Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm
John, Fr. John Deere, and today I'm speaking
with my friend Marie Dennis, author, activist,
and longtime leader with Pax Christi and director
of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative. This
podcast is a project of www .beatitudecenter
.org. where you can find many other podcasts
and regular Zoom programs on the nonviolence
of Jesus and practicing nonviolence and working
for a more just, more nonviolent world. So let's
begin with a little two -second prayer. So I
invite everyone listening to just take a deep
breath, wherever you are, and just to relax and
recenter yourself. And let's enter once again
into the presence of the God of peace who loves
you infinitely. and loves everyone. And let's
welcome the nonviolent Jesus here with us and
ask for the grace to follow the nonviolent Jesus
more faithfully and do God's will. God of peace,
thank you for all the blessings of life and love
and peace that you give us. Be with us now as
we reflect on the nonviolence of Jesus. And they
need to put it back front and center in the church
and how we can help do that. Bless us, inspire
us, disarm us, strengthen us, and send us out
to do your will and proclaim your way of peace,
love, and nonviolence. That we might help you
end war and poverty. and violence, and racism,
and corporate greed, and oligarchy, and nuclear
weapons, and environmental destruction. And be
your holy beatitude, people, of universal love,
universal compassion, and universal peace. In
Jesus' name, amen. So, dear friends, welcome
again. It's my pleasure to welcome today my friend
Marie Dennis to reflect with us on her great
work. I'm calling this Moving the Church Back
to Gospel Nonviolence. Marie, as I said, is a
longtime activist, author, and longtime leader
of Pax Christi International, the official Catholic
peace movement, and the Catholic Nonviolence
Initiative. And you can read more about her work
at PaxChristi .net. She served as co -president
of Pax Christi International from 2007 to 2019
and was given the Pax Christi USA Teacher of
Peace Award in 2022. Marie worked for the Marinol
Missioners from 1989 to 2012, including 15 years
as director of the Marinol Office for Global
Concerns. She's author or co -author of seven
books and editor of a book I really recommend,
Choosing Peace, The Catholic Church Returns to
Gospel Nonviolence, and co -editor of Advancing
Nonviolence in the Church and the World. Marie
was the primary. the main organizer, in my opinion,
of three great historic conferences on nonviolence
and just peace that were co -sponsored by the
Vatican and Pax Christi. She served on the Vatican's
COVID -19 commission and was the National Catholic
Reporter's Person of the Year in 2016. She's
a laywoman, a secular Franciscan, a mother of
six. a grandmother of nine, and a member of the
great Assisi community in Washington, D .C. So
a big warm welcome, Marie. Good morning. Thank
you, John. Nice to be with you. Good. I thought
it might be best if you wouldn't mind starting
by just giving us a general overview. of your
work to promote gospel nonviolence at the Vatican
with the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative and
the Global Church and Pope Francis from that
initial historic April 2016 conference up to
now. All right, I'll see if I can keep it a little
short. So as John said, in 2016, We hosted a
landmark conference with the Vatican, the Pontifical
Council for Justice and Peace. The conference
was in Rome and it was focused on nonviolence
and just peace. About 80 people came to that
conference from around the world. Many of them
were grassroots activists, people who were living
in zones of very serious, violent conflict. And
we came together to ask. what is the role, what
can be the role of nonviolence in this broken
world in which we live. At the end of the conference,
we issued an appeal to the Catholic Church. to
recommit to the centrality of gospel nonviolence,
particularly because what we heard from activists
around the world living in war zones and situations
of conflict was that nonviolence is the only
way forward. So we began then a program of Pax
Christi International called the Catholic Nonviolence
Initiative. And since then, the goal of the Catholic
Nonviolence Initiative is to... Move nonviolence
to the center of Catholic teaching on violence
and war. And we have been doing that in many
different ways. We have found ways. quite often
to cooperate with the Vatican, particularly with
the Dicastery for Integral Human Development,
but also with the Holy See Secretary to State
and some other parts of the Vatican. And we've
been reaching out to every sector of the Church,
Catholic universities, religious communities,
dioceses, parishes, some international Catholic
organizations, to try to generate a new conversation
about violence and nonviolence. Over these last
almost 10 years, we had the three conferences
that John mentioned. We hosted five major roundtables
that were virtual roundtables even before we
learned how to use Zoom. They included overall
about 120 grassroots activists, theologians,
researchers, experts. who dug more deeply into
five major themes. What would a theology of nonviolence
look like now? What is the best scriptural exegesis
on nonviolence? If we moved the just war tradition
to the side, what could replace it in terms of
providing ethical and moral guidance in the world?
