Pax Christi International is an international Catholic peace movement. The Pax Christi International website declares its mission is "to transform a world shaken by violence, terrorism, deepening inequalities, and global insecurity". [1]
Pax Christi (Latin for Peace of Christ) was established in France in March 1945 by Marthe Dortel-Claudot and Bishop Pierre-Marie Théas, after the Germans had been expelled from France but before the end of World War II in Europe. Both were French citizens interested in reconciliation between French and German citizens in the aftermath of the war. [2] Some of the first actions of Pax Christi were the organisation of kindness pilgrimages and other actions fostering reconciliation between France and Germany. Although Pax Christi initially began as a movement for French-German reconciliation, it expanded its focus and spread to other European countries in the 1950s. It grew as “a crusade of prayer for peace among all nations.” [3]
Pax Christi was recognized as “the official international Catholic peace movement” by Pope Pius XII in 1952. [4] It also has chapters in the United States. In the 1960s, it became involved in Mississippi in organizing economic boycotts of businesses that discriminated against blacks, in an effort to support protesters in the civil rights movement, who were trying to end discrimination in facilities and employment. It was active in Greenwood, Mississippi, among other places.[ citation needed ] In 1983, Pax Christi International was awarded the UNESCO Peace Education Prize. [5] The Pax Christi network membership is made up of 18 national sections and 115 Member Organizations working in over 50 countries.[ citation needed ]
Pax Christi focuses on human rights, human security, disarmament and demilitarisation, nonviolence, nuclear disarmament, extractives in Latin America, and a renewed peace process for Israel-Palestine. [6] Since 1988, the organisation gives out the Pax Christi International Peace Award to peace organisations and peace activists around the world.[ citation needed ]
Pax Christi is made up of national sections of the movement, affiliated organizations and partner organizations. Its International Secretariat is in Brussels. Pax Christi has consultative status as a non-governmental organization at the United Nations. [7]
In 2007, a co-presidency was created with a bishop and a lay woman. [8]
The Fellowship of Reconciliation is the name used by a number of religious nonviolent organizations, particularly in English-speaking countries. They are linked by affiliation to the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR).
The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) is a non-governmental organization founded in 1914 in response to the horrors of war in Europe. Today IFOR counts 71 branches, groups and affiliates in 48 countries on all continents. IFOR members promote nonviolence, human rights and reconciliation through public education efforts, training programs and campaigns. The IFOR International Secretariat in Utrecht, Netherlands facilitates communication among IFOR members, links branches to capacity building resources, provides training in gender-sensitive nonviolence through the Women Peacemakers Program, and helps coordinate international campaigns, delegations and urgent actions. IFOR has ECOSOC status at the United Nations.
The UNESCO Prize for Peace Education was awarded annually beginning 1981. The main goal of UNESCO education prize was to encourage excellent effort in the drive to reach a better quality education. The prize endowed up to US$60,000 and honored extraordinary activities for peace education in the spirit of the UNESCO constitution. The prize was phased out in 2013.
Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW), previously known as the Friends Service Council, and then as Quaker Peace and Service, is one of the central committees of Britain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends – the national organisation of Quakers in Britain. It works to promote British Quakers' testimonies of equality, justice, peace, simplicity and truth. It works alongside both small local and large international pressure groups.
John Dear is an American Catholic priest, peace activist, lecturer, and author of 35 books on peace and nonviolence. He has spoken on peace around the world, organized hundreds of demonstrations against war, injustice and nuclear weapons and been arrested 85 times in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against war, injustice, poverty, nuclear weapons and environmental destruction.
Pierre-Marie Théas was a French Roman Catholic bishop of Montauban and bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes. A significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism in France, he was recognised as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem for his efforts to protect Jews from the Nazi Holocaust.
Eileen Egan (1912–2000) was a journalist, Roman Catholic activist, and co-founder of the Catholic peace group, American PAX Association and its successor Pax Christi-USA, the American branch of International Pax Christi. Starting 1943 she remained an active member of Catholic Relief Services, and a longtime friend of Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa, whose biography she wrote, Such A Vision: Mother Teresa, the Spirit, and the Work, and marched with Martin Luther King Jr. at Selma. She first coined the term "seamless garment" to describe the unity of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on the premise that all human life is sacred and should be protected by law.
Louis Vitale, OFM, was an American Franciscan friar, peace activist, and a co-founder of Nevada Desert Experience. His religious beliefs led him to participate in civil disobedience actions at peace demonstrations and acts of religious witness over 40 years. In the name of peace, Vitale has been arrested more than 400 times. Vitale stated that Francis of Assisi, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. provided him with inspiration.
Anti-nuclear organizations may oppose uranium mining, nuclear power, and/or nuclear weapons. Anti-nuclear groups have undertaken public protests and acts of civil disobedience which have included occupations of nuclear plant sites. Some of the most influential groups in the anti-nuclear movement have had members who were elite scientists, including several Nobel Laureates and many nuclear physicists.
Hildegard Goss-Mayr is an Austrian nonviolent activist and Christian theologian.
A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world peace. Some of the methods used to achieve these goals include advocacy of pacifism, nonviolent resistance, diplomacy, boycotts, peace camps, ethical consumerism, supporting anti-war political candidates, supporting legislation to remove profits from government contracts to the military–industrial complex, banning guns, creating tools for open government and transparency, direct democracy, supporting whistleblowers who expose war crimes or conspiracies to create wars, demonstrations, and political lobbying. The political cooperative is an example of an organization which seeks to merge all peace-movement and green organizations; they may have diverse goals, but have the common ideal of peace and humane sustainability. A concern of some peace activists is the challenge of attaining peace when those against peace often use violence as their means of communication and empowerment.
The International Salon for Peace Initiatives is organized in the framework of the International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World (2001–2010) declared by the United Nations in 1998. Organized by the French Coalition for the Decade, it has been taken place in Paris every two years since 2004.
Pax Romana is an international lay Catholic movement. It combines the representation of two movements with similar interests and goals, the International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs and the International Movement of Catholic Students. These two groups operate independently, but share the common name of Pax Romana in representation at the United Nations and UNESCO.
Jean Goss was a French nonviolent activist.
Religion and peacebuilding refer to the study of religion's role in the development of peace.
The International Day against Nuclear Tests is observed on August 29. It was established on December 2, 2009, at the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly by the resolution 64/35, which was adopted unanimously.
The Guild of the Pope's Peace was a short-lived Roman Catholic organisation in Great Britain opposed to the First World War. Set up in 1916 to disseminate and promote Pope Benedict XV's utterances in favour of an immediate negotiated peace, the organisation lasted for one year and produced a series of publications also memorable for their attention to typographical detail. Beyond its propagation of an anti-war stance within the British Catholic community, it was notable as an early project of founders Francis Meynell and Stanley Morison, who would later go on to become well-known typographers.
The Pax Christi International Peace Award is given out every year since 1988 by the Christian peace organisation Pax Christi to other peace organisations and peace activists. The focus lies on grassroots activists and organisations that are active in an ongoing conflict, working against violence and injustice. It is considered one of the most important peace awards awarded by international non-governmental organizations.
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