The Catholic Church and American Foreign Policy

Oct 11, 2002

The Focus of the Workshop

I. Religion and Foreign Policy

II. Discussion: Evaluating the Role of Individuals and the Catholic Church in American Foreign Policy

III. Discussion: The Church's Foreign Policy Teachings

Suggested Reading
Workshop Participants

The Focus of the Workshop

As political scientist Mark Armstrong writes:

Religious institutions play only a modest, indirect role in the development and implementation of foreign policy. But as moral teachers and the bearers of ethical traditions, religious communities can help to structure debate and illuminate relevant moral norms. They can help to develop and sustain political morality by promoting moral reasoning and by exemplifying values and behaviors that are conducive to human dignity.1

In the United States, churches, synagogues, and other religious organizations have long played their part in cultivating civil society. But while many are aware of the role of religion in shaping domestic politics, the role of religion in U.S. foreign policy is less well understood. Interestingly, the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs was one of the few institutions to provide a public space for the exploration of religious values in U.S. foreign policy, principally through its monthly magazine, Worldview.

The Council's March 2002 workshop focused on the role of Catholicism in U.S. foreign policy. By examining how the American Catholic church has evolved in the United States and what its influence has been on American foreign policy, the participants tried to throw light on the more general problem of whether and how moral norms play a role in international affairs. Conference participants were asked to explore the following questions:

  1. What role do religion and religious values play in foreign policy?

  2. How do religious institutions with an established moral tradition, such as the Catholic Church, affect foreign policy making in the United States? Does the impact occur as a result of individual efforts - for instance, when church leaders advise government officials - or is it more indirect, such as what happens when Catholics bring their moral ideals to bear on policy via the democratic process?

  3. What specific teachings and/or moral lessons does the Catholic Church offer on pressing global issues such as the use of military force, global economic justice, and human rights?

I. Religion and Foreign Policy

Understanding the role that religion plays in foreign policy is different from understanding the role of moral principles in foreign policy. Religions provide more than moral norms for behavior. They add their own particular understandings of the human person. They have their own definitions of the relationship of the person to the political community. And there may be an eschatological dimension to their sense of the purpose of human life. In addition, religions are likely to rely on a set of sacred texts and a community of believers, as well as on a diversity of ways of interpreting the sacred texts. Given these characteristics, religions can have diverse relationships to the political community, either supporting national and state policies, or playing a more prophetic and critical role.

While the United States has made the separation of religion and public policy a foundation of its political system, the characteristic religiosity of American citizens suggests that religious beliefs influence much of the political discourse in the United States.2 Catholic influence on American foreign policy has come, as one would expect, through two different channels: individuals and institutions. Catholic individuals whose religion has shaped their views of politics and society have served as foreign policy advisors, decision makers, and commentators. In addition, Catholic institutions have sometimes had a long-term effect on the broader culture. At a critical moment in the 1980s, for instance, the Catholic bishops' letter on nuclear weapons helped shape the American public debate on issues of war and peace. The bishops' statement articulated a sophisticated moral position on a highly controversial topic. Has the Catholic Church been able to make similarly clear positions on other issues of importance to U.S. foreign policy?

The Catholic Tradition in the Modern World

The Catholic intellectual tradition is rich in reflection on political issues. Drawing on resources as diverse as the Bible, Saint Augustine, medieval scholasticism, Renaissance philosophy, neo-Thomism, and liberation theology, this tradition offers an intellectual framework for evaluating foreign policy that links individual believers with the larger political community, particularly on matters of human rights, poverty, and war.

With Vatican II, a council of the entire Catholic Church convened by Pope John XXIII, the Church began to shift its aims from defending Catholic institutions to supporting the humanity of all peoples. The Council's declaration on religious freedom, "Dignitatis Humanae," profoundly altered the Catholic Church's relations with other religions as well as its approach to the defense of religious liberty. As theologian George Weigel has argued, this statement initiated a revolution in attitudes toward human rights in the Catholic Church, which came to fruition in John Paul II's effort, starting with his 1979 speech in Warsaw, to overthrow communism in Eastern Europe.3

In Latin America, Vatican II spurred various episcopal conferences to launch defenses of human rights in a region known for its religious conservativism. Beginning with the 1968 Conference of Latin American Bishops in Medellin, Columbia, high-level church officials began to support activists seeking to defend the rights of minorities and the rural poor in Latin America, adopting a "preferential option for the poor." Although the current pope has strongly criticized so-called liberation theology for supporting violent revolution and Marxist class struggle, the movement remains vital, and there is widespread consensus that the movement played a key role in promoting the ongoing shift in Latin America from authoritarian rule to democracy.4

