This article maps the papal peace witness' support for a world free from nuclear weapons. Although the last concentration of scholarly work in this area dates back to the early and mid-1980s, now is ...a cogent time to update that scholarship by revisiting and critically assessing papal teachings and diplomatic actions that move towards banning nuclear weapons on Earth. Contemporary events motivating this article include the need to bridge the gap evident in US and global policy on nuclear weapons. Particularly relevant here is the current "everything on the table"-themed posturing, oddly mixing war and peace themes, active in the Trump administration's policy of reinvigorating the USA's nuclear arsenal in the face of challenge by the likes of Kim Jong-un's nuclear ambitions for North Korea. Yet, at the same time a significant number of the members of the community of nations, including the Holy See, have signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. To undertake the task of critically mapping papal support for a world free from nuclear weapons that made it almost a given that the Holy See would sign and ratify that treaty, the present article examines the contributions of contemporary popes from Pius XII to Francis. It focuses on how these popes named and addressed what they often characterized as the moral evils manifest in nuclear weapons, when focusing their efforts to rid the world of these human-generated existential threats.
Paul VI was the first reigning pope to travel via airplane. On one such trip, he addressed the UN General Assembly, emphatically declaring “War never again! Never again war!” During the same period, ...Paul VI also saw the Second Vatican Council through to its completion. Vatican II produced an articulation of substantive peace in one of its final documents, Gaudium et Spes. This article employs an analytical yardstick through reading Gaudium et Spes in conversation with a Peace and Conflict Studies perspective, as a means to assess Paul VI’s peacemaking efforts on the levels of insight and action. Specifically, this article addresses Paul VI’s diplomatic initiatives, ecumenical outreach, and his contributions to Catholic Social Teaching, inclusive of the establishment of the annual World Day for Peace Messages. One of those messages is the source of what is his most repeated social teaching: “if you want peace, work for justice.”
This article focuses on three works authored by Vandana Shiva and recently published by Zed Books. It employs these books as dialogical aids to map her thought in its political and ethical dimensions ...as they relate to peace, sustainability, and social justice. More specifically, after a brief introduction and a biographical discussion, this article situates her vision of Earth Democracy as a means to tie together Shiva’s inter-related reflections in the areas of agroecology, contemporary politics, and resilience. Comment is then offered concerning the tension and promises of Shiva’s treatment of these issues. The reader of this article is left with several points of entry to understand Shiva’s contributions to discourses on sustainable agriculture, nonviolent political change, and resilient sustainability.
Shiva V (2016a) Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability and Peace. London: Zed Books.
Shiva V (2016b) Soil, Not Oil: Climate Change, Peak Oil. London: Zed Books.
Shiva V (2016c) Who Really Feeds the World? London: Zed Books.
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