The following presentation was delivered by Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace Tom Cordaro at the Pax Christi New York gathering, “Living Nonviolently in a Violent World,” held at St. Kateri Tekakwitha National Shrine, Fonda, NY, August 15, 2026.
Today I am not going to say much about nonviolence as a personal way of life or a spiritual discipline. Instead, I want to address nonviolence as a social justice community organizer. There are dozens of books about the spirituality of nonviolence and the challenge of living nonviolently. I recommend you Google “John Dear” to find a few.
For many elders in the nonviolent movement for justice and peace, the recent explosion of social justice activism is both a welcome development and at times incomprehensible. Today, I want to make sense of it all and offer some suggestions on how Pax Christi people might engage with this new burst of social justice activism.
For this presentation, I will start with the 2013 founding of Black Lives Matter, which originated with three women of color who created the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting of African American teen Trayvon Martin. I remember at the time calling my daughter to ask, “What the hell is a hashtag?”
This points to one important sign of the changing times – the rise of social media in social justice movements. In time, this anti-racist movement to end police violence against people of color became a rallying cry across progressive movements in the US. Then it exploded across the nation and the world with the videotaping of the brutal murder of George Floyd and the multi-racial protests that followed.
For activists who began their journey in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, this new communications landscape can be bewildering. Every few months, there was a new social media platform to deal with: Email, Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, Zoom, Substack, Signal, and countless other forms of internet communication.
At the same time, the rise of social media also forced many longtime activists to think more intentionally about a fundamental principle of social justice organizing that seldom gets articulated clearly: We are all in the communications business. Regardless of what issue or issues you may work on, all activists of all stripes are in the communications business.
If this is true, then the most fundamental questions that need to be at the forefront of any social justice and peace campaign are: 1) What are you trying to communicate? 2) Who is your audience? Implicit in these questions is the idea that actions undertaken by social movements should welcome critiques and evaluations of their effectiveness in communicating with their intended audience.
For people of faith, this means we cannot simply assert that we are called to be faithful, not effective. In the mouths of white, middle-class, privileged people, these words can come off as just another way for white folks to operate out of unacknowledged power and privilege without any accountability.
Social media had another profound effect on social justice movements; it changed the speed of our responses to social injustice. To put this in context, let’s look back for a moment at the way we were.
In late 1981, in response to the coming 1982 UN Special Session on Disarmament, a coalition of anti-nuclear and peace groups began organizing a massive march in New York City calling for nuclear disarmament. The march would be followed the next day by nonviolent civil disobedience at the embassies of all the nuclear powers.
Organizing began six months before the June 12 march. Preceding the march, there was a week of educational events, art shows, and nonviolence training. Organizers produced campaign booklets with all logistical information about the march and CD, as well as the agreed principles of nonviolent participation. An estimated one million people participated in the march, and over 1,500 engaged in civil disobedience.
Compare this with the rise of “No Kings” protests today. At the first protest in June, 2025, organizers estimated that more than five million people participated in more than 2,100 cities and towns. Just as impressive as this huge turnout was the speed at which the whole thing came together.
This combination of the rise of social media and the speed of social justice movements’ response times has been a blessing … with a troubling shadow side. Social media can provide a platform for creating certain kinds of community. Still, they are often ill-suited to nurturing the kind of community necessary to develop social justice movements grounded in nonviolence.
Reaching back to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, journalist Thomas Ricks notes, “Overall, the civil rights movement was better organized and its participants far more methodical and careful than tends to be recognized now.” Charles E. Cobb, Jr., a veteran of the Movement who served for years in Mississippi, summarized it as “struggle—disciplined, thoughtful, creative struggle.”
In addition to the speed of response, there was also ONE BIG difference between the resistance movement now and much of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the past: more often than not, it was the movement activists who chose the place, time, and manner of resistance offered. Because of this, time could be built into the organizing effort to create community, train people in nonviolence, build support structures to develop accompanying legislative campaigns, and, when possible, open a dialogue with the police.
Today, especially regarding the struggle for peace with justice INSIDE the United States, we are often reacting to violent assaults targeting our own communities. We are responding to the disappearing of our neighbors and the violation of our sacred spaces and social institutions. This is especially true in the growing resistance to the war on immigrants being waged by the Trump administration.
Given the level of state-sponsored indiscriminate violence, brutality, and cruelty waged against immigrant communities in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and other cities and towns, I am amazed by the self-restraint and mostly nonviolent resistance offered by so many ordinary citizens.
Participants may have never read Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr., but, by and large, they understood that choosing a path of violent confrontation would only play into the hands of ICE agents who know very well how to react to violence but have no idea what to do when confronted by protestors wearing inflatable frog costumes.
It is also encouraging to see how multi-racial the response to these invasions have been and how effective communities have been in creating an alternative narrative to Trump’s dystopian vision of a White Christian Nationalist America.
We may be disturbed by the lack of discipline and the haphazard way the resistance to state-sponsored violence has played out in recent years. Still, I suggest adopting an attitude of humility and caution against judging things we may not fully understand. Above all, we should not conflate our beliefs about nonviolence and peacemaking with dogmatic, unchangeable truths or doctrines. Even in our doubts about some of the tactics employed, there is much about the current resistance movement that we can recognize and learn from.
I want to use three potent symbols of today’s resistance that can teach us what it means to live nonviolently in a violent world: THE WHISTLE, THE CELL PHONE, and THE GUN.
THE WHISTLE
At a fundamental level, the blowing of a whistle is a call to community. Often, whistles are used to gather a community that already exists. At other times, the whistles create a sense of community among neighbors who may have only known each other casually.
Baltazar Enriquez began wearing his whistle in June 2025, as the threat of the Trump administration’s immigration raids was accelerating. In the beginning, the sight of it around Enriquez’s neck prompted questions and confusion in Little Village, one of Chicago’s proudest Latino neighborhoods.
He remembers people asking him, perplexed: “What is a whistle gonna do?”
As Enrique put it: ‘Well, the whistle is in case immigration is around, and you start blowing. The whistle is for people who are undocumented to go away, to lock their doors, lock their gates and not open the door.’ And it grew like wildfire. Now everybody’s using it.”
In Little Village alone, Enriquez said, he and his colleagues on the community council have distributed almost 10,000 whistles. In the earliest days of the Chicago resistance, ICE and Border Patrol officers responded with bewilderment when people began blowing whistles to protect their neighbors. Now, the whistles have become part of the city’s soundtrack, and the sight of them is as common as Chicago Bears football jerseys.
Blowing whistles to warn of ICE presence in the community is an act of communal self-protection. For those blowing the whistles, the alarm is not only a warning to immigrants to hide, but it is also a call to neighbors and supporters to come out on the streets and confront ICE agents. These whistles are a call to solidarity. They call the community to bear witness and, when necessary, to put their bodies between their neighbors and ICE brutality.
In addition to always carrying a whistle, immigrant rights groups trained tens of thousands of constitutional observers to monitor whether rights were being respected. Although the explicit language of nonviolence was not always used, practical skills were developed to help de-escalate confrontations and to instruct people on which behaviors/actions are legally protected, and which are not.
Groups like the ACLU provided pocket-sized cards informing immigrants of their rights and what to do when confronted by ICE agents. Immigrant rights supporters were also given cards that explained their rights to protest and what to do if stopped by police.
This call to solidarity was given another name in Minneapolis. Neighborism emphasizes the practice of treating physical proximity as a resource, focusing on building local trust, mutual support, and community care. It involves fostering connections with nearby residents to share resources, improve safety, and create a sense of belonging.
Some of the key aspects of Neighborism include practical support, manifested through small, tangible acts like sharing childcare or tools, or checking in on seniors. It includes proximity-based care, which defines neighbors expansively, focusing on anyone in the immediate area—regardless of their background. It also includes community cohesion, built on trust and a willingness to help one another; it focuses on strengthening local resilience rather than relying on national politics.
In his homily, Fr. Jim DeBruycker, pastor of St. Joan of Arc, told parishioners, “As you take your stand out there in the cold each day, as you’re out there [blowing] your whistles … you have become a great symbol of what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be a follower of Jesus.”
The success of the resistance campaign in Minneapolis was possible because of the recognition that not everyone could be on the front line and that all contributions, however small, were essential. There were no resistance superstars, no desire to build impressive resistance resumes. Their strength came from the recognition that the community came first.
In his book Latina/o Social Ethics: Moving Beyond Eurocentric Moral Thinking, Miguel De La Torre points out that, for the Latina/o Community, the starting point is always the community’s lived experience. The challenge De La Torre poses to Pax Christi’s articulation and praxis of nonviolence is,
“How can we best capture the ambiguity of a Latina/o moral agency that recognizes the need at times to dispense with personal piety for the sake of the greater good of survival—survival of not just the individual Hispanic, but more importantly, la comunidad?”
THE CELL PHONE:
The power of videos produced by ordinary citizens to shape public opinion and spur collective action first burst on the scene in 1991, when Rodney King was severely beaten by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department during his arrest after a high-speed pursuit. The video was filmed by George Holliday, a local plumber who recorded the incident from the balcony of his San Fernando Valley apartment. This was before cell phones had cameras.
When cell phones first got cameras in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it changed everything. Now, anyone could record their experiences. Now, anyone could be a journalist and legal observer. For people whose testimony is often discounted or ignored by those in power, these cell phone videos forced many white privileged people to acknowledge the experience of people who were seldom seen, heard, or believed. As Adrienne Maree Brown reminds us, “Things are not getting worse; they are getting uncovered. We must hold each other tight and continue to pull back the veil.” Cell phone videos have become one way to document the truth and unmask the lies.
This points to the importance of another form of nonviolent action in support of social justice — BEARING WITNESS. Bearing witness in the Christian faith is tied to the concepts of evangelization and discipleship. Bearing witness is also the way we honor and protect the truth.
With the advent of AI and deepfakes, it can be challenging to discern the truth, but this should not keep us from bearing witness. We have an obligation to be sure that what we share is true. We have to use our best judgment before we “click and send.” And, like so much of our efforts to speak truth to power, it can be messy; mistakes will be made, and we should be as quick to admit errors as we are to share what we think we know.
One of the most powerful Gospel examples of bearing witness is the women who stayed at the foot of the cross until Jesus died. They could have looked away from the horror, but they did not. If not for their brave witness, we may never have known what happened to Jesus the day he was crucified.
One modern historical example of the importance of bearing witness was the instructions given by General Eisenhower after the Nazi concentration camps were liberated at the end of WWII. Eisenhower instructed his military leaders to document the atrocities completely. In his most famous message on the subject, he stated: “Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses – because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.”
Meredith McKay, a campus minister and public theologian, wrote about the resistance in Minneapolis. She stated, “These leaders pointed to witness — a persistent commitment to telling the truth —as the most basic, necessary action. We must commit to the holy work of seeing, naming and refusing to look away.” She goes on to say, “While not everybody can or should witness this firsthand, at the very least Catholics ought not turn away from the witness of those who are present.”
While it is important to step away from social media at times to tend to our mental and spiritual health, that does not mean we make a habit of turning away. Even if we lose Facebook “friends” we need to keep bearing witness by sharing the images, videos, and testimony of those who are resisting the assault on the human dignity of others.
And remember, in times like these, when cruelty becomes the norm, every act of compassion looks radical. As the poet Loryn Brantz reminds us: “In a time of hate, Love is an act of resistance. In a time of fear, faith is an act of resistance. In a time of misinformation, education is an act of resistance. In a time of poor leadership, Community is an act of resistance. In a time like this, Joy is an act of resistance.”
Probably the most difficult challenge in doing this kind of resistance work is despair born from isolation. Sharing on social media is not a substitute for building the kind of community needed to survive and thrive in this environment. We need community to keep our anger from becoming meanness; to keep our sorrow from collapsing into self-pity; to keep our heart soft enough to keep breaking. And to keep us fiercely kind.
THE GUN
The third symbol I want to reflect on today is THE GUN. The gun not only represents lethal weapons — but the gun also represents all the tools of physical harm employed by the state against those who stand for justice — tear gas, flash grenades, rubber bullets, pepper spray, clubs, and ramming vehicles, to name a few. During the Trump administration, federal law enforcement has become more militarized and dangerous. Not only are they wearing masks to hide their identity, but they are often in full combat gear with unlimited lethal weapons at their disposal.
As we take a public stand against state-sponsored violence, we will need to prepare ourselves for the use of violence against us and others. And the costs of doing so can be significant. As Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso recently stated, “I fully expect the church to be persecuted, because if you look around in society right now in our country, who else really is there to speak up to these issues?”
Unlike in the past, when nonviolent activists could reasonably expect what might happen during protests, nonviolent activists today need to be ready at all times to de-escalate tensions on both sides and to physically intervene to protect the vulnerable. An example of the risks involved was a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Buffalo where 75-year-old Martin Gugino, a Catholic social activist, was shoved to the ground by police and suffered a brain injury.
All these confrontations can be dangerous and messy. Prayerful, carefully choreographed, nonviolent direct actions will not always be possible. Never forget that we can influence others through our behavior, but that is no guarantee of a nonviolent outcome. And, as always, remember that the media will always focus on the violence because, as they say in the TV news business, “if it bleeds, it leads.”
Each of us must discern whether it would be wise to take part in direct actions that may become violent. There are no right choices or wrong choices. That’s what makes it so messy.
As we work with others to embrace tactical nonviolence, we need to be open to learning new ways of describing old ways and to nonviolent alternatives that fall short of total pacifism. Miguel De La Torre points out that for the Latina/o community, the emphasis is on orthopraxy (right doing) over orthodoxy (right thinking).
He also discusses the importance of civic initiative rather than civil disobedience. Civic initiative is the legal right and moral responsibility to protect the community from human rights violations by the government or by government-protected institutions. It is grounded in an ethic of communal liberation.
As De La Torre writes, “Euro Americans enjoy the privilege of driving to a march. To get arrested for some movement earns them a badge of honor. But for disenfranchised communities, arrest is a frequent risk of living as a person of color. There is no need to go out and seek direct confrontation with the authorities just for the sake of seeking confrontation, to prove how liberal we are. Confrontation is the possible consequence of engaging in liberative ethics, but we do not seek it. Why? Because confrontation takes the focus and resources away from the disenfranchised and places them with those seeking to prove their activism.”
Echoing De La Torre’s analysis, Rev. Munther Isaac, an outspoken voice of the Palestinian liberation says that many people in his theological and activist circles “don’t use the term nonviolence, because it conveys passivity.” By contrast, these Palestinian activists embrace a theology of “creative resistance.”
Pointing to the Kairos Palestine documents of 2009 and 2025, Isaac speaks about creative resistance as “resistance in the logic of love, resistance that sees the image of God even in the oppressor, and resistance that seeks to correct the oppressor.”
It will be important to stay open to learning from voices we may have ignored in the past and to consider nonviolent alternatives short of total pacifism. At the same time, there is a growing hunger to understand the principles of nonviolence and its practical applications in the current struggle. Online resources and training sessions are becoming a regular part of campaigns.
In addition, many younger people want to hear the stories of those who came before them in the struggle. They don’t need comic book versions of these heroes of the past. They need examples of ordinary people, like themselves, who came together to make a difference. Whenever engaging in this work, we should also avoid dualistic either/or thinking. Be willing to embrace the messiness of the moment and remember that pure acts of nonviolence are rare from imperfect people.
What can Pax Christi bring to this moment?
In 2012, a YouTube video created by young adults entitled “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus” went viral. In many ways, it articulated the disappointment of young people who see the disconnect between a Church more interested in worshiping Jesus than in following Jesus. Among people of all ages, there is a hunger for a faith that does justice and is focused on embracing the Reign of God on earth as it is in heaven.
Within the Catholic Church in the US, movements like Pax Christi USA are among the few Catholic institutions that offer both a deep spiritual grounding in discipleship and a commitment to living out Catholic Social Doctrine for the sake of the Reign of God.
