Bridgefolk is a movement of sacramentally-minded Mennonites and peace-minded Roman Catholics who come together to celebrate each other's traditions, explore each other's practices, and honor each other's contribution to the mission of Christ's Church.
As Cardinals Robert McElroy and Charles Bo inaugurate the new Pax Christi Catholic Institute for Nonviolence in Rome, Pope Francis sends his support and calls for charity and nonviolence to guide the world.
By Edoardo Giribaldi
“Active non-violence is not passivity. It is an effective method of confronting the evil that exists in our world that often engenders conflict.”
L to R: Dr. Maria Stephan, Cardinal Charles Bo, Cardinal Robert McElroy, Sister Teresia Wachira.
Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, Myanmar, and Cardinal Robert McElroy, Bishop of San Diego, took part on Sunday in the inauguration of the new Catholic Institute for Nonviolence, founded by Pax Christi International, a movement that promotes peace and consists of 120 organizations from all around the world.
The Rome-based Institute will be dedicated to promoting nonviolence as a central teaching of the Catholic Church, embarking on the mission of making research, resources, and experiences in nonviolence more accessible both for Church leaders and global institutions.
The event was held at the “Istituto Maria Santissima Bambina” in Rome, and featured the presence of Sister Teresia Wachira, from the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as well as renowned author and researcher Dr. Maria Stephan, who moderated the event and conversation.
Nonviolence as the foundation of the Church
In an interview with Vatican News ahead of the event, Cardinal McElroy stressed the difficulty in sharing the ideal of nonviolence in the current context, which is marred by conflict and violence. “However, it seems to me it’s the only message we have in the light of the Gospel and in the times that we are living in,” he said.
War, Technology, Acceleration: Responding to the Cries of the Earth Through Stability and Contemplation Tuesday, October 8, 8:15-9:30 pm ET
In this presentation, Bridgefolk Board Member Br. Denys Janiga OSB will talk about the relationship between war, ecology, and society, with a focus on technology.
He will discuss some of the recent technologies being deployed in modern conflicts, including Ukraine and Russia, Gaza and Israel, and Azerbaijan and Armenia. This will then move into a discussion of the notion of the “technocratic paradigm,” which Pope Francis has critiqued in his encyclical Laudato Si. Building on the pope’s encyclical, Br. Denys will use the work of Hartmut Rosa to better understand the temporal dimension of modern societies that he refers to as acceleration. The presentation will conclude with a Benedictine response through the vow of stability and contemplation.
After working as a program development assistant for the Environmental Studies program at the College of Saint Benedict (CSB) and Saint John’s University (SJU), Br. Denys has recently joined the university’s Campus Ministry staff. A member of Saint John’s Abbey, he is also a student in the Saint John’s School of Theology.
People on Bridgefolk mailing lists will receive a Zoom link on the morning of October 8. Click here to subscribe.
In July’s Give Us This Day, the monthly prayer book published by Liturgical Press at Saint John’s Abbey, long-time Bridgefolk participant Fr. William Skudlarek OSB offers an “explainer” concerning how Catholics in the United States are being prompted to celebrate their Independence Day on July 4th. With permission, we reprint his essay here.
A Liturgical Celebration of July Fourth
Fr. William Skudlarek OSB
A good number of countries where Catholicism is (or used to be) the dominant religion still observe some Catholic feast days as national holidays. In the United States, on the other hand, two civic holidays, Independence Day and Thanksgiving Day, are inscribed in the liturgical calendar and even given a special Mass.
Like the Mass for Thanksgiving, the Mass for July Fourth has proper prayers and a proper preface for the Eucharistic prayer. In addition, it includes the Gloria, an alternate proper preface, and a solemn final blessing. There are, however, no assigned Scripture texts; the readings are to be taken from the Mass for Peace and Justice or the Mass for Public Needs.
The prayers and the choice of readings for the Fourth of July invite us to reflect not so much on what the Declaration of Independence has freed us from, rather, they remind us what it has freed us for: to be a nation that secures justice for all its inhabitants and calls them to be artisans of peace.
In the Scriptures chosen for the Mass on July Fourth, the word peace appears eleven times. The most striking occurrence is in the Responsorial Psalm where it says, Justice and peace shall kiss (85:11). These words call to mind the fervent appeal for peace Pope Saint Paul VI made in his 1972 World Day of Peace message: If you want Peace, work for Justice.
Peace and justice are two of the richest themes in the He- brew and Christian Scriptures. To wish others peace is to wish them the fullness of life. The Liturgy of the Eucharist has us do that right before we receive the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, who came that we may have life in abundance.
