As a Catholic reader, I would like to clarify a point regarding Fr. John Dear's call for a recommitment to gospel nonviolence. While I agree wholeheartedly with Dear that our church should visibly commit to a more unequivocal articulation of the centrality of nonviolence to the gospel, I believe he is mistaken to frame this in terms of discontinuity - as a call for the church to "change course from the last seventeen hundred years." But since he does, it is understandable that Tom Cornell (Letters, Winter 2017) reads him as opting for a "fallen church" narrative in which "the Holy Spirit abandoned the church" for most of its history. Cornell is right that the Catholic Church could not faithfully adopt such an ecclesiology, and that it instead "builds in continuity with the past." But this does not mean the Catholic Church cannot make a clearer commitment to nonviolence. Catholic Social Teaching takes the presumption against taking life as a starting point, and the exceptions it allows to this have gradually narrowed. It remains to be seen whether those allowances for violence can ever narrow to the point of disappearing altogether, but contrary to what Dear suggests, the trajectory of Catholic teaching has been moving in this direction for some time. What the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative should be asking Pope Francis to do is to continue this course. Regarding Cornell's point about the disciples as poor students if Jesus taught nonviolence, that is exactly the image we see of the disciples throughout the gospels (what some scholars call "evidence from embarrassment"). If we can recall Peter's willingness to wield a sword on behalf of his master without also recalling Jesus' rebuke to him to put the sword away, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword" (Matt. 26:52), we probably need a few repeat lessons ourselves.

I believe that the Christian vocation is antithetical to service in the nation's military establishment. But this isn't because of the need to support nonviolence. Violence is at the very core of Creation. Every human being dies, and dies within a hundred and twenty year time frame. If human life is so sacred to God, why has he programed every human being to grow old and decrepit and then die? Why has he made the human body in such a way that it can be burned by napalm, sliced to bits by shrapnel, or cut open by swords and knives, etc., etc. ? Why are there earthquakes and plagues that carry away millions of human beings? Why drought? Even if no human being ever raised a fist against another, the world would still be a violent place to live. The Bible has a story about God killing every man, woman and child on earth in a world wide cataclysm. The Bible criticizes militarism, not because of its violence, but because militarism is idolatrous. For the Christian to depend on modern weaponry, a standing army, and military leaders rather than on God for security, constitutes the sin of idolatry. And killing for the state is also idolatrous. But the Bible is not against the Christian killing a madman who is rampaging through the neighborhood killing people. In fact, the Christian is doing the murderer a favor. I certainly would prefer being killed by a fellow Christian should I go off the deep end and start killing people. I would not want him to stand there and let me do this horrible thing. Plus, as I have said, I am going to die anyway some day. Love for and trust in God along with love of neighbor is at the root of Christian peacemaking, not pacifism and not nonviolence pre se. Love of God and love for neighbor may require a Christian to use violence against wicked people in certain contexts. But such violence should not be in the context of fighting for one's nation. Let the nation's non-Christians fight their nation's wars. And certainly, Christians shouldn't be killing other Christians simply because their national leaders have asked them to. WWI and WWII would most likely not have been possible without German Christians being willing to kill French and Russian Christians and vice versa. Also, true Christians are a small minority of the world's people. Most people love violence. Just look at what people do for fun. They play war video games, watch or play violent sports like American football. They pay millions to watch violent movies and spend hours watching violent TV shows. Down through the ages young men have engaged in the violence of war because their humdrum lives bored them to death. Find a cure for boredom and the world will have fewer wars. Winston Churchill said that he never felt more alive than when he was involved in a war (not an exact quote, but close). Also, men have killed other men in war for pay or the promise of war booty. Except for the 19th and 20th centuries, most wars were fought by mercenaries, not patriots. (Patriotism is a form of idolatry.) Money is root of all evil, even the evil of war. And many young men have gone to war out of being shamed into it. During WWI young women would give young men not in uniform a white feather which was a statement meaning, "You are a coward". Young men would rather suffer having both legs blown off before being shamed by a young woman for being a coward. The elite have also seen war as a way of promoting their status in society. Men have become tribal chiefs or national leaders due to their success on the battlefield. The Church will have no more success in stoping the violence of war than it has had in stopping the violence of theft, murder, fornication, adultery, sodomy, disrespect for parents and lawful authority, blasphemy, perjury, lying, etc. All sins are acts of violence.

I am afraid that John Dear is very much misinformed regarding Christian military service, including as fighting soldiers, prior to Constantine. There is plenty of evidence Christians fought in the Roman army dating from the time of Our Lord himself. A perfunctory search of the internet will yield incontrovertible evidence. I am afraid John Dear is spouting nonsense?

Thank you for reading this article. What do you think? It is time for the church universal to embrace a commitment to complete nonviolence? Why or why not?

I think Dear drastically overstates the biblical and historical arguments for pacifism, besides not even mentioning its many practical deficiencies. There good reasons that pacifism remains a minority viewpoint among Christians.

I recommend the April 25, 2016 commentary by William Doino in the journal First Things for an alternative analysis of this Vatican conference.