How could the church contribute to this? And
what are some really good, deep case studies
of examples where nonviolence has been used?
We finished those in 2018. They were the basis
for the book that John mentioned on advancing
nonviolence. And since then, we've had regional
roundtables where we, but the consistent effort
has been to bring together grassroots activists.
researchers who are looking at the impact of
nonviolence and theologians and scripture scholars
who can help us remember that nonviolence is
at the heart of the gospel. And so our effort
has been consistent over these years, and we've
been bringing it into different sectors of the
church with a really pretty remarkable positive
response. Wow, Marie, that's so exciting to hear
you put it like that. So, you know, and from
my perspective, Marie and her colleagues, our
friends, have really changed a lot at the Vatican.
You know, like after all these years, there's
a real openness now to gospel nonviolence, not
just with Pope Francis, but in many different
corridors, and also in the church around the
world. Not in the United States, but around the
world. So would you agree with that, Marie? I'm
just asking that off the top of my head. And
also, if people want to hear exactly more about
this, again, it's under Catholic Nonviolence
Initiative at poxchristi .net. Is that correct?
I mean, tell people how they can get involved.
I completely agree with you, John. I think we've
been delighted at... how much of a positive response
this effort has received, yes, at the Vatican,
but also in different parts of the church worldwide.
I think that it reflects the reality of the world
that we live in now, where we are looking at
a world that is just... overwhelmed with violence,
with war, but also with street violence and local
violence and the violence of deep injustice and
on and on. And people are hungry for a change.
So it has been really encouraging right after
our 2016 conference, the first World Day of Peace
message. that Pope Francis wrote was in 2017,
and it was on nonviolence, a style of politics
for peace. And it's actually a remarkable summary
of active nonviolence. We've had lots of interest
from Catholic universities. in different parts
of the world, including in the United States,
at many different conferences and panels. One
of the most interesting for me was a panel at
San Diego University where a small group representing
the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative was invited
to a dialogue, a conversation with ethicists
from the U .S. military academies, West Point
and Annapolis and the Air Force Academy and so
on. Others have been looking for ways to incorporate
into their university programs training hubs
so that students and faculty and staff and neighbors
even could begin to learn how to apply nonviolence
in very practical ways. It's been interesting
to see in sort of at the Vatican level that slowly,
slowly over the years. we've begun to have deeper
conversations. For example, within the Secretary
of State, where they're looking for ways to back
up, if you will, the very visionary and prophetic
statements that Pope Francis makes about war
and peace. He's been pleading for ceasefires
in Ukraine and in the Middle East and on and
on. And the Secretary of State, is open to hearing
practical proposals for other directions in which
we might go. So we've been pretty encouraged.
There's been a much more lively conversation
among moral theologians about violence and nonviolence,
about the just war tradition and pacifism and
so on. We think that... If our goal was only
to open up a conversation, that's certainly happening.
Now we want to see nonviolence really move to
the center of Catholic Church teaching. It's
so exciting, especially when, I'm going to put
it this way, after all we were taught by Mahatma
Gandhi and Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King,
let's say, as three historic teachers of nonviolence.
What Marie is talking about, friends, is the
first time really the Catholic Church ever started
grappling with nonviolence, with the word even,
in 2016. Pope John XXIII never mentions it. Vatican
II doesn't talk about it. So let me ask you then,
you know, about what's happening now in the next
phase. You know, Marie, we went to Rome in 2016.
We were hoping for an encyclical, and we were
asking Pope Francis for an encyclical on nonviolence.
What we got almost immediately, as you said,
was this brilliant and great January 1st, New
Year's Day statement on nonviolence, which I
hope everyone will go back and read January 1st,
2017. Where are you going next and what do you
think about ever getting a cyclical on? I want
him to write one on Jesus and nonviolence. Well,
we keep asking. We do? Do you? Have you been?
Oh, sure, all the time. But we also, part of
the journey has been to learn how the Vatican
and the Church worldwide works. Well, God bless
you, Marie Dennis. We're still working on that.
