Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm
John, Father John Deere, and today I would like
to reflect with you on our beloved Pope Francis,
who died on Easter Monday. This podcast is a
project of BeatitudesCenter .org, where you can
find many other podcasts and Zoom programs on
the nonviolence of Jesus, practicing nonviolence,
and working for a more just, more nonviolent
world. So let's begin with a little prayer. So
I invite wherever you are, just to take a deep
breath and to relax. Notice how you're feeling
and recenter yourself. And I invite you to enter
into the presence of the God of peace who loves
you infinitely and personally and everyone. And
let's welcome the risen nonviolent Jesus here
with us and ask for the grace to follow the nonviolent
Jesus ever more faithfully and to do God's will.
God of peace, thank you for all the blessings
of life, love, and resurrection peace that you
give us. Thank you for the extraordinary life,
witness, teaching, and example of Pope Francis.
Be with us now as we reflect together on his
life and witness. Bless us, inspire us, disarm
us, strengthen us. Renew us in hope and send
us out to do your will that we might carry on
and, like him, proclaim your way of love and
peace and nonviolence. That, like him, we might
do our part to end poverty, racism, corporate
greed, injustice, war, environmental destruction,
and the whole culture of violence. that like
him we might be your holy beatitude people of
universal love, compassion, and peace, your holy
peacemakers. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, a few
years ago, three French peace activists went
and met with Pope Francis, and they asked him
for advice. And you know what he said? Immediately,
start a revolution. Go shake things up. The world
is deaf. You have to open its ears. That's what
Pope Francis did. He started a nonviolent revolution,
and he invited all of us to join in. I think
Pope Francis was the most radical, most progressive,
most nonviolent, most prophetic, most peace activist
-oriented pope in history, and therefore the
greatest pope in history, hands down. And I give
thanks to God for Francis for many reasons, but
mainly because he did such a great job. because
he spoke out so boldly, so prophetically, in
word and deed for justice, the poor, disarmament,
peace, creation, mercy, nonviolence, and the
nonviolent Jesus, and that we had him for 12
years, and that he didn't resign and retire,
but he kept at it till his last day, Easter Sunday.
And I give thanks that we all got to live during
his time. I think he's one of our greatest saints.
right up there with Francis of Assisi, Dorothy
Day, and Oscar Romero. And I hope he will also
be named a doctor of the church. Well, we've
been hearing since he died how he was the first
non -European pope in centuries, the first Jesuit
pope, the first Latino, the first pope from Latin
America, the first pope trained after Vatican
II, the first pope who was... not a Vatican insider,
the first to take the name of St. Francis, which
was a bold and daring thing to do. I like the
fact that he was the first pope who worked as
a bouncer at a pub before he entered the seminary.
But I think Pope Francis lived and proclaimed
the Beatitudes. And I wrote him and told him
that. I wrote him a lot. And he sent me encouraging
messages. He said he liked all my books on Jesus,
peace, and nonviolence. And when I started this
Beatitude Center, he sent me a message about
how much he liked it and all this work to promote
the nonviolent Jesus. I also asked him for many
things and repeatedly for 10 years for an encyclical
on Jesus and nonviolence. Once I asked him to
call for a new Vatican III on Jesus and nonviolence.
I think last year I wrote him and asked him to
declare a holy year on the Beatitudes or peacemaking.
When I was at the Vatican in December 2022, I
gave Cardinal Czerny, who's a Jesuit and a friend
and the number two to Pope Francis, a letter
in Spanish, which he put in Francis's hands.
I asked Francis to write a forward to my latest
book, The Gospel of Peace, a commentary on the
Gospels from the perspective of nonviolence.
