Pace e Bene’s mission is to foster a just and peaceful world through nonvioent education, community, and action.
Formed by a small group of Franciscans and others in 1989, Pace e Bene is a growing community representing a diversity of spiritual traditions and cultural backgrounds that networks with nonviolence practitioners in many parts of the world.
Through trainings, strategic consultation, or joint action, Pace e Bene collaborates with international, national, and local organizations, religious communities, and movements taking nonviolent action fostering just andlasting peace, championing human rights, challenging the violence of poverty and multiple forms of oppression; and strenthening spiritually-based initiatives for justiice and peace. Learn more about these partnerships by clicking here,
Pace e Bene's prorgrams include:
Engage: Exploring Nonviolent Living
Nonviolence is a tool for helping to create a happier, more peaceful, safe, just, loving, and connected world. Engage is a nonviolence training and action program for learning, practicing, and experimenting with the power of nonviolence to transform ourselves and our world that:
- Envisions nonviolent alternatives
- Learns nonviolent alternatives
- Connect with others for nonviolent alternatives, and
- Create nonviolent alternatives
Building on Pace e Bene’s From Violence To Wholeness program, Engage is designed for use in many settings and contexts. More…
Since 1997, twenty-three thousand people have participated in over 500 From Violence To Wholeness workshops, trainings, courses, and study groups in the US and around the world. This programming has provided participants with a vision, method, and tools to challenge and transform patterns and policies of violence in their lives and in the larger world. Developed in a Catholic Franciscan context, From Violence To Wholeness was designed for nonviolence education in Christian congregations and organizations. More…
Pace e Bene has led trainings in innumerable Catholic, Protestant, and Buddhist communities. More…
Traveling with the Turtle: Women's Spirituality and Peacemaking Program
Woman’s spirituality is a powerful force for peacemaking. This program, which is currently being developed, will explore the different aspects of this spirituality rooted in women’s experience and stories that can enable us to heal the violence we experience within ourselves, in our relationships, in our communities, against creation and in our world. Our small group process manual, and the workshops and retreats that we offer, will be companions that enhance the journey we are on as women seeking to make peace. More…
The Pace e Bene Prison Project
Beginning in Spring 2005, Pace e Bene launched a nonviolent training project at two Northern California correctional facilities: San Quentin State Prison and Dublin Federal Corrections Institution. Pace e Bene is exploring continuing this program at these institutions and initiating similar programs at other prisons. More…
Peace Grows! was a project that was created by Rosemary Lynch and Mary Litell. It developed out of the Nurturing a Culture of Nonviolence project. It’s workshop, curriculum, and audio and video resources are grounded in the four-fold conviction that:
- The seeds of peace exist in all cultures
- These seeds are already being nurtured by groups and individuals across the country and around the world;
- These creative efforts are not well-reported; and
- The majority of persons who are actually nurturing a culture of peace in their everyday lives do not identify themselves as peacebuilders and often do not have the support of a sense of solidarity with others who are likewise committed to the same peaceable way of life.
This project creates a process in which participants articulate their longings for a peaceable way of life. More…
Reclaiming Our Latino Cultural Roots of Peace and All Good
In Paz y Bien, Latinos/as for active nonviolence choose life by living out of peace and all good. Through practice and discernment, we deepen our understanding of how our Latino culture in the United States contributes with a vision of making present the Reign of God in our world today in active nonviolence. More…
Reviviendo Nuestras Raíces Culturales de la Paz y el Bien
Los Latinos por la nonviolencia activa optamos por la vida a través de la paz y el bien. Por medio de la practica y el discernimiento, profundizamos en nuestro entendimiento de cómo nuestras raíces y cultura latina contribuyen en los Estados Unidos con una visión de la realización del Reino de Dios en nuestro mundo actual en la noviolencia activa. Mas…
