binding effect of political implications to all these processes so this creating to by creating these connections at the political level with centers of power of political power in the world I think that that's important to validate some of the these kind of processes that happen at the local or micro level or even at the national level but in small countries I think that that connection between small countries conferences and big countries conferences is very important and the United States bishops conference could have a very important role in this kind of situation I would have a related comment on that Bishop if I could and you very courageously opened the door for it and that's this you know the the world watches the United States and it also watches the church in the United States and I would hope that the church in the United States is more outspoken and and direct and powerful about the trends in our society and I'll say under this administration or in this presidential administration in which hatred and division and and the suggestions of violence are absolutely antithetical to both the country's values and the church's values and I'd like to see more more and I think the world would benefit from our bishops speaking out and speaking out boldly and not worrying about the political consequences because maybe I shouldn't put it that way not worrying about I don't want to be glib but around the world that's what bishops have to do and are called to do they're they're in much worse situations in many cases of course in the United States let's make that clear but they have to speak out at at great risk to themselves they're as you know real martyrs around the church not only among the laity and the clergy but among the hierarchy so anyway that's what I would hope that the the Catholic Church is in this country is more and more an outspoken prophet when we see when the church sees as I think we all do trends in our society that are absolutely unacceptable and against the values of both the nation and the church thanks Scott Murray I would just add to that that in addition I would hope that the church in the United States the whole church would see implemented in Catholic universities in seminaries in local churches parishes a deep wide creative educational process around non-violence and and the the skill building the skills of how to live the gospel in our times in this country thank you Murray and I'm going to toss it over to someone who's been doing that for so many years Maria to close us well thank you Bishop McElroy and this has been just such an incredibly rich conversation I just first want to thank our panelists Scott Murray Sergio thank you so much Bishop McElroy for being such a great moderator thanks to David for his very meaningful opening remarks and special thanks to our religion and inclusive society's team for really taking the lead and organizing today's event I guess a couple of key messages we only have about a minute left so a couple of key messages that really stick with me from this conversation is really how the church can be an agent of conversion really because of its unique role at the international level its diplomatic means at the national level and and especially at the community levels and Scott mentioned that non-violence is the means of conversion and I think you know Pope Francis's 2017 World Day of Peace message on non-violence as a style of politics for peace was so profoundly important and kind of laying out the importance of centering non-violence in just peace at the core of the church's activities and I think there's such great potential as Marie and others and Sergio you talked about the role of the church at all different levels as a mediator as someone who helped to facilitate a national dialogue in Nicaragua as the protests broke out while at the same time serving as a witness and supporting the grass roots and serving as a witness to human rights violations so I think there's such great opportunity for centering the message of active non-violence and really deepening the investment and commitment at all levels from the diplomatic level in training and in education and non-violence conflict resolution civil resistance unarmed civilian protection the range of tools available to serve as alternatives to violence are vast and they have proven to be very effective including in places where you would think they would not be effective so I think if you know we can continue the conversation about what that might mean practically to center active non-violence at the heart of the church you know and and what that might mean here in the United States and also globally I think that would be a just a wonderful continuation of the amazing work that you all are doing so again I want to thank you all for participating and I want to thank our audience around the world from tuning in and with that I would just really wish everyone a wonderful rest of their day thank you very much