And then I said in the letter, well, while I'm
at it, let's write a book together. I'll come
over and spend the summer with you. And I called
it The Things That Make for Peace, and I drafted
an outline for it. And then I said, and while
I'm at it. How about giving me a job? How about
inviting me to Rome and let's open the Vatican
Office of Nonviolence to promote gospel nonviolence
full time around the world? And Cardinal Czerny
sent me an email later that day saying the Pope
read it and said, kind of shaking his head, tell
John, dear, I'm way too busy to do all that,
which I thought was kind of funny. I was just
about to invite him to be a guest on this podcast,
the Nonviolent Jesus podcast, when he got sick.
I had every intention to do that because I knew
he'd made phone calls. Francis had a universal
perspective and looked at the whole human race
and all of creation all the time. We Americans
together as a people don't do that. I think we're
very self -centered, egotistic. We practice a
kind of collective narcissism. But Francis, now
this is so important, was looking at... Everyone,
every human being, all creation, all the time,
the whole world, through the eyes of the nonviolent
Jesus. And that's why he spoke boldly about universal
love, universal compassion, universal justice,
and universal peace, because he had a universal
vision. And I think that's the spiritual life.
That's the politics of the nonviolent Jesus.
That's the direction we all need to move in.
And it leads. to universal nonviolence. I think
every one of us is called by Jesus to be empowered
like that, to have a universal perspective, and
therefore to practice and promote universal love,
compassion, and peace. So what I'd like to do
is reflect on a few of his great themes leading
up to, for me, the great themes of peacemaking
and nonviolence. So first, his commitment to
the poor. Remember, he began his papacy That
first day scene, he envisioned a church that
is poor and for the poor. It's remarkable. Yes,
do charity work, he said, and serve the poor
and marginalized. But here is the key. Have real
relationships with real poor, marginalized, and
disenfranchised people. Get involved in their
lives personally. And then join their struggle
to end injustice and end systemic violence and
poverty. And do it through the love for them,
for actual suffering people. I love that he opened
a homeless shelter in the Vatican, that he visited
prisoners regularly, and that he spoke out passionately
about and met with migrants and refugees. Next,
of course, is his commitment to Mother Earth.
He wrote many great books and great encyclicals
like Fratelli Tutti. where he called for a global
fraternity rooted in love, solidarity, and respect
for all people, where everyone moves beyond divisions
and tries to work together to build a more just,
compassionate world. But his encyclical on the
environment, Laudate Si, is one of the greatest
documents in history. Not only does he denounce
our destruction of the planet and the creatures,
But he denounces capitalism, corporate greed,
and war as root causes of climate change. The
earth, he says, is, quote, beginning to look
more and more like an immense pile of filth.
He called climate change, quote, a moral crisis
and denounced what he called, quote, an economy
that kills. It was very important. A system,
he said, that discards both people and creation
in pursuit of profit. So he denounced what he
called our throwaway culture as a moral failure.
See, no wonder so many people are against him.
And he named indifference as one of the greatest
threats to our future. He insisted that, quote,
we can no longer turn our backs on reality, what's
happening in the world, war, climate change,
and there. and the harm and injustice toward
the poor. And he called everyone to take action
for justice, compassion, and Mother Earth, which
he called over and over again our common home.
Third, his commitment to mercy. Mercy, mercy,
mercy. Over and over again, he called us to show
mercy, to grant general clemency, to let go of
all grudges, and forgive everyone. and put down
our swords, our guns, our weapons, and reconcile
and seek peace. But in particular, he changed
the fine print of canon law so there's not one
sentence of support for the death penalty. No
Catholic, he would say, no Christian can support
the death penalty. Of course, Jesus was, first
of all, a victim of capital punishment. So he
tried many times personally. to intervene and
stop impending executions, for which I'm so grateful.
