by Joseph Nangle, OFM
Pax Christi USA 2023 Teacher of Peace
Some years ago, a televised Memorial Day celebration at the Washington, DC mall portrayed a scene which was a disturbing dimension of that holiday. A young military man, dressed in the smart uniform of the Marine Corps, was seated in a wheelchair. The cameras focused in on him as he was being praised by speaker after speaker as a war hero. He was immobile, seemingly unaware of his surroundings, practically catatonic – a startling paradox between his pathetic condition and the rhetoric surrounding him. One could not avoid viewing that picture as a vivid example of how Pope Francis describes war – “insanity” – the fiction around Memorial Day.
No doubt that young Marine was a wonderfully brave man who believed, like so many thousands like him, that he was defending our country by fighting in one of its recent wars and willing to sacrifice everything for that cause. In that sense he was a true hero. But clearly he was a victim as well, used up by terribly misguided (mostly men) who send young people into horrific conflicts to inflict similar tragedy and death on other young people; all in the name of sovereign nationhood. These men and women who are forced into horrific conflicts are often hailed as “peacemakers.” Total madness.
Once again on this Memorial Day weekend we shall see similar pictures and hear the same high praise for our heroes – without a word about the destroyed lives many of them have suffered.
Today the world is witnessing two startling examples of this horrible reality – Israel and Ukraine. In Israel unimaginable death and destruction continue to rain down on an entire people because a few people have decided that this disproportionate reprisal is an entirely appropriate and justified response to a similar attack on their country. In Ukraine a nation is being forced to sacrifice tens of thousands of its young people to repel the aggression of another nation that is also sacrificing its young people in the process.
Both situations underscore the obvious: Violence breeds violence in an endless downward spiral. On this Memorial Day, one hopes that the growing conviction of nonviolence as ultimately the only way out of this insane cycle will be revisited. A renewed study/reflection is in order on the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative that has retrieved and deepened the theology, and especially, the spirituality of nonviolence as a Gospel imperative. It is based on the shining example of Jesus who prayed for his executioners.
The stories of people who actually live in areas where violence reigns provide the basis for seeing nonviolence as a way of life. Their tragic and frightful experiences have almost without exception convinced them that Violence used to solve disputes at every level of human life is futile and ultimately self-defeating. Beginning there, a new paradigm and a growing consensus has emerged which places violence at the center and cause of all conflict – and active nonviolence as its remedy.
This conviction proves true in every situation where conflict has brought about broken relationships and violent actions. Recognizing examples of this is often surprising. But consider global warming as violence against our common home; or the violence underlying domestic disputes; the scandal of wealth vis a vis poverty; imposition of power, racism, sexism, classism – they all arise in violence which is then compounded by more violence. It is the “hilo conductor” (conducting wire) running through every human dispute.
Of great help in taking up this reflection as a spiritual discipline for this Memorial Day weekend is the foundational explanation of the nonviolent way in the book Choosing Peace: The Catholic Church Returns to Gospel Nonviolence. Edited by Marie Dennis, senior director of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative and Pax Christi USA’s 2022 Teacher of Peace, this publication is a collection of writings of an outstanding group various of theologians, poets, pastors and, yes, prophets who have approached this new paradigm from their points of view. It is well worth a perusal.
Joe Nangle OFM is a Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace and the 2023 Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace. As a member of the Assisi Community in Washington, D.C., he is dedicated to simple living and social change. Joe also serves as the Pastoral Associate for the Latino community at Our Lady Queen of Peace, Arlington, Virginia.