Customer Reviews

The Catholic Peace Tradition

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

-Really- indepth and well researched. I found this to be very readable and found myself going through the pages with much attention.

I was amazed at how little I knew of the Catholic peace heritage and gave me a sense of joy to know that there has always been a nonviolent force out there despite discouraging history that we are often (only) told.

Musto has put together an outstanding in-depth survey to the Catholic peace tradition from the Scriptures through early Christian pacifism, the Just War, the Crusades, and international law. He even demonstrates there were peace movements during the Crusades! This book is a wonderfully researched, nuanced book that belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who wants a fair, balanced picture of war and peace in the Catholic tradition. A must for teachers.

This republication five years ago of the excellent and comprehensive text on the complete history of Catholic peacemaking originally published by the great Catholic publication house Orbis Books twenty years ago remains ever more timely and important for our consideration as our national and unrelenting rush to total war recreates our theology into its own warrior image and likeness.

This well written and comprehensive academic tome begins by defining its terms, in particular and understanding of the meaning of this active Catholic peacemaking as concept and as praxis which goes beyond the tenets of pacifism to create and extend the peace. We also explore the etymology of Peace, through the Latin PAX, the Greek Eireme and the Hebrew Salom which gives us the name of the City of Jerusalem. This section concludes with a discussion of the complementary concepts of Peace and Justice (recalling Pope Paul's famous dictum: If you wish peace work for justice) and that Eschatological Peace which awaits the actively faithful in eternity.

The New Testament Peace is then carefully examined up through Saint Paul's message and wish of Peace which precedes each of his letters. Then begins a complete history of Catholic Peacemaking, parting from Paul through the martyrs whose conscientious objection to imperial army conscription caused their violent murders for the Living Faith. Then the cruel and heretical compromise with Constantine which brought the monastic revolt in sacramental commitment to the divine commandment of Peacemaking, through the time of the barbarians to Charlemagne, touching of course on Ambrose and Augustine, through the era of the Crusades, and the Catholic protest of those same warrior crusades for a terrestrial zone rather than the heavenly Jerusalem, relevant to the misused and heated rhetoric of today. Then a full discussion of the Orders of Poverty including Saint Francis of Assisi and his orders. Then s discussion of the many Popes as Peacemakers up to the discovery of the Americas and a chapter on the missions including the great Fray Bartolome de las Casas. Saint Thomas More and Erasmus are each given special and full consideration.

This summary already grows overlong. The lessons of the Twentieth Century reaches back earlier to Leo XIII, Benedict XV in WWI, Pius XI and Pius XII in WWII, and the various aspects of several Catholic groups in Germany, in Europe and elsewhere responding to WWII. The role of the Church around Vatican II and PAcem in Terris and up through Solidarity is then examined.

Separate sections consider the Catholic History of Peacemaking in the Third World (as it was known at the original publication date) including South Africa under apartheid, the Philippines, El Salvador and peacemaking among Catholics in Northern Ireland. The Conferences of the Latin American bishops in Medellin and in Puebla, which developed the theology of Peacemaking are also fully examined. Such figures as Dom Helder Camara and the Blessed Archbishop Oscar A. Romero are presented as well.

The final discussion fully presents the Catholic History of Peacemaking in these United States of America, from the earliest times up to 20 years ago, including such great American Catholic leaders as Father Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day and the brothers Berrigan.

In brief, this is the best in-depth over-view of the Catholic History of Peacemaking and thus the best history of Catholicism you can find. This perceptive and complete study reveals to the reader the true meaning, message and mission of our Catholic and apostolic and universal Church, pilgrim on the way all together as one family unto the Kingdom of God.

Ron Musto's _The Catholic Peace Tradition_, which I first read almost ten years ago, comes across even better the second time around. Beginning with biblical understandings of peace, this history traces the development of Christian ideals of peacemaking, the peaceable kingdom, and the ethic of love and justice from the earliest days of the Church to the end of the twentieth century. Musto's book is an absolutely essential resource for anyone in the religious peace movement. Encyclopediac, eminently readable, and inspiring: it's a wonderful book.

One of the most exciting aspects of Musto's treatment is his argument that the Church was revolutionary from day one, subverting the standard pax Romana of its day--a coercive, negative peace that has clear parallels to pax Americana today--and that the early Christians were systematic in their opposition to violent and unjust political and social systems. But the opposition was always one of active nonviolence that sought conversion rather than conquest. Musto has something to say to those skeptics today who think that active nonviolence is ineffective. The peacemaking tactics of early Christians, who refused to respond to force with force, actually confused and ultimately overcame the Roman Empire. The first velvet revolution occurred well before the twentieth century.

Would that those of us who call ourselves Christians today would rediscover the radical, revolutionary character of Jesus' message! How different the world could be if we took His message of peace and love as seriously as we ought.