But we have been encouraging ultimately Pope
Francis, but the Vatican people around Pope Francis.
to recognize what would be the huge contribution
of an official teaching on nonviolence that was
more developed than the World Day of Peace message,
which is really good. But there's just so much
that can be written about nonviolence, gospel
nonviolence, and it would set the stage for a
movement in the church to help support a movement
in the church in really important ways. Some
discussion about after the sort of as we got
into this conversation, of course, Pope Francis
wrote Fratelli Tutti. And some would say, well,
that was an encyclical on nonviolence. And we
think. Fratelli tutti is a wonderful encyclical,
and it is about a vision of a world in which
we would live in a completely different way,
which of course does speak about how we might
move toward nonviolence. In the Fratelli tutti,
Pope Francis very specifically said, We can no
longer think of war as a solution because its
risks will probably always be greater than its
supposed benefits. In view of this, it is very
difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria
elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the
possibility of just war. Never again war. He
came very close to it. At least he was saying,
I think, we're going to move this just war tradition
to a back shelf. And we need to move. nonviolence
into the center of the conversation. So we think
that both at the level of official teaching,
there has been movement, but even more so at
the level of conversation and stirring an imagination
that would enable us to think in ways Pope Francis
does it himself all the time. He does it in his
actions. His trip to the Central African Republic
in the middle of the war, serious conflict between
Christians and the Muslims there, was visionary.
It was beautiful. It was effective. His trip
to Sudan and to the region that was struggling
with violence there, when they came to the Vatican,
the leaders of South Sudan were there to listen
to him. plead for peace. And at one point he
got down on his knees and kissed their feet.
It was an incredibly powerful statement. And
I think he has the vision. And now the challenge
is, can we encourage the church to put in words
the depth of understanding of nonviolence that
I think we are all beginning to appreciate nonviolence
as a... spirituality and a way of life, nonviolence
potentially as a global ethic, nonviolence as
an effective set of tools for accomplishing a
more just and peaceful world, and on and on.
I think we're still hopeful that we'll get that
reciprocal someday. You know, we've learned so
much going to Rome about what Pope Francis has
done that just really is ignored here. So many
spectacular acts. especially that time he knelt
down and kissed the feet of the rebel leaders
and the president, waging war. I mean, it was
beyond St. Francis. And it's completely ignored.
And so two things specifically. Say a little
bit more about the just war theory. Now, for
example, in 2016, in the appeal statement, which
I hope folks will look up on Marie's website,
poxchristi .net. Which is sponsored by the Vatican.
So Pope Francis theoretically approved with the
section that says there is no such thing as a
just war. And I hear you saying, and I think
it's true that the Vatican saying that's true.
It's just that it's not law in the church. It's
not in the catechism, the canon law or required
teaching with the bishops around the world that
they can't justify war. And that's why I think
the encyclical would make the difference. Give
me an update on all that or what you think of
that. Well, the conversation is alive and well.
That's great. At the end of the conference in
2016, the statement in our appeal to the church
that you were referring to that said, there's
no such thing as a just war, the church should
stop teaching the just war tradition, the church
just war theory. We realized that that... But
focusing on the just war tradition got a lot
of pushback from moral theologians, from people
who were committed to peace, but just said, you
can't do that. We can't do without it. It's a
useful theory. And we decided for a while to
not focus on the just war theory, to not focus
on the sort of debate between absolute pacifism
and the just war tradition. Mostly because it
just felt like it was not going to be a fruitful
discussion. And so the way we approached the
conversation was to say there is another way.
And it is called nonviolence. And it is being
proven effective in many circumstances. I think
people largely know the research done by Maria
Stephan and Erica Chenoweth and others. now what,
13, 14 years ago, that demonstrated that nonviolent,
that learning to use nonviolence in effective
ways was more effective than using nonviolent,
violent means, using war as a way to even accomplish
a just change. And so we decided that what we
were going to do, and that's what we've been
doing for the last 10 years, is to say, War is
not only, not only can it not be just, but it's
not usually effective. And the consequences of
it are so overwhelmingly horrific. We have to
focus on learning to use nonviolent strategies
for dealing with threats and injustice. And so
that conversation is still very alive. And we
were very happy to see, we've been very happy
to see Pope Francis. not only move the just war
tradition toward a back shelf, but also promote
nonviolence. One of the things that he said that
I just loved, it was just a little sentence in
Fratelli Tutti that he said, let us arm our children
with the weapons of dialogue. Let us teach them
to fight the good fight with a culture of encounter.
