Is a great shift in the human journey at hand?

The brutal aggression raining down on the Ukrainian people, but also on the peoples of Myanmar, Yemen, Ethiopia, and many other places, sets before us a stark choice: Will we face a future of accelerating catastrophe—or a once-and-for-all turn toward a global culture of practical, durable, and nonviolent peace?

With the grim images of destruction flooding in incessantly from Russia’s unspeakable war on Ukraine, it’s hard to imagine any new course toward enduring peace.  We are daily presented with the dilemma of an existing world order where “might” can overwhelm “right” based on the whim of a strongman or the trajectory of empire. 

This is not a new reality.  It’s as old as civilization itself.  But the cataclysmic deadliness of this pattern has grown over the past century with the synergistic acceleration of militarized technology, information systems, and global structural injustice, with the West, including the United States, carrying out abysmal “wars of choice” as much as the East. We confront a worldwide culture of violence, or what Pope Francis calls a “world war in piecemeal.”

Is there nothing to be done?  Are we simply left to face a world upended regularly by the shock of military aggression, economic dislocation, white supremacist nationalism, forced migration, and ecological crisis?

Maybe.  But, just maybe, the very extremity of this moment will force open a new way forward.

In his video conference on March 16 with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, Pope Francis may have made a landmark contribution to this critically necessary shift with four simple words: “Wars are always unjust.” 

The context was a fraught one. Virtually from the beginning of the war, the Vatican has signaled its willingness to be an instrument of peace, including mediating this conflict. There is a history of papal interventions that have played a role in defusing international conflicts, including during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and in the midst of a dispute between Argentina and Chile, preventing war in 1979.  In the current case, though, papal mediation would not be possible without joint participation with Patriarch Kirill, given the complex relationship in Ukraine and Russia between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. By meeting with the patriarch, Pope Francis was likely hoping they could join forces as peacemakers to help foster a ceasefire and perhaps a longer-term peace process.

If this is the case, the pope’s pronouncement that “wars are always unjust” is startling, given the fact that Patriarch Kirill is a staunch supporter of both President Putin and his war on Ukraine, and has justified it using religious language.  For good measure, the pope added that “war is never the way.”

In this exchange, Pope Francis called out his own Roman Catholic tradition. “There was a time, even in our Churches, when people spoke of a holy war or a just war,” he said to the patriarch. “Today we cannot speak in this manner. A Christian awareness of the importance of peace has developed.”  Then the pope proclaimed a first principle superseding all the criteria that have been used by the Catholic Church and other traditions to justify war.  Why are wars always unjust?  Because, he said, “it is the people of God who pay.” 

We don’t know why the pope chose this specific moment—in the middle of exploring a mediating partnership with his Russian Orthodox counterpart—to utter this historic declaration.  We can, though, surmise that it went beyond the back and forth of this meeting.

Perhaps Pope Francis uttered this simple but powerful proclamation precisely because it made the most sense in this very hour of unspeakable carnage, which is plainly revealing for the entire world the injustice of war. 

Since the beginning of his papacy, Pope Francis has gradually been removing the justifications for war, most sharply, in Fratelli Tutti, where he says, “We can no longer think of war as a solution” and that “we no longer uphold in our own day” Saint Augustine’s concept of just war.  In his 2021 book Peace on Earth: Fraternity is Possible, he writes, “’Put your sword back into its sheath.’ The words of Jesus resound clearly today …In the Gospel of Luke’s version of the story, Jesus tells his disciples, ‘Stop, no more of this!’ Jesus’ sorrowful and strong, ‘No more,’ goes beyond the centuries and reaches us. It is a commandment we cannot avoid. ‘No more’ swords, weapons, violence, war.”

Until this week, though, Pope Francis had not declared all war unjust. 

“Wars are always unjust”…

Perhaps Pope Francis uttered this historic proclamation precisely because it made the most sense in this very hour of unspeakable carnage, which is plainly revealing the injustice of war

Now he has done so.  In fact, two days after his exchange with Patriarch Kirill, the pope denounced the just war tradition again as forcefully when, during his address to the International Congress “Educating for Democracy in a Fragmented World,” he said, “There is no such thing as a just war: they do not exist!”

Just war theology remains enshrined in the Catholic Catechism.  Perhaps the pope’s firm declaration this week will open the possibility of an historic shift there. But we can expect that Pope Francis will not simply remove reliance on “just war” without an embrace of the positive alternative that offers a more faithful and effective way forward: Gospel Nonviolence and Just Peace, in keeping with all the ways over his papacy he has been increasingly calling the Church back to Jesus’ way of nonviolence and peace. 

Such a direction could open the possibility of a new embrace of the nonviolence of Jesus at every level of the Church. 

But it could also mean the long-term work of building a new, nonviolent order. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. had a vision of “institutionalizing and internationalizing” nonviolence.  By re-committing to nonviolence as a core value of the Gospel, the Church would not only embark on a journey of rediscovering Jesus’ way of nonviolent transformation, but it could also encourage the rest of the world to create the infrastructure responding effectively to violence and injustice.

This will draw on the global experience of nonviolent strategies, methods and movements for change, including the nonviolent options being pursued even in the midst of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine.  Nonviolent action is being improvised throughout Ukraine; some 13,000 people have been arrested in Russia nonviolently resisting this war; and people have taken to the streets globally to oppose this outrage, all of which has been documented by Professor Erica Chenoweth, who stresses how this cumulative outpouring of nonviolent resistance may play some role in creating the conditions for eventually resolution. 

By declaring “wars are always unjust” this week, Pope Francis is inviting each of us to embark on the spiritual and concrete path of building together a more practical, durable, and nonviolent peace.  Perhaps we will even come to the conclusion that war itself is the problem. Perhaps we will recognize that such a transformation requires a profound spiritual change of heart and engagement, learning from the crisis unfolding today in Ukraine.

And maybe, just maybe, a great, long-term shift in the human journey will be at hand.

Pax Christi International sent a letter to Pope Francis encouraging the pontiff on January 26, 2022, before the beginning of hostilities, to explore the possibility of his playing a mediating role. He has said repeatedly that he is willing to do this. You can see the letter here.

Ken Butigan