Catholic Social Thought

On May 15, 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical "Rerum Novarum" [On the Condition of Labor].5 Written in response to the rise of socialism in Europe as a result of the unfair labor conditions of the Industrial Revolution, this encyclical is widely regarded as the most important statement of Catholic thinking on economic issues. Leo XIII drew upon scholastic philosophy, Biblical teaching, and an appreciation for the conditions of an industrial economy to argue that laborers deserved rights but that this did not entail the need to abolish private property.

On May 1, 1991, Pope John Paul II issued "Centesimus Annus" [The Hundredth Year], an encyclical in commemoration of "Rerum Novarum." Noting the importance of his predecessor's document, John Paul II stressed its continuing relevance, claiming that the same principles applied to the collapse of socialism in Europe. This had created both new opportunities for economic development and, at the same time, an ideological vacuum for Europeans and others. The pope's letter, therefore, not only reiterated Leo's encyclical but also reminded the international community that Catholic social teachings support a just distribution of wealth. The letter generated debate between those who saw it as vindicating capitalism and those who saw it as supporting a redistribution of wealth.

Economic Issues

Catholic social thought extends beyond these two papal encyclicals, although these two capture much of it. American bishops have also spoken out on economic issues, the most important occasion being in 1986, when they issued a pastoral entitled "Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy."6 This represented the bishops' attempt to address American economic policy in the same way they addressed nuclear weapons in 1983. Likewise the result of extensive consultations with scholars and policy makers, the pastoral letter referred to the moral issues raised by President Reagan's economic policies and specifically his administration's decision to revise the U.S. tax code to support economic growth via business advancement, at times to the detriment of social safety nets.

More recently, U.S. bishops have publicly expressed concern on global economic issues. In 1999, they issued a statement on debt forgiveness, "A Jubilee Call for Debt Forgiveness." Building on the biblical notion of a jubilee year in which all debts were forgiven, the bishops moved the debt forgiveness debate away from the ideal of justice and onto the ideal of charity - a move that raises important questions about how we evaluate social and political institutions.

Just War Tradition

Many see the just war tradition as an important Catholic contribution to understanding the use of military force.7 Its core principles revolve around the right to wage war, jus ad bellum, and the right to take certain types of actions within a war, jus in bello. Both aspects of just war theory spell out conditions that need to be present for war to have a moral basis, many of which have been incorporated into international legal statutes. Just war principles are not, however, the same as international law. Situations can occur where the use of force may be considered morally justifiable even if that use is illegal according to international treaty law. An example of this dilemma was the intervention in Kosovo. Though undertaken without the sanction of the UN Security Council, many deemed it morally justified.

The phrase "just war" has become part of the lexicon of American foreign and defense policy over the last twelve years, starting with the decision to use force in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. U.S. policy makers stressed that the use of force in removing Iraq from Kuwait fulfilled the criteria of jus ad bellum: the right authority sanctioned it (the UN Security Council); it was undertaken for a just cause (to reverse an illegal intervention); it was undertaken with a right intention (not for personal or solely national interests); it was a proportional response; it was the last resort, after diplomatic negotiation; and it involved a reasonable hope of success. While U.S. adherence to these criteria is open to debate, it does appear that the first Bush administration acted consciously to respect just war principles. Since the Gulf War, the United States has invoked just war principles in other uses of force, most recently in Afghanistan.

II. Discussion: Evaluating the Role of Individuals and the Catholic Church in American Foreign Policy

Participants at the workshop were asked to identify decisions, trends, and outcomes resulting from the involvement of Catholic individuals in the foreign policy process. They then considered the role of the American Catholic church itself in the nation's political system, especially as it relates to foreign policy.

Influence of Individuals

Participants agreed that Catholics played a minimal role in U.S. government prior to the twentieth century. They took participant Wilson Miscamble's point that even into the early 20th century, Catholic involvement in foreign policy was "episodic and, in fact, largely limited to attempting to protect the interests of the institutional church in other lands."8 During the early decades of the Cold War, however, Catholic involvement in U.S. foreign policy became much more noticeable, even though Catholics were not well represented in foreign policy circles. Many prominent Catholic individuals strongly supported anti-communist policies in both foreign and domestic arenas. For example, Francis Cardinal Spellman, archbishop of New York in the early Cold War period, was a confirmed supporter of U.S. policies in Vietnam; he also served as the chaplain of the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.

