Climate change and nuclear disarmament are two legacy issues for Pope Francis. Like the prophets of old, on each issue he has been characteristically outspoken in his blunt, provocative moral judgements.
Religion
Scholars and Practitioners Focused on Women and Peacebuilding Need to Take Religion More Seriously
Photographs and paintings of formal peace negotiations over the centuries bear witness to the historic male domination of diplomatic processes. The absence of women, so visually striking, is documented by various analyses as well as lived experience. Recent advocacy,...
Catholic Engagement on Mining: Leveraging Church Capacity for Integral Peace, Development, and Ecology
The word “integral” has become ubiquitous in the Catholic Church. It can be traced back to Pope Pius XII speaking of “integral peace” in his 1942 Christmas message, though it is more commonly associated with Pope Paul VI, who introduced “integral human development” in...
The Mining Industry, Conflict, and the Church’s Commitment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
In 2019, the links between the extractive industry and the escalation of conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were documented in a report to the UN Security Council. For over two decades, experts on the Great Lakes region, including diplomats,...
Extractive Industries: Ethics, Practice, and Religious Engagement
Policies toward mining are a keenly debated aspect of development strategies. Extractive industries play significant economic roles in some sixty-three countries and challenges facing many of them, especially the most fragile, loom large. Topics at issue include...
Strategies for Madrasa Engagement
Mahan Mirza One could mention several different reasons for influential actors from the West to systematically engage religious institutions and scholars in the Muslim world. The first is for the purpose of interfaith dialogue and cooperation. An example of this kind...
Understanding the Madrasa Discourses Project
Ebrahim Moosa Madrasas have been much in the news in the past six months in both Pakistan and India. While hardly any credible madrasas engage in training suicide bombers, reports indicate that both the Jaish-e Mohammad and the Lashkar-e Tayyiba, two terrorist groups...
The Ethics of Conversation: Madrasa Discourses in India and Pakistan
Joshua S. Lupo Recently, I traveled to Pakistan and India to participate in the Madrasa Discourses (MD) project summer intensives. This project aims to enhance the theological, scientific, and theological literacy of recent graduates of Muslim seminaries in south...
Understanding Indonesia’s Illiberal Turn
Caroline Hughes The banning of HTI and jailing of former Jakarta Governor Basuki Purnama for blasphemy represent an illiberal turn in Indonesia. This should be understood against the backdrop of decades of state suppression and manipulation of civil society movements....
State Ibuism in Contemporary Indonesia
Lailatul Fitriyah A pillar of the construction of the state in Indonesia is the ideology of Ibuism (“mother” in Indonesian), a form of socio-biological engineering that reflects and reinforces gendered differences in governmental policies and is, presently, justified...
Resurrection Politics and Banning the Bomb
Maryann Cusimano Love The nuclear weapons ban is the latest example of resurrection politics. Peace advocates, scientists, and churches have been trying to ban the bomb for over 70 years, with few successes. Resurrection politics takes issues thought previously “dead...
The Holy See’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Gerard Powers The Vatican has long supported nuclear arms reduction and is seeking to build on the disarmament momentum generated by the United Nations treaty banning nuclear weapons. The Holy See’s efforts, like those of other pro-ban states, might seem quixotic...
The War on Terror and Muslim Registry: Between Continuity and Change
Perin Gurel is Assistant Professor of American Studies and Concurrent Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at the University of Notre Dame. The global and local fronts of our endless “War on Terror” intersect around the suspect figure of the Muslim. What might this...
De-Ba`thification and the Rise of ISIS
Aysegul Keskin Zeren As the war against ISIS unfolds, acknowledging the conditions and events that paved the way for ISIS is crucial for rethinking strategy. As a result of a decade of instability in Iraq and more than three years of civil war in Syria, ISIS had...
The Role of Diplomacy in Countering ISIS
David Cortright The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a clear and present danger to international security that must be stopped. The question is how. President Obama said there are no military solutions to this crisis, but he has sent American soldiers back to...
The ISIS Stalemate: It’s the Long Game
Ebrahim Moosa With another U.S. aid worker beheaded by ISIS and unreported civilian deaths caused by U.S. airstrikes in ISIS controlled territories in Iraq and Syria, the conflict is taking on the features of a military stalemate. As long as ISIS is America’s problem,...
Challenging the Israeli Narrative from Within
Atalia Omer During the intense days of “Operation Protective Edge,” in an atmosphere of intimidation and growing self-protectionist groupthink within Israel, thousands of Israelis nonetheless flooded the main squares of cities protesting the occupation, the massacres...
The Pope’s Appeal to Conscience
Patrick Gaffney, C.S.C. In terms of media reporting, public debate, and partisan polemics, the recent conflict in Gaza can be characterized like its predecessors as a military confrontation and diplomatic poker game between Israel and Hamas. But on a deeper level this...
Ethical Challenges of Global Zero
Gerard F. Powers Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Catholic bishops and other religious leaders have given much greater attention to the moral imperative of nuclear disarmament. But a gap exists in the ethical analysis needed to sustain this moral imperative....
Catholic Universities and the Nuclear Threat
Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. Fifty-one years ago, Pope John XXIII issued his encyclical Pacem in Terris, which declared that “the arms race should cease” and urged that “all come to an agreement on a fitting program of disarmament.” In revitalizing the Catholic voice...