And I think... When he says something like that,
what he's saying is there is another whole way
that we need to struggle for a more just and
peaceful world, that we need to interrupt violence
and prevent violence, and we can do it by nonviolence.
You've seen Pope Francis just... grow and blossom
in his teachings. I wonder if you could say a
word about any thoughts or reflections you have
on him per se. So he's been churning out books.
And for those who haven't heard Zooms on the
Beatitudes Center, I had Marie on last year just
to talk about one of the Pope's many new books,
a little book called Against War. And it's all
his statements against war, and it's kind of
shocking when you put it all together. We've
never had a pope like that in history. What do
you think, Marie? Would you agree? I do. I do
agree. And he is not only speaking out consistently
about war theoretically, he's also speaking out
about war in response to the wars that we see
raging in so many. places around the world um
when he can he he physically moves himself to
a place where he can be heard more clearly um
and he offers a vision of another way and i think
he has done that consistently so um that that
against his little book against war um to me
is just this beautiful companion to his little
book, Let Us Dream, that lays out another way
of being. What we're talking about and what I
think Pope Francis is leading us to is a paradigm
shift in the way we are moving through life,
through the world. And I think that's the reason
why we believe that the Catholic nonviolence
initiative exists to try to move nonviolence
to the center of Catholic church teaching because
we believe that the church could make such a
huge contribution to the world. We're, what,
1 .3 billion people, more or less. The church
has universities, schools, parishes, diplomats
in almost every country, and on and on, that
could carry a message that nonviolence is from
the heart of the gospel. Nonviolence works and
we can learn how to be nonviolent people. Let
me ask you about nonviolence then. Thank you.
So I want you to continue on that line, if you
wouldn't mind, because you've been talking about
nonviolence for a long time, but I've seen your
thinking evolve. How do you understand nonviolence
today? And especially as, you know. It's not
passivity, but as a power to confront and disarm.
I mean, you're saying that the church could be
such a force of nonviolence. And why this word?
You know, I want the Pope to be using it all
the time because words like encounter and dialogue
are beautiful, but it's got to be a nonviolent
dialogue and a nonviolent encounter. Yeah. I
agree with you, John. I think using the language
of nonviolence is really important because it
challenges us to a new way of thinking in a way
that other words that carry a lot of meaning
but are softer or are less challenging don't
do. So I agree. I think nonviolence needs to
be a word that we use a lot. I think of nonviolence
as, as I said, a spirituality. It's a way of
being. It's who we become. It's a set of tools
that we can use, a very broad spectrum of tools
that we can use to prevent violence, interrupt
violence, to build a more just and peaceful world,
and everything from... Nonviolent communication
that helps us communicate with each other. We
certainly need that in our country right now
to specific tools like bystander intervention
and de -escalation and tools that help us know
how to move into a context, a situation that
is becoming approaching violence and interrupt
it, help it to de -escalate. a set of tools that
give us new ways of thinking about defense. One
of the big questions that came out of the synod
process, and I just have to, as a footnote, say
that the synodal process that Pope Francis has
led the church into is itself a nonviolent process
that is built around nonviolent communication.
challenge that came out of the first synod conference
two years a year and a half ago was to say well
what do you do about legitimate defense how do
you think about legitimate defense without violence
but the reality is that there are many ways to
imagine a non -violent strategy for defense and
and hopefully we will invest enough in that in
learning how to use it that um we won't end up
resorting to weapons every time there's a crisis.
