Catholic Social Thought: Preserving Human Dignity Through Solidarity
By Valeria Balza
Over the last two years a river of blood has been spilled in the name of religion. We have witnessed the ongoing persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Buddhist Myanmar; brutal bombings in several cities including Paris, Beirut, Baghdad, Ankara, Brussels, and Lahore; an attack on a Shi'ite mosque in Pakistan; a synagogue targeted in Jerusalem; the assaults on Muslim civilians in the Central African Republic by Christian militants; ISIS’ persecution of the Yazidi; and the numerous other victims across faiths and continents that have suffered—and died—from religious violence.
Today more than ever, it seems, religion is used to incite and justify violence by people that have far more insipid political motivations. Except not really. Religiously inspired violence has taken place for millennia—condemned, forgotten and then repeated once again. The difference today, however, is the potential for global governance structures that can work to support resistance through legal, cultural, educational, and political action against these inexcusable acts of violence.
Catholic Social Thought (CST) offers vital contributions to the discussion on global governance in the face of religiously inspired violence. In seeking to preserve the life and dignity of the human person, CST emphasizes that all persons, regardless of their nationality, ethnicity, religion, economic status, or ideology, form a single human family. In substance, our solidarity with one another transcends all visible and invisible boundaries that divide our world today.
A program co-hosted by the Berkley Center and the Global Futures Initiative titled “Radicals, Religion, and Peace: Global Security in the Age of Terror” featured several academics who discussed trends for the future given the rising violence. Panelists argued that religion itself is not the cause of radicalization. Global governance structures must instead look at the social grievances of the affected area in order to determine the true drivers of religious extremism. In fact, more often than not conditions involving oppressive political governments, isolationism, discrimination, and poverty, among others, are the root causes of radicalism. In this manner, by applying the teachings of CST and working (as a global community) to ameliorate the social grievances of those who are most vulnerable, we may successfully resist the rise of religious radicalization.
In the context of the violence that currently plagues humanity, CST holds that we share a human responsibility to respond to the victims (East and West) of religious radicalism. More importantly, when local communities are unable and/or unwilling to address the needs of the most vulnerable, global governance structures have the duty to step in.
As Pope Francis stated when he visited a synagogue in Rome, “the violence of man against man is in contradiction with any religion worthy of name, and in particular with the three great monotheistic religions. Every human being, as a creature of God, is our brother regardless of his origins or religious belief.” It is our imperative duty as humans, then, to condemn and prevent religious extremists from spilling one more drop of blood.
Valeria Balza (SFS'18) is a junior in the School of Foreign Service studying international political economy and international development.