nonviolence

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. realized that a revolution of values is the true end o nonviolence.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response,” the 1983 letter of the U.S. Catholic bishops on questions of war and peace.

The activists blocked the door in an act of civil disobedience in front of the mission in New York while diplomats from around the world gathered for a U.N. review conference on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

For more than 50 years, Marie Dennis has been asking herself as a white middle-class woman who once worked for the U.S. Navy how she could respond as a Catholic to the cries for justice of people around the world.

Pope Francis said, “religious leaders, have a duty to awaken in humanity the firm resolve to renounce violence and to build a culture of peace.”

More people are seeking alternatives in a world beset by violence whether through war, domestic abuse, rising crime and shootings, income inequality, racism, or disrespectful rhetoric in politics and social media.

Modern popes have been clear voices for peace, but Pope Francis is moving closer to a broad embrace of nonviolence and a declaration that modern warfare is so deadly and sophisticated that the traditional “just war” theories cannot apply.

The path of nonviolence is always the road to victory.