And I think that Pope Francis has just done a
really, really good job of repeatedly lifting
up those possibilities. And it's enhanced my
understanding of nonviolence as well, that it's
not only a tool, it's not, you know, it's what
one hand of I will interrupt the violence and
I will, with my other hand, reach out to the
perpetrator of the violence to see how we can
sustain a relationship. We know that it is both
negative, it interrupts violence, and it promotes
a new way of being, a more just society, a more
peaceful society. So not violence, what I think
I've been discovering and what I think is important
for us to sort of... wrap our arms around more
and more, is that nonviolence is a tremendous
concept. It's rich and deep, and that I think
for each of us, it's worth the trouble to learn
about nonviolence, to take a course in nonviolence,
sign up for one of the many different webinars
that are being offered now by... Pax Christi,
for sure, but also by Pace Beni, by the Beatitude
Center, by the Meta Center on Nonviolence, and
on and on and on. Different centers that are
of thought where people are looking at what seem
like intractable violence. and proposing ways
to approach them in different ways. A great place
to look at it is in the Middle East, in the Holy
Land, where people, Palestinians, have been practicing
nonviolence for 70 years. We need to learn from
them. One last question about Jesus. Marie, as
you were talking, I just wanted to say, too,
this... Which I always mention, and so it's almost
stupid, but to say nonviolence has this bottom
line that we got to get rid of our guns and quit
the military and stop being violent to the people
around us. And you can't be actually involved
in the culture of war. Marie, I was hearing confessions
this weekend at a Latino youth Catholic retreat,
hundreds of kids, and it was beautiful, run by
youth. the stories, Marie. I have guns. I'm robbing
people. I rely on my guns. I think that might
be wrong. And I was grieving. And I think that,
you know, I was encouraging nonviolence, but
that's why I keep talking about the nonviolent
Jesus and call this the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,
that in the end, you and I can talk and try to
teach this, but fundamentally, If we're followers
of Jesus and if Gandhi's right that he's the
epitome of nonviolence, then he's our model for
nonviolent living and how to create a more nonviolent
world. So we've been friends almost 40 years,
Marie, and I've seen you develop. Here's my question.
I wrote it down. This would be the last question.
Any key aspects, moments, teachings, scenes from
the life of Jesus? that deepen and inspire nonviolence
from you, from his nonviolent life. And from
that, any suggestions or advice or hopes you
have for people listening? Oh, absolutely. I
think that I actually was captured by Terrence
Wren's book on Jesus Peacemaker. where he, Terry,
goes into a great description of the level of
violence that was present in Palestine during
the years when Jesus was, right before he was
alive and during his life. And I think that understanding
that really made for some reason made a very
big difference to me that that sort of sense
that he was living in a very violent time and
as terry says the the sort of The assumption
was that the options in response to the violence
were either fight or flight or accommodate. And
Jesus said, no, there's a completely a different
direction in which we need to go. And it's to
build an inclusive community that is nonviolent.
And I think that that his way of living that
out, of teaching it, of sort of constantly Jesus
way of constantly. inviting us to be more imaginative
in the way we deal with crises. And then the
way he practiced it himself. I mean, as Terry
says, he didn't have any enemies, not Roman officials.
He healed the Roman officer's servant, not the
Samaritans. He celebrated that. traditional enemy
of the Jews as an embodiment of charity in the
parable of the Good Samaritan, not the Pharisees
who went out of their way to trap and humiliate
him, as Terry says. And he lived that way consistently
all the way to the cross. So for me, Jesus on
the cross is the ultimate witness to nonviolence
that speaks. It says everything to me. So I think
that we who claim to follow Jesus need to figure
out what that means in our times. What does it
look like in this 21st century? And how do we
learn to do it? And I think that's maybe one
other thought that I want to share. And that
is that I believe that nonviolence takes practice.
That it takes it. that we need to study nonviolence.
We need to try to understand what it means at
a very personal and interpersonal level. But
we also need to practice that third way. How
do we move in a world where violence is so overwhelming?
And part of it is changing what's happening in
front of our eyes. And part of it is looking
at the root causes. Where is this violence coming
from? And that's part of the... challenge of
being nonviolent. Wow, that's so beautiful and
encouraging. Thank you. Thank you so much, Marie
Dennis, for speaking with me today and sharing
all this wisdom and encouragement. And thank
you, friends, for listening to the Nonviolent
Jesus podcast. You can hear more podcasts and
find other upcoming Zoom programs at www .beatitudescenter
.org. And if you can, please leave some positive
feedback or review at NCR or Apple or Spotify
or wherever platform you're using. Join me next
week for my conversation with theologian and
scripture scholar Brian McLaren on the topic
Following the Nonviolent Jesus in a Time of Rising
Authoritarianism. May the God of peace bless
everyone. Keep on following the nonviolent Jesus.
See you next time.