Peace is Christ s gift to us, but the gift goes hand in hand with the practice of justice, that is, with the right ordering of relationships. Such right ordering is always to be carried out with mercy and generosity, especially when disordered relationships are the result of past injustice. Creating a level playing field for everyone is necessary, but not enough. This nation also must try to find ways to make amends for the immense social, economic, and psychological scars left by the injustice of enslaving people who were forcibly brought here from abroad and of dispossessing and massacring Indigenous peoples the two original sins of this nation.
As we consider what it means to celebrate Independence Day liturgically, we cannot overlook the fact that this year the holiday falls in the week when the first reading for week- day Masses is taken from the prophet Amos. Throughout the week, with the exception of July Fourth, this farmer-turned- prophet will rail against the privileged and influential people of eighth-century BCE Israel who mercilessly exploited those they impoverished. On Saturday, however, Amos proclaims God s promise never to forsake a nation that repents of its unjust treatment of the poor and the powerless.
July Fourth is certainly a time to give thanks for what was achieved when this country claimed its place among the family of nations. It is also an occasion to repent for what we have failed to do, to strive for peace with justice, and to place our trust in a merciful God who promises not to abandon us.
We are created out of Love and for Love. Conflict is a regular part of this human journey and an opportunity to grow. How do we grow into the persons and communities that God calls us to become? How do we construct a more sustainable just peace?
In October the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, a project of Pax Christi International, offered a series of virtual lectures on gospel nonviolence:
Why ‘Nonviolence?’ (includes 2 young adult speakers)
Returning to and Exploring the Power of Nonviolence
Christian Foundations of Nonviolence
Embracing Nonviolence: A New Moral Framework
Embracing Nonviolence: Transforming the Church.
These lectures are now available for personal or group study. All five videos are divided into speaker chapters, and the presentations run from between 15 to 29 minutes. Immediately following each presentation is a slide that has three discussion/essay questions.
A one-stop web page for these resources is available at https://cniseries.info. The page includes find brief lecture and presentation summaries, a link to each video and a downloadable study guide.
Father Drew Christiansen SJ died on April 6 at the Jesuit community in Georgetown University. Christiansen was an early participant in Bridgefolk and an enthusiastic supporter of Mennonite-Catholic dialogue at many levels. In a 2003 article entitled “An Exchange of Gifts” that summarized various streams of that dialogue and recounted the influence of Mennonites on his own theological reflection, Christiansen expressed confidence that “Catholics and Mennonites have begun to become sources of renewal for one another” through this unexpected but holy exchange.
Fr. Drew Chrstiansen SJ, 1945-2022
When the first Bridgefolk conference at Saint John’s University in 2002 compared key beliefs and practices of Mennonites and Catholics, Christiansen summarized Catholic social teaching on peace and war. He was also a major panelist at a 2007 conference at the University of Notre Dame assessing the final report the of Mennonite World Conference and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, “Called Together to Be Peacemakers.”
Christiansen had participated in that international dialogue, which took place from 1998 and 2003, and had helped to draft the report. His extensive writing on Catholic social teaching and peacemaking was informed not only by his theological education but by years of work representing both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican in global peacemaking efforts, especially in the Middle East. At the time of his death he was Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Human Development in Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.
Read more:
America magazine’s obituary. America is the leading Catholic magazine in the United States, edited by U.S. Jesuits. Christiansen served as its editor-in-chief from 2005-2012.
Today in his message “Nonviolence: A style of politics for peace,” for the 50th World Day of Peace, celebrated each year on 1 January, Pope Francis urges people everywhere to practice active nonviolence and notes that the “decisive and consistent practice of nonviolence has produced impressive results.”
Homily for Bridgefolk footwashing service, 30 July 2016
Joetta Handrich Schlabach, pastor, Faith Mennonite Church, Minneapolis
From The Mennonite, 15 August 2016
Joetta Handrich Schlabach
Highways can be dangerous places. I grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where highways were snow- and sometime ice-covered-for up to five months of the year. I have memories of being in cars that landed in a snow bank in both clear and stormy weather. During the five years that my husband and I lived in Central America, we had our share of breathtaking moments when the bus we were riding in decided to pass on a curve along a mountain road or when we were riding in the back of a pick-up at high speed.
But I’ve never been fearful that a highway encounter with the police might be dangerous. Thankfully, those encounters have been few in my life, but I am increasingly coming to understand that my sense of safety is not simply a matter of always following the speed limit, but also has to do with the color of my skin. I’ve also come to know that the highway that I get on each day, I-94, which many of you may have driven on to come to this gathering, endangered a whole neighborhood in its very creation, as it bored through the heart of St. Paul’s African-American Rondo neighborhood in the 1960’s.
Last month the nation—and many parts of the world—have become familiar with the name of Philando Castile. Philando was the young man shot by a policeman during a “routine” traffic stop in Falcon Heights, just north of St. Paul, Minnesota. Continue reading “Mercy in the borderlands”→
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.”
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
“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”→
