As part of its commencement ceremony May 9, Saint John’s University and Abbey in Minnesota awarded Mennonite peacebuilder John Paul Lederach its Pax Christi award. The university’s highest honor, the Pax Christi award ” recognizes those who have devoted themselves to God by working in the tradition of Benedictine monasticism to serve others and to build a heritage of faith in the world.” Saint John’s Abbey has hosted Bridgefolk conferences and Abbot John Klassen is the Catholic co-chair of Bridgefolk. The text of the award appears below.
The public radio program Speaking of Faith, recently featured Lederach and his work. The program is at http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2010/art-of-peace. Gerald Schlabach, executive director of Bridgefolk and a colleague of Lederach’s in the 1980s, recommends this extensive interview as an introduction to the style of grassroots relationship-building that has influenced Bridgefolk’s approach to ecumenical dialogue.
Saint John’s Abbey and University
Collegeville, Minnesota
John Paul Lederach, coming from a Mennonite Christian tradition of peacemaking, you have had a life-long commitment to working toward the non-violent resolution of conflict. Early on in your experience in Central America, you noted that the language of conflict “resolution” or conflict “management” raised the suspicion that important issues were being glossed over. It was easy to use nice words but no real change would result. You learned that conflicts happen for a reason and that often genuine change is necessary to get to a peace that is embedded in justice. This insight led you to the language and practice of conflict transformation.
Your teaching and practicing the process of conflict transformation led you to further explore how conflict is often embedded in a specific cultural matrix. Over many years at Eastern Mennonite University where you are a Distinguished Scholar and the University of Notre Dame where you are Professor of International Peacebuilding, you have advocated that more than a fine tuning of a general method is required to arrive at a deep, integrated understanding of ethnic and other conflicts. Your teaching is leavened with rich examples from first-hand experience as a mediator, negotiator, or trainer in such processes in Somalia, Northern Ireland, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Nepal.
You have learned that the cultural context of a conflict is as important as the content, that often it is crucial to develop both a short-term response and a long-term plan for systemic change. One has to recognize the legitimacy of different but not incompatible goals and energies in a conflict setting and to recognize and embrace complexity as a true friend. Again and again you have found that going to the epicenter of a conflict will mean moving toward voices and concerns about identity, which is always a dynamic field of feeling, thinking and conviction for communities.
You have given your life to understanding and transforming conflict in a world in such need of this work. You have integrated this passion and skill with the non-violent message of the Gospel. For this steadfast commitment to building a peaceful, just world, using just means, we gratefully present you
John Paul Lederach
Founder of the Conflict Transformation Program
with our highest honor
The Pax Christi Award
on this, this the ninth day of May, two thousand and ten.
In Omnibus Glorificetur Deus
__________________________
Father Robert Koopmann, OSB
President, Saint John’s University
__________________________
John Klassen, OSB
Abbot, Saint John’s Abbey