World Catholicism Week 2019



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Put Away Your Sword: Gospel Nonviolence in a Violent World​​

In 2017, on the 50th anniversary of the Vatican's first World Day of Peace message, Pope Francis issued the groundbreaking statement, "Nonviolence: A Style of Politics for Peace." It was perhaps the Vatican's first official statement on active nonviolence, and it raises a number of important questions for the world Church: Is God nonviolent, and does God want us to renounce violence as well? In a violent world, does nonviolence work?
This conference brought together speakers from around the world—Kenya, India, Brazil, Italy, Croatia, the U.S., and the Philippines—to explore these questions through five different lenses, each a different roundtable discussion:
o theologies of nonviolence
o martyrdom and the cross
o practices of nonviolent peacebuilding and the "responsibility to protect"
o gender and nonviolence
o grassroots church formation of people in the practice of nonviolence

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  • Conference Sessions