Bridgefolk co-founder joins Vatican conference rejecting just war

by Hannah Heinzekehr
The Mennonite

A variety of peace symbols from around the world at the prayer table at the Nonviolence and Just Peace conference, April 2016. Photo provided by Pax Christi International.

In a landmark move, attendees at a Vatican conference have released a statement rejecting Just War theory and calling on Pope Francis to consider writing an encyclical letter or teaching document rejecting the use of violence. The April 11-13 conference was co-hosted by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the international Catholic peace organization Pax Christi and drew over 80 participants from 35 countries.

The final statement says: “We live in a time of tremendous suffering, widespread trauma and fear linked to militarization, economic injustice, climate change and a myriad of other specific forms of violence. In this context of normalized and systemic violence, those of us who stand in the Christian tradition are called to recognize the centrality of active nonviolence to the vision and message of Jesus, to the life and practice of the Catholic Church and to our long-term vocation of healing and reconciling both people and the planet.”

The statement calls on the Catholic Church to develop a “new framework that is consistent with gospel nonviolence.” Continue reading “Bridgefolk co-founder joins Vatican conference rejecting just war” →

Vatican-hosted conference reassesses just-war theory

Challenging tradition, Catholics critique a principle that has justified war more often than prevented it

by Tim Huber
Mennonite World Review

A first-of-its-kind conference April 11-13 in Rome gathered Catholic educators and activists around the idea of moving beyond just-war theory to a greater emphasis on proactive peacemaking and Jesus’ life.

Pax Christi International secretary general Greet Vanaerschot and PCI co-president Marie Dennis speak with Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, at an April 11-13 conference on nonviolence and just peace in Rome. — Gerry Lee/Maryknoll

“Nonviolence and Just Peace: Contributing to the Catholic Understanding of and Commitment to Nonviolence” was coordinated by the global Catholic peace network Pax Christi International and hosted by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

“The significance of this meeting is not that it said something that’s a great leap from what popes have been saying,” said Gerald Schlabach, a Mennonite who entered into communion with the Catholic church in 2004 and participated in the meeting as an invited guest. “The significance is that peace activists are now having the conversation with the pontifical council.” Continue reading “Vatican-hosted conference reassesses just-war theory” →

Bridgefolk co-founder Gerald Schlabach to participate in Vatican conference on nonviolence and just peace

The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and Pax Christi International will convene an international conference on Nonviolence and Just Peace: Contributing to the Catholic Understanding of and Commitment to Nonviolence, to be held in Rome, Italy, 11-13 April, 2016.

In recognition of the Year of Mercy declared by the Pope Francis, this carefully planned Catholic conference on nonviolence and just peace will take place in Rome. Invited participants will represent a broad spectrum of Church experiences in peacebuilding and creative nonviolence in the face of violence and war. Among the participants will be Bridgefolk co-founder and long-time co-director Gerald Schlabach of the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

The conference seeks to initiate a conversation about Catholic teaching on war and peace, including explicit rejection of “just war” language in favor of an alternative ethical framework for engaging acute conflict and atrocities by developing the themes and practices of nonviolent conflict transformation and just peace. It will develop clearer Scripture-based Catholic teaching and an action plan to promote such teachings in seminaries, Catholic educational institutions, Catholic media, Catholic dioceses and parishes.

For more about the goals of the conference click here.
For a National Catholic Reporter article previewing the conference click here.

“If Any Become Followers” – Living the Disarmed Life

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 12

by Weldon D. Nisly
Preached at Seattle Mennonite Church
on March 16, 2003
(the week before Nisly left to join a Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq)

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Romans 4: 13-25; Mark 8:31-38

Something is wrong

I don’t usually begin with a story, but today I cannot resist. A young pastor was nervously preparing for his first Sunday worship with his new congregation. He checked and double-checked everything to make sure every detail was in place. As worship began, he went to the pulpit for the call to worship. Wouldn’t you know it? The microphone wouldn’t work. He began to panic and said, “Something is wrong with this microphone.” And the people responded, “And also with you.”

Sisters and brothers, something is wrong – terribly wrong in our world. There are those who think something is wrong with us or with me. Why would anyone go to Iraq today?

The Apostle Paul unequivocally told the early Christians that they were called to be “fools for Christ’s sake” and that the wisdom of God exposed the foolishness of the world. “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).