Fourth, his commitment to diversity, equality,
and inclusion. Hello. Which started early on
when the reporter on the plane asked him about
LGBT folks, and he said, who am I to judge? Which
shocked the whole world. And that's precisely
why the right hates him so much. Because unlike
Trump and so many others, he refused to scapegoat
people. or to judge anyone, which, by the way,
is one of the commandments in the Sermon on the
Mount. But, however, he did judge and vehemently
condemned corporate greed, hatred, prejudice,
racism, war, bombings, genocide, nuclear weapons,
and really the whole U .S. itself because of
its imperial domination. Fifth, his commitment
to reform the church. especially through the
Synod, if you followed his process, which he
gave his heart to these last few years, which
has the potential to transform the global Catholic
Church and make it more egalitarian with a real
bottom -up decision -making process. If priests
are to be good shepherds like Jesus, then he
said, they need to, quote, smell like sheep,
smell like the sheep. Quote, he said, the church
is like a field hospital after battle. That's
a powerful sentence, which he said early on.
It's the place where people go for healing, recovery,
and comfort. So it's going to be messy and stressful
because it serves the suffering. All of that,
of course, is about the opposite of the way it
is here in the first world. Could he have done
more? Of course he could have. I wish he had
ordained women as deacons, for starters. and
said that priests could marry. I wish he had
placed women as the head of many, if not all,
decision -making bodies within the Curia and
the Church. As Joan Chidester wrote this week,
my friend who was recently on our podcast, quote,
he failed women. I wish he had made a much stronger
response to the horrific sex abuse scandal. But
I liked that he tried vigorously to get bishops
and priests not to run around like aristocrats,
but to let go of power and pride and be of humble
service to all people. He kept saying, todos,
todos, todos, everyone, everyone, everyone. Well,
now we're getting to where, for me, it's the
heart of it, his great commitment to peace and
peacemaking. and eventually nonviolence. Everything
Francis did, I think, was a form of gospel peacemaking.
Like Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Dr. King, and St. Francis,
Pope Francis was against all war. All wars, no
matter what the reason, and that's the leap very
few people make. Not just bishops and priests,
by the way, but people around the world. Few
people make that total leap, which is what Jesus
calls us to. One of his last books, for example,
which I highly recommend, which hardly anybody
in the U .S. knows about, is called simply Against
War. It's a whole book about why we can't be
involved in war. And if you study carefully the
response to his death, the tributes in the mainstream
press, I think you will notice that very few
mention his consistent stand against war, his
total opposition to nuclear weapons, his efforts
to end all the wars in Africa, and in particular,
the Russian war on Ukraine. That's amazing to
me. And, you know, when Russia invaded Ukraine,
he broke all protocol. much to the shock of the
Curia, and immediately went across town to the
Russian embassy and begged for an end to the
war. That's what the Pope should do. But most
of all, he denounced the horrific Hamas attack
and kidnappings, and from then on, every day,
denounced U .S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza,
which has killed over 51 ,000 people as of today.
And then nearly every night since the war began,
at 7 o 'clock, he called the one Catholic church
in Gaza, right up through Holy Saturday, to see
how they were holding up. His last public words
on Easter Sunday were a call for a lasting ceasefire
in Gaza. Wow, what a challenge. I hope all of
us can try to speak out publicly until the day
we die, calling for an end to all war. All nuclear
weapons, the wars in Ukraine and Africa, and
the Israeli genocide in Gaza. What a gift he
was. Francis went to many places around the world,
but places that few people visit and no popes
had visited. And he was trying to fulfill Jesus'
commandment to make peace and practice the universal,
compassionate love of God. So Francis went to
Iraq, something I tried to get John Paul to do
and later Benedict. He went to Myanmar, North
Macedonia, Bahrain, Mongolia, the Congo, South
Korea, and Morocco. When he was in Palestine,
wow, he drove by the wall, made them stop the
car, got out, went up to the evil Israeli wall
of occupation, put his hand on it and prayed
there, just as he had done a few days before
at the Wailing Wall. In the United Arab Emirates,
He had a historic and fruitful meeting with the
Muslim leaders. In Canada, he apologized for
the church's treatment of indigenous people over
the centuries and finally tore up the doctrine
of discovery. Remember the statement from 1493?
