Choosing Peace

By: Marie Dennis

$25.00

Overview

"Marie Dennis invites us into a discussion among seasoned practitioners of Gospel nonviolence, calling the Church to take the Gospel seriously. These accounts of nonviolent living in oppressive and violent situations may even convince you that there's hope for the world!" --Shelley Douglass, Mary's House, Birmingham, AL

"As The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moves its clock to two minutes before midnight, what could be more timely than this account of Pope Francis' effort to return Catholic teaching to Gospel Nonviolence? We can only hope the teaching will take hold quickly." --Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton

"Highly recommended for university and personal libraries and supplemental reading in courses on war and peace and Catholic social teaching." --Catholic Books Review

In recent years the Catholic Church's approach to issues of war and peace has refocused on the tradition of nonviolence and peacebuilding in place of the traditional framework of Just War teaching. Among the milestones was an historic conference hosted at the Vatican in 2016, which gathered 80 peacemakers from around the world.

Drawn from the conference and presented here are contributions by many of the participants, including Lisa Sowle Cahill, Terrence J. Rynne, John Dear, Ken Butigan, Rose Marie Berger, and Maria J. Stephan, among others. Together they advance the conversation about the practice of nonviolence in a violent world, Jesus and nonviolence, traditional Catholic teaching on nonviolence, and reflections on the future of Catholic teaching. The book concludes with Pope Francis's historic Message for World Peace Day in 2017.

Marie Dennis is co-president of Pax Christi International and author of many books, including The Diversity of Vocations (2008) and (as co-author) St. Francis and the Foolishness of God (2015) and Oscar Romero: Reflections on His Life and Writings (Orbis 2000), all from Orbis Books.