Peacemaking

The Russian invasion of Ukraine helped the West remember that it is fortified by a shared love of peace.

The Catholic tradition reminds us that just war thinking is critical to peacemaking.

I appreciate Michael McKoy’s recent “What Does Pacifism Have to Say About Ukraine?” But I remain unimpressed by the pacifist view.

Today, after Russia has completely abjured socialist ideals, leftist “peace” movements promote Russian foreign policy narratives. What, then, motivates them?

Numbers and statistics can desensitize students of war to real tragedy. But Keefe’s focus on Jean McConville’s murder in Say Nothing gives readers a detailed examination of the Troubles while reminding them of the victims.

While Nicaragua’s government has resorted to repressive tactics like organizing paramilitary forces to fight protesters, the church is one of the remaining institutions that still enjoys popular support and legitimacy.

Force is always only the form love takes against terrible evil in the last resort when nothing else will protect the innocent, restore justice, and bring about the conditions for peace. The old Chestertonian nugget remains: “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

Foretelling a time of cultivation, Isaiah prophesies, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.” One cannot plow a field with a sword, nor prune a tree with a spear. In this article, originally published in Christianity and Crisis on March 8, 1943, John Knox contrasts the promotion of good with the destruction of evil, particularly in conflict. Promoting good is insufficient; the conduct of war and the creation of peace are distinct phenomena to be pursued with discrete tools.

Love of justice presumes a love of truth, for justice without truth is a contradiction in terms. And love, to the extent it matters in the procurement of justice, is only effective when purified by truth.