One of the most central tenets of Catholic Social Teaching is the priority of the common good. This principle is found most starkly in the ecclesiastical documents and encyclicals of the last fifty years, especially in Pope John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris (nos. 98-108), the Second Vatican Council’s Gaudium et Spes (nos. 26-32, 68-75), and Pope John Paul II’s Sollicitudo rei Socialis (nos. 35-40). As Jesuit Fr. Thomas Massaro of Boston College explains succinctly in his excellent book, Living Justice (2000), “To speak of the common good is to recognize that there are numerous proper goals in life beyond our own private benefits. Responsible people look for opportunities to contribute to worthy causes and to improve society in many ways, even when the benefits of this progress will go primarily to others…everyone has an obligation to promote the common good by making whatever contributions are necessary to improve the lives of others” (85).
Recalling this important theme of Catholic moral teaching, the priority of the common good over individual interests, we can take a look at one of the passages from Thomas Merton’s writing on Christian nonviolence. Here Merton presents the practice of nonviolence as necessarily arising from the context of seeking the common good.
Nonviolence is perhaps the most exacting of all forms of struggle, not only because it demands first of all that one be ready to suffer evil and even face the threat of death without violent retaliation, but because it excludes mere transient self-interest, even political, from its consideration. In a very really sense, he [or she] who practices nonviolent resistance must commit himself [or herself] not to the defense of his [or her] own interests or even those of a particular group: he [or she] must commit himself [or herself] to the defense of objective truth and right and above all of [humanity]. His [or her] aims then not simply to “prevail” or to prove that he [or she] is right and the adversary wrong, or to make the adversary give in and yield what is demanded (Faith and Violence, 14).
This was written around the same time that the concept of the common good was first being articulated in such words in the 1960s, but the insight of his writing continues to speak to us today in clearly prophetic terms as the notion of the common good becomes much more present in the Church’s formal teaching.
The Christian commitment to nonviolent action as opposed to the popular cultural push for the use of violent force is a central feature of seeking the common good. Can one claim to uphold the commitment to the Catholic moral tradition and support the use of violent force? Can any war be just? Or does war and violent force simply advance the partisan interest of a particular person or persons over against the collective interest of the common good?
Written during the height of World War II, Dorothy Day wrote in The Catholic Worker about her views on Christian nonviolence and poverty. I think that insight still speaks prophetically today. Here are a few excerpts…
The United States celebrates today the sacrifice and commitment of those women and men who have served in the armed services over the years. It is a day when we express our gratitude for their willingness to do the difficult job of defending a country, acting as mediators or peacekeepers in conflicts and aiding the citizens of this nation in times of natural disaster or civil unrest. They deserve our prayers and praise, especially because so many veterans, until recent decades, had entered military service not because of their own choosing, but simply because their draft number was picked. So many of these formerly young men (drafting 18+ men, but there were also women that served during that time) were inexorably changed by the tragedy that is war; by the suffering that is violence.
Well, within two weeks I find myself writing about Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream for the second time. I wrote previously about the social-justice agenda that is prominently featured as part of the mission and business plan of the ice-cream company (see “
I am a firm believer in the value of reading widely and considering an array of perspectives in the process of theology. While Slavoj Žižek might not be the first person to come to mind when one thinks of influential thinkers in the realm of Christian theology or spirituality, I have found the insights of the Slovenian Marxist philosopher to provide a great deal for reflection. One example comes from his most recent book 
In a recent ABC News opinion piece, the esteemed professor of ethics at Duke University, Stanley Hauerwas, addresses the subject of the popular British Christian author C. S. Lewis and his position on war. Hauerwas begins his essay, titled, “Nonviolent Narnia: Could C. S. Lewis Have Imagined a World Without War?”
Fr. Daniel Berrigan, SJ, has spent much of his life as an activist and advocate for nonviolence and social justice. Among his many writings, one can find an abundance of wisdom that provides contemporary Christians and all people of good will with resources for considering the implications of our lived experience of community. For those who bear the name of Christ, the implications are in a sense starker because to be a disciple of the Lord requires a certain approach that is spelled out well in the Gospel. At the heart of this certain approach to life stands the position of nonviolence, something about which both the Jesuit Daniel and this Franciscan Daniel agree.
Thomas Merton wrote a monograph on war and peace that he never saw published. In 2004 it was finally published, edited by the well-known Merton bibliographer Patricia Burton. I think that his words of wisdom ring true today as surely as they did when he penned them many decades ago. While these words were written to express increasing concern about how Christians are to respond to the nuclear crisis of the day, perhaps there is some wisdom to be gleaned for our own time.