The papal bulls that said, okay, any Christian
emperor or king... can go and invade the new
world and take any land for the indigenous people
for Christ and kill them, whatever you have to
do. That only ended two years ago. In Greece,
he made a surprise visit to a refugee camp and
then brought three Muslim families back on the
plane to Rome with him. In the Central African
Republic, he went right into the war zone. I'm
not kidding you. It's a miracle he wasn't killed.
He literally placed himself in harm's way. You
know, just as you kind of wish the Pope had done.
Of course, it's got no publicity in the West.
In Hiroshima. He denounced all nuclear weapons
and said that the mere possession of them and
the threat to use them as a deterrent was immoral.
And he begged the world's leaders to abolish
all nuclear weapons. Now, I know this sounds
obvious to us now, but that's not what John Paul
had said. He said, yeah, we're against them,
but, you know, if you really need to nuke the
world, you can do that for Jesus. You know, that's
always been what the leaders of the world have
said. Francis... has changed all of that. I never
thought I'd live to see all of this. No Catholic,
and therefore for him, no Christian can build,
work with, support, threaten, or profit from
nuclear weapons, he said. But perhaps the most
dramatic peacemaking act he did was in April
2019, which you can watch online. There's videos
of it. Wow. When he brought the president of
South Sudan and the rebel leaders together at
the Vatican for a two -day retreat. They're in
the middle of the war. And at the end, you know,
they're being filmed. It's like in a living room.
He pleads for negotiations, urges them to end
the killing and to stay on track for peace. And
then he goes around the room and the poor old
guy got down on his knees. and begged each one
of them, the arch enemies, killing each other
directly for peace. And he kissed each person's
feet in the room. That's way beyond St. Francis
and Gandhi and Martin Luther King. We've never
had such a symbolic peacemaking act in history,
I propose. Of course, that was so ignored here
in the West that he was doing things like that.
And I know because of my contacts in South Sudan
that that inspired. Many people start using the
word nonviolence and building a grassroots movement
of nonviolence. I was personally inspired that
he spent two hours every morning, every single
day in prayer and meditation from 4 a .m. to
6 a .m. Just as Gandhi spent two hours in meditation
every single day. And by the way, both of them
were very busy people. So it's a challenge to
all of us. I really liked his address to Congress.
when he urged us to follow what he said were
the four greatest Americans. Okay, Abraham Lincoln
for abolishing slavery. Right. I was expecting
him to say George Washington, Thomas Jefferson,
and FDR. And he goes, Martin Luther King Jr.,
Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton. Wow. I had concelebrated
mass with him and many other priests at Catholic
University the day before. And he seemed to me
like a very sweet, gentle, old parish priest.
But that day in Congress, he stood up like a
mighty prophet. I liked all his harsh critiques
of President Trump and the many U .S. Catholic
bishops and priests who support Trump in the
Republican Party. I liked that the weekend he
died, he had a cardinal read a long statement
on the fundamentals of compassion and welcoming
immigrants to J .D. Vance. I liked that he fired
everyone at the Vatican Bank. People don't realize
that. He excommunicated the Italian mafia. I
didn't know that until I first went to Rome.
I mean, I was always amazed he was not assassinated.
I like that he jailed the cardinal who stole
millions from the Vatican fund for the poor and
had a really posh penthouse apartment in Rome.
He put the guy in the old Vatican jail. I don't
even know if I would have done that, but it was
amazing. I was impressed how he consistently
met with leaders of popular grassroots movements
from the global south regularly. Of course, that
was ignored too. And he encouraged them in all
grassroots movements. And because I was going
regularly to the Vatican, I noticed that he did
not do that with movement leaders here in the
United States. And then it dawned on me, that's
precisely the point. He's from the global south.
So he's determined to listen to their voices,
not ours. From the rich, wealthy, global north.