To cut through the illusion and see what is wrong, we must as always be rooted in Scripture. We must be biblical people — holding the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other hand. Together, as faithfully as we know how, we live a disarmed life in a world that best knows an armed life. That’s how foolish Christ and the cross are to the world. Continue reading ““If Any Become Followers” – Living the Disarmed Life” →

Saint Marcellus Day Celebration – October 29th, 2015

From Catholic Peace Fellowship: Saint Marcellus Day 2015

Thursday, October 29th

Supper, Pilgrimage, Address and Prayers

The relics of St. Marcellus are housed in the main altar at Sacred Heart Basilica at Notre Dame and each year around his feast day pilgrims visit those relics to pray and meditate on the current-day meaning of his martyrdom for peace 1,700 years ago. Continue reading “Saint Marcellus Day Celebration – October 29th, 2015” →

I Will Make with Them a Covenant of Peace

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 11

by Jane Roeschley
Associate Pastor of Worship and Lay Ministries
Mennonite Church of Normal, Normal, Illinois
World Communion Sunday, 2008

Genesis 12:1-2, 3b; Ezekiel 37:26-27; 2 Corinthians 3:4-6, 10-11

Hatred Converted by Love

When the drama, The Women of Lockerbie, was performed in Bloomington/Normal, I went to see it. It was shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings, so that event was especially on my mind, not to mention the Nickel Mine tragedy and the ongoing losses of the Iraq war – all situations of immense hurt, and examples of the way our world is full of violence that begets more violence.

Based on true events, The Women of Lockerbie tells the story of women in the village of Lockerbie, Scotland, the place where the US Pan Am 103 jet was shot down in 1988, in retaliation for US military confrontations with Libya. All 259 persons aboard the plane, as well as 11 persons in the village, were killed.

The play is set at a point about seven years after the plane went down. As one can imagine, characters in the play, the loved ones of various victims, voice their hate for those responsible for this tragedy – for both the violent perpetrators as well as those less obviously at fault. Continue reading “I Will Make with Them a Covenant of Peace” →

“Who Are You Having Supper With?”

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 10

by Doug Wiebe
L’Arche Community, Lethbridge, Alberta
sermon to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Lethbridge (abridged)

Luke 24:13-35

Two depressed men walked along the road to Emmaus on the first Easter Sunday. They were not members of Jesus’ 12 disciples, but part of the larger group of men and women who believed Jesus was the long-awaited and hoped for Messiah. But their hopes and dreams had died with Jesus’ crucifixion two days earlier. They were suffering from a crisis of meaning in their lives, and the vibrant, life-changing community they belonged to had evaporated overnight.

Their depression was so deep they did not even recognize Jesus when he began walking with them. Neither did they recognize his voice when he began to teach them. Something in their hearts was stirred as they listened, but the words they were hearing did not reconnect them to the joy, the meaning, or the community that had filled their lives just a few days earlier. Continue reading ““Who Are You Having Supper With?”” →

A papal encyclical, a Mennonite resolution, and the relevance of Anablacktivism

LAWRENCE JENNINGS of Infinity Mennonite Church in New York City has been involved in community and economic development for more than three decades. Since 2013, he has been affiliated with GreenFaith, first as a Fellow, and currently as a lead organizer of the new Restoration Nation faith communities/green jobs initiative. A member of the Thomas Berry Forum for Ecological Dialogue at Iona College, he was one of the key organizers of the People’s Climate March faith contingent, and has ongoing involvement with the People’s Climate Movement, the organizing body that took shape after the March. In these involvements, as well as his work with The Groundswell Group and Moral Mondays, he works closely with faith communities and inner city and “frontline” groups that often are overlooked or excluded. He authored the Open Letter from African American clergy on Climate Change as part of the “Our Voices” campaign, and is on the Steering Committee of Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, both of which aim to encourage people of to speak out about the moral and scientific urgency of the environmental crisis. Lawrence was asked by GreenFaith to write a response to the Pope’s newly released environmental teachings from the Anabaptist/Mennonite perspective. His article originally appeared in two parts on the Mennonite Church USA website (here and here). Continue reading “A papal encyclical, a Mennonite resolution, and the relevance of Anablacktivism” →

Take No Bread for the Journey

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 9

by Bradley Roth
Warden Mennonite Church (Warden, Washington)
February 15, 2009

Mark 6:7-13

In Mark 6, Jesus gathers the Twelve together and instructs them in their mission. They’re to go out in pairs, staying wherever they receive a welcome. He gives them authority over unclean spirits, and we find them proclaiming repentance, casting out evil spirits, and anointing the sick for healing (vv. 12-13). In all of this, the disciples are to travel lightly—extremely lightly. Jesus tells them to take nothing except a staff—“no bread, no bag, no money in their belts” (v.8). They can wear sandals, but they’re not to take an extra tunic—that is, no change of clothes.

To travel light is to be nimble, free to go where you need to at a moment’s notice—like fitting everything into a carry-on bag. But it’s also a recipe for an incredible sort of vulnerability. Jesus desired to remind the disciples of their dependence on God.

Something like this happens at the Lord’s Table. Continue reading “Take No Bread for the Journey” →

Challenging tradition, Catholics critique a principle that has justified war more often than prevented it

by Weldon D. Nisly Preached at Seattle Mennonite Church on March 16, 2003 (the week before Nisly left to join a Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq)