Conference on the Future of Catholic Peacebuilding
April 13-15, 2008
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN
Purpose Statement
Since the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ 1983 peace pastoral, The Challenge of Peace, called for further work on the development of a theology of peace, peacebuilding has received much greater attention in both secular and Church circles. This conference showcased and contributed to efforts to develop a conceptually coherent, theologically accurate, spiritually enlivening and practically effective approach to Catholic peacebuilding that can begin to match the sophistication of Catholic thinking on the ethics of war and peace.
Twenty-five years after the peace pastoral, scholars and practitioners, at all levels of the Church, came together to reflect on the theological, ethical and practical dimensions of the Church's work on conflict prevention, conflict management, and post-conflict reconciliation.
The specific conference purpose were three-fold.
- First, it will served as a capstone to a series of international conferences sponsored by the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, which explored lessons learned from the Church’s peacebuilding experience at the University of Notre Dame (2004), Mindanao (the Philippines) (2005), Burundi (2006) and Colombia (2007).
- Second, the conference sought to help define an agenda for enhancing the future study and practice of this important part of the Church’s mission.
- Third, it provided an opportunity for those involved in a major research project on Catholic peacebuilding to present the final draft of their papers prior to the publication of a major book on the theology, ethics, and praxis of Catholic peacebuilding in 2009.
Finally, the broad institutional co-sponsorship and diverse range of participants ensured that this major event that will brought national and international attention to the often unheralded peacebuilding work of the Church.
Focus & Rationale
Two assumptions animate this conference:
(1) Peacebuilding matters. Seeing issues through a peacebuilding lens (as opposed, for example, to a purely human rights or development lens) makes a difference in what is done as well as outcomes.
(2) Catholic peacebuilding matters. While Catholic peacebuilding shares much in common with Mennonite, Muslim or secular peacebuilding, the Catholic community brings something distinctive to the peacebuilding enterprise and its capacity to do so could and should be strengthened by grounding it more deeply in theology and ethics.
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in faith-based peacebuilding. On the praxis side, there has been a proliferation of programs that consciously seek to nurture the kinds of peacebuilding activities in which the church has long been involved, mostly on an ad hoc basis. For example, Catholic Relief Services has developed a major peacebuilding program; Caritas Internationalis is producing a second edition of its widely-used training manual on peacebuilding; the Sant’ Egidio Community and the World Conference on Religions for Peace have held major international events on inter-religious peacebuilding, in addition to pursuing important and innovative peacebuilding initiatives around the world; there is a growing demand for training in peacebuilding for Catholic leaders at all levels; and a number of major Church and academic entities in the United States have formed the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, an effort to promote greater understanding of the dynamics of peacebuilding among scholars and practitioners.
There is a growing academic literature on religion and peacebuilding, and some find case studies of the Catholic Church’s peacebuilding role in particular conflicts. Nevertheless, there is considerable room for further reflection on the theological and ethical insights that can be drawn from and can inform the church’s concrete experience of peacebuilding around the world. A series of international conferences sponsored by the Catholic Peacebuilding Network has contributed to this inductive approach to thinking about peacebuilding, namely conferences in May 2004 at Notre Dame, July 2005 in Mindanao, July 2006 in Burundi, and June 2007 in Colombia. The literature on the spirituality, theology and ethics of peace and reconciliation is growing as well, but it is not nearly as well developed as the literature on the ethics of war and peace. Moreover, this theological and ethical literature could benefit from a deeper dialogue with those involved in the praxis of peacebuilding.
This conference will be about theology and ethics, as they are informed by and inform praxis. Using this inductive method, it will address the following general questions:
* What peacebuilding practices (e.g., new forms of governance, mediation, post conflict reconciliation, inter-religious collaboration) could inform and benefit from deeper theological and ethical reflection?
* What characteristics of Catholic theology and ethics inform the praxis of peacebuilding, and to what extent are they distinctively Catholic?
* How would the life and mission of the Catholic community be different (e.g., approaches to development, human rights, public policy, pastoral practices) if it were defined more explicitly in terms of a vocation of peacebuilding?
* What is the significance of a theology and ethics of peacebuilding for the wider search for peace? What difference does/ could it make?
* What lessons can be learned about “best practices” from the Church’s peacebuilding experience in a diverse range of conflict situations?
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