I have been working over the years for the release
of the indigenous leader, American Indian, Leonard
Peltier, who spent 49 years in prison. And I
know that the Pope called President Biden last
December and made a personal appeal to release
Leonard. And that, along with the campaign, is
why Leonard Peltier was released from prison.
the day Trump was inaugurated. Once when I was
visiting Julian Assange, you remember he was
in exile in the Ecuadorian embassy in London,
which is something I did periodically and we
became friends. I got there and Julian said,
you wouldn't believe it, but yesterday Pope Francis
called him out of the blue and they talked for
an hour and it really helped him. I remember
The Pope never told the world that he did that,
and so Julian never did, and I never said anything
either. And I really liked that. That was Francis
being a pastor to Julian. In the end for me,
though, it was his commitment to active, creative,
daring nonviolence that gives me the most hope.
Francis learned, as we all have to learn, that
the only way forward, really our only hope, As
if every human being tries to practice, teach,
and promote the total nonviolence of Jesus and
work together for what Francis called a new culture
of nonviolence. So as some listeners may know,
my friends and I went to the Vatican many times
over the years asking for an encyclical on Jesus.
and nonviolence, to make this the official teaching,
position, and law of the church. We wanted a
statement as great as Laudato Si. And while Francis
was doing so much for peace, he wrote and changed
laws around Laudato Si and the earth and care
for the poor and mercy, you know, like St. Francis.
But he didn't change the canon law. And that's
what we were going for, to make this the new
path of the church. We never got what we were
looking for. But wow, did he do a lot to turn
the church back to its roots in gospel nonviolence.
So all this led up to April 2016, when he welcomed
the first ever conference on nonviolence at the
Vatican, which was organized by Marie Dennis,
who was on this podcast recently, and Pax Christi
International. And it was one of the greatest
experiences of all of our lives. And at the end,
we issued a joint statement between Pax Christi
and the members of the conference and the Vatican
saying there is no such thing as a just war and
calling everyone to practice nonviolence. Well,
as far as I can tell, that had never been said
before. So, right, just a brief... timeline,
the first three centuries of the church practiced
radical nonviolence. That's what Jesus did and
commanded. But then in 315, the emperor legalized
Christianity, said you can all join the army,
threw out the Sermon on the Mount, turned to
the Cicero, the pagan, and they began the just
war theory to justify warfare. And here we are
today. We're trying to change that. Francis started
the process. And it was there at the conference
that Cardinal Peter Turkson asked me to draft
the Pope's next World Day of Peace message. The
Pope always issues a statement on peace every
January 1st. And it came out January 1st, 2017,
called Nonviolence, a Style of Politics for Peace.
And if you haven't read it, please go look it
up. I call it the first ever statement on nonviolence
in the history of the church since the Sermon
on the Mount. So he says, to be true followers
of Jesus today includes embracing his teachings
on nonviolence. In the most local and ordinary
situations and in the international order, may
nonviolence become the hallmark of all our decisions,
our relationships, and our actions, and indeed
of all political life in all its forms. everything
we would want the Pope to say. From now on, folks,
we have to be people of total nonviolence, like
Jesus. And he ends by saying, may we make active
nonviolence our way of life. And I pledge the
assistance of the church in every effort to build
peace through active and creative nonviolence.
And he did. And we saw, because we kept going
back, and Marie and our friends continue to go
back, We saw certainly the Curia change. The
Vatican has changed completely on the questions
of peace and justice and nonviolence since we
started going there. It's a noticeable change,
thanks to Marie Dennis's great leadership. And
then through the years, he continued to speak
about nonviolence. Here's some quotes. I think
of nonviolence as a perspective and a way of
understanding the world, to which theology must
look as one of its constitutive elements. Nonviolence,
he said, is a universal value that finds fulfillment
in the gospel of Christ. Wow, that's perfect.
