In a number of the world’s most intractable conflicts, the Catholic Church has played and is playing a major role in peacebuilding. In many areas, this peacebuilding work is becoming increasingly intertwined with issues around resource extraction, illicit economies, and the search for modes of integral human development that do not induce environmental violence, human rights violations, breakdowns in social cohesion, backsliding in peace processes, or disempowerment of already marginalized peoples. These new circumstances are presenting new and complex challenges for achieving sustainable peace.
Much of this peacebuilding work by the Catholic community is unheralded, under-resourced, and under-analyzed. While the Church’s peacebuilding work in some conflict situations has been well documented, Catholic peacebuilders from different countries rarely have the opportunity to compare notes on lessons learned and best practices with their counterparts in other countries and scholars. Moreover, in many cases, the Church’s peacebuilding work could be enhanced if it were based on more strategic and less ad hoc and reactive approaches. The sponsors of this project have been deeply engaged in a variety of ways with the Church’s peacebuilding efforts for many years, and the purpose of this conference is to foster this kind of networking and mutual learning with regard to the unique challenges of peacebuilding, mining, and integral human development.
This event is being hosted by Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. It is co-sponsored by the Catholic Peacebuilding Network; the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame; Cáritas Colombiana-Episcopal Conference of Colombia National Social Pastoral; the Pulte Family Charitable Foundation; the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame; the McKenna Center for Human Development and Global Business at the University of Notre Dame; the Laudato Si’ Research Institute, Campion Hall, University of Oxford; Pax Christi International; Southern African Bishops’ Conference Parliamentary Liaison Office.