Catholic Peacebuilding Network

The Catholic Peacebuilding Network (CPN), housed at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, links 24 bishops’ conferences, academic institutions, development and aid agencies, and Catholic associations in an effort to enhance the study and practice of Catholic peacebuilding in areas struggling with intractable conflict and violence. The effort is led by Gerard F. Powers, coordinator of CPN and director, Catholic Peacebuilding Studies, and Caesar A. Montevecchio, CPN’s assistant director.

A foundational pillar of CPN is its longstanding commitment to nuclear disarmament. The 2022-23 academic year showcased continuing support for its work in this area, specifically efforts associated with CPN’s Project on Revitalizing Catholic Engagement on Nuclear Disarmament. Launched in 2014, this effort seeks to revitalize and strengthen the voice of the Catholic community in the United States and beyond in the debate on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. Its goal is accomplished through initiatives that empower and enable a new generation of Catholics – Church leaders, scholars, and students – to reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.

In October 2022, CPN partnered with Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture to present “New Nukes and New Risks: The Peril of Nuclear Weapons in an Unstable World.” High profile panelists – the Honorable Rose Gottemoeller, Maryann Cusimano Love, Juan Manuel Gómez-Robledo, and Archbishop Gabriele Caccia – gauged the risks the world faces because of nuclear weapons and, in particular, what Catholic peacemaking efforts, led by Pope Francis, can do to mitigate them. The discussion was timely: Russia had invaded Ukraine, the United Nations (UN) had just reviewed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and the annual General Assembly of the UN had spotlighted the nuclear threat.

Forbidden: Receiving Pope Francis’s Condemnation of Nuclear Weapons was published in February 2023, a companion to the 2020 book, A World Free from Nuclear Weapons: The Vatican Conference on Disarmament. Edited by Drew Christiansen, SJ, and Carole Sargent, this latest book features essays from moral theologians, defense analysts, conflict transformation scholars, diplomats, and nuclear arms control experts. It explores the policy and pastoral implications of the Church's evolving teaching on the ethics of nuclear weapons, with chapters covering topics ranging from the ethical and policy challenges of deterrence and disarmament, to the moral responsibilities of politicians, military personnel, scientists, defense workers, investors, educators, and lay movements.

Several events to promote the book’s launch were held this spring at universities around the country – at Catholic University of America, Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, and at the Kroc Institute.

In addition to CPN news noted in the “Highlights” section of this year’s annual report, as well as contributions included in “Research Peace”:

• CPN and its network partners contributed to two special issues of The Journal of Social Encounters, focused on Christian bishops as peacebuilders and extractive politics, conflict, and peacebuilding. CPN serves on the editorial board of this journal, which is published by the Center for Social Justice and Ethics at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa in Nairobi. This is part of CPN’s initiative to support capacity-building for peace studies programs at Catholic universities in Africa.

• In November 2022, CPN co-sponsored a conference hosted by Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs to honor Drew Christiansen, SJ, a member of CPN’s steering committee and a founding faculty member of the Kroc Institute who died in April of that year. The conference celebrated his contributions and legacy on Catholic social teaching, environmental justice, just war tradition, and peacebuilding.

• CPN placed three young professionals in 18-24 month positions with the Holy See’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development: Melinda Davis (B.A. ’19), Harriet Fink (B.A. ’19), and Jordan Glassman. All three completed their terms in 2022. This international opportunity was a collaboration with Notre Dame’s Rome Global Gateway, the Kroc Institute, and Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities (FADICA), with generous support from the GHR Foundation and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.