He called for like a new nonviolent lifestyle,
that we all live new lives of nonviolence. And
he said, quote, it's not the same as weakness
or passivity. That means it presupposes firmness.
courage and the ability to face issues and conflicts
with intellectual honesty and truly seeking the
common ground. And he writes, we have seen outstanding
examples of how nonviolence, embraced with conviction
and practice consistently, can yield significant
results, even in the social and political plane.
Some people, indeed entire nations, thanks to
the efforts of nonviolent leaders, Peacefully
achieve the goals of freedom and justice through
nonviolence. This is the path to pursue now and
in the future. This is the path of peace. In
2019, I remember he gave his talk to the Anti
-Defamation League, and he said, Faced with so
much violence spreading throughout the world,
we are called to a greater nonviolence. Wow.
That really speaks to me. I think that's a challenge.
We have to go beyond Gandhi and Dr. King and
really pursue nonviolence in much greater ways
than we ever have before. And elsewhere he writes,
let us remember that even in cases of self -defense,
peace is the ultimate goal and that a lasting
peace can exist only without weapons. So let's
make nonviolence our guide for all our actions.
both in daily life and in international relations.
And let us pray for a more widespread culture
of nonviolence. Wow. That will progress when
countries and citizens alike resort less and
less to the use of arms. In his last statement
on Easter Sunday, if you may have seen, he prayed
for an end to all violence everywhere. Dear friends,
I think that was his prayer, his message. his
hope, his faith, his life. And I say that, too,
because of my own experience getting challenged
and objected to by so many bishops and priests.
But, you know, I found this quote I put in my
book as the frontispiece, Praise Be Peace, where
Francis says, God's name is peace. That's very
profound theology. And if that's true, and I
believe it is, then no wonder he worked so hard
for peace. Well, I keep pondering since he died
what he said on 60 Minutes, which you can go
watch on YouTube, which was very provocative
and a total challenge to us Americans. I think
it was actually kind of in your face because
it's addressed to us. Here's the quote. I typed
it out. There are so many punches pilots on the
loose out there running around. You all see what
is happening, all these wars, the injustices,
the crimes, and then you shrug and say, that's
okay. And then you wash your hands. That's indifference.
That is what happens when the heart hardens.
Please, we have to get our hearts to feel again.
We cannot remain indifferent in the face of such
human dramas. The globalization of indifference
is a very ugly disease. That's a very profound
challenge to people here in the first world as
comfortable people. The globalization of... You
know, when Dan Berrigan was kicked out of the
United States because of his opposition to the
Vietnam War and was in Latin America, and I'm
sure he knew Pope Francis, he wrote that famously.
The opposite of love is not hate. It's indifference.
It's indifference. And that's what Francis is
seeing, and he's challenging everybody. Wake
up. That's why he said to those three French
activists, start a revolution. Shout nonviolently.
Wake people up. So what do we do? What's a good
way to honor him? I think a good way to honor
and remember Pope Francis' peacemaking life and
his death at Easter is to renounce our indifference
and to rise to the occasion as he did. and to
claim our power as public peacemakers. And so,
more than ever, to step out into the culture
in this terrible moment we're going through,
to speak out, march in the streets, take public
action, and resist all violence, war, injustice,
poverty, racism, corporate greed, fascism, authoritarianism,
white supremacy. the U .S.-backed Israeli genocide
in Gaza, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction.
He called this year a jubilee year of hope, and
he called us to be, quote, pilgrims of hope.
So I invite us in his Easter spirit to rise up,
to rise and shine, reclaim gospel nonviolence
as he tried to do, as he was beginning to do,
and to see the world through the eyes of the
nonviolent Jesus as he did. and to do what we
can publicly as gospel peacemakers to welcome
God's reign of peace on earth. Amen. Thank you
so much, dear friends, for listening to this
Nonviolent Jesus podcast. You can hear many other
podcasts and find other great Zoom programs at
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Thanks. May the God of peace bless us all. Keep
on following the risen nonviolent Jesus. See
you all next time. Thanks so much.