Berkley Center

Why do many U.S. residents, Catholics and Catholic leaders among them, too often fall short of adequately challenging the use of violence in U.S. policy? Even when community organizers, policymakers, members of Catholic leadership, and academics sincerely search for alternatives to violence, they too often think about nonviolence as primarily a rule or strategy. Catholic social teaching has been moving toward transcending the limits of these approaches, but it still has significant room for growth. In order to contribute to this growth and to impact U.S. policy, Eli McCarthy draws on Jesus, Gandhi, Ghaffar Khan, and Martin Luther King, Jr. to offer a virtue-based approach to nonviolent peacemaking with a corresponding set of core practices. This approach is also set in conversation with aspects of human rights discourse to increase its possible impact on U.S. policy.

Eli McCarthy, author of Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers: A Virtue Ethic for Catholic Social Teaching and US Policy (2012) discussed his book and provided insights into these questions.