In 2012 (the same year as the “Why I Hate the Church” video), and before an anti-NATO demonstration in Chicago, a group of activists from Pax Christi, the Catholic Worker, and 8th Day Center for Justice gathered in Grant Park to celebrate Mass. Speaking about the reason for this “Mass in the Grass,” I stated,
“We are here in this place and at this time, to give witness to a different way to be a Roman Catholic. We are not claiming that our way is the best way to be Catholic, nor are we claiming that our way is the only way. But we who stand here this day, in this place, proclaim to the world that the foundation of our faith is found in the life and teachings of Jesus the Christ.
“We testify that we are continually being formed into his passion, death, and resurrection. And we fully embrace our mission—the only mission worthy of the Church –to live as citizens of the Reign of God …This is why we are here. This is where we stand. This is our faith.”
I believe that if we want to stay relevant in today’s world, we need to stop thinking of ourselves as an issue-based movement. We may need to let go of old monikers used to describe ourselves. We are more than a “peace and justice group.” We are more than an “anti-nuke group.” We are more than a “disarmament group.” All these things are important to us, but they do not define us. They do not speak to our identity; they only speak to our job description.
Pax Christi’s understanding and articulation of its identity have always evolved in response to the times. Today is no different. I believe that young people are not looking for answers; they are looking for places where their questions are welcomed and honestly addressed. I think they are looking for more than another issue-based organization to join.
Legal scholar and civil rights advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw first coined the term Intersectionality, an analytical framework that explains how overlapping systems of discrimination—such as race, gender, class, and sexuality—operate. It highlights that individuals cannot be understood as having just one single dimension to their identity. We are more than a collection of issues, and we cannot be sorted into issue-based boxes.
I don’t have a clear answer to the question “Who are we?” I don’t have a clever new moniker or catchphrase that captures the gestalt of this moment in our history. But there is a Jewish concept that I find helpful in thinking about this question.
Tikkun Olam is a Jewish concept that literally translates to “world repair.” In contemporary use, it serves as a guiding moral principle calling for acts of social justice and community service to make the world a better place. Today, this call to repair is not simply to rebuild what has been broken, but to work in solidarity with others to give birth to something new that is authentically grounded in truth and in the civic values that represent the best of who we are.
I also believe that the way we navigate these changes and challenges will determine whether Pax Christi USA can continue its transformational work of becoming an anti-racist, multi-generational movement. For over 20 years we have wrestled with these two questions: 1) How can we move from taking account of people of color in our work to becoming accountable to communities of color? 2) How can we follow the lead of communities of color in discerning the signs of the times?
While we have made significant progress in this effort, we still have a long way to go. I don’t think we will ever be finished with this transformational work, and that is not a bad thing. Crucial to this transformational work are two challenges that can help shape a new identity.
THE FIRST CHALLENGE IS TO SHOW UP
As the old adage reminds us, “showing up is 80 percent of the work.” Overcoming inertia, being present, and remaining consistent is more than half the battle. The challenge for many white Pax Christi folks is knowing who to show up for. Learning to listen and follow the lead of communities of color – especially communities that are poor – is to open ourselves to the messiness of collaboration without being in control.
Showing up does not mean that we will always be welcomed with open arms. There is enough earned mistrust between communities of color and white liberals to make this work difficult. But if we persist in our efforts, if we are ready to learn from our mistakes and if we can overcome mistrust, we can build something truly revolutionary.
And when you do show up, don’t be anonymous. Let folks know you are Pax Christi. Bring signage. And don’t forget to send stories and photos of your collaboration to Judy Coode, our national director of communications. Your example can inspire others to do the same.
THE SECOND CHALLENGE IS TO STAND UP
Standing up means that when we show up in support of those who suffer injustice, oppression, and cruelty, we bring all of who we are with us; our values and our flaws, our courage and our cowardice, our ideals and our ignorance. It means putting whatever power and privilege we have in service of those who are denied their full human rights and dignity.
Standing up means we show our solidarity not only when we participate together in direct actions but also when we return to our families, neighborhoods, parishes, and other social institutions. This work will not win you many accolades, but as Jesus says in Matthew 19:29,
“Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake, will receive a hundred times more and will be given eternal life.
I believe Pax Christi USA is up to this challenge; I hope you do too.