But if Catholics became more prominent in foreign policy circles during the last four decades of the twentieth century, participants said it would be difficult to identify a specifically "Catholic" component to their thinking. Many Catholic policy makers essentially privatized their religious commitment and it was not evident in their public involvement. Still, as Miscamble noted in his presentation, the 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of Catholic decision makers who had clearly been influenced by their religious beliefs. The members of this group tended to move along two intellectual tracks: hard-line anti-communism and human rights advocacy. Some sought to combine the two approaches, such as President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbignew Brzezinski, who supported Carter's human rights policies but also acted as a strong voice of anti-communism in the Carter cabinet. Brzezinski, a Polish Catholic, played a key role in supporting the Solidarity movement in Poland through his friendship with Pope John Paul II and other Polish contacts.9 Others - such as Reagan administration official Alexander Haig and CIA Director William Casey - focused on implementing a tough anti-communist stance. This put Haig and Casey at odds with the public advocacy of U.S. Catholic bishops on matters of arms control and U.S. policy in Central America.

Margaret Steinfels, editor of the Catholic magazine Commonweal, responded to Miscamble by highlighting the importance of two other sets of individuals on the foreign policy process: Catholic military personnel and journalists. Military officers have been an important part of the foreign policy making process, and as Steinfels reminded the workshop, this particular group has increasingly stressed the importance of just war theory. She also pointed out how the media shapes debates about foreign policy, suggesting the need for further study of the influence exerted by the explicitly Catholic media and Catholic journalists.

Maryann Cusimano Love, a professor of international relations at Catholic University and a member of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) International Policy Committee, noted that globalization increased opportunities for Catholic individuals to affect world politics. The attacks of September 11 demonstrated the extent to which global technology has empowered individuals to affect foreign affairs. Yet individuals can also be empowered in a positive way by global networks, she said. They can work with citizens abroad to bring pressure to bear upon corporations and interstate organizations as well as national governments.

Catholic individuals benefit from having a coherent and well-developed intellectual and ethical tradition, along with an extensive (education, health care, parish, and NGO) network. They are therefore well placed to respond to the challenges of globalization and to bridge global institutional gaps between what governments should do and what they are able to do. Love maintained that NGOs seek to recruit individuals with a commitment to justice and peace at the global level, a commitment often found in those with a Catholic education and upbringing.10

Love cited the evidence of individual Catholics serving as leaders of NGOs or as policy entrepreneurs who have successfully challenged U.S., IMF, and World Bank policies toward debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries (policies referred to as "dead on arrival" by the U.S. Treasury Secretary only three years ago). Likewise, Catholic individuals have pressured the U.S. government, the WTO, and the American pharmaceutical industry to change their policies regarding access to essential medicines, especially for HIV/AIDs, within developing countries.

Influence of the Catholic Church as an Institution

Catholicism, with its hierarchical structure, provides an easily identifiable institution that can hold its own in the American political context. That said, the overlapping hierarchies of the Vatican in Rome, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and the individual dioceses throughout the country make that institutional context more complicated than it might first appear. Moreover, each of the various Catholic orders who speak on global public policy has a distinct voice.

Fr. Drew Christiansen, who served as the USCCB's counselor on international affairs and has long been involved in public policy advocacy for the Catholic Church, discussed the potential of the Church to serve as an institutional foreign policy player. Christiansen emphasized that although the USCCB has a large and knowledgeable staff, the bishops collectively decide on which international affairs topics to address. He noted that the conference issues public statements and lobbies Congress on certain issues. As an example of the latter, the USCCB played a major role in the passage of the U.S. Senate's international debt relief bill.

In response, Bruce Russett, a professor in the political science department at Yale University and a participant in the drafting of the Bishop's 1983 pastoral on nuclear weapons, pointed out that Catholic bishops have failed to live up to their potential since then.11 In 1983 they were able to speak with one voice, serving as a magister, or teaching body, helping to form the conscience of the faithful and the larger community. The fact that the Bishops have not written such an influential letter since then indicates a change in the role of the conference, Russett argued. This is in large part due to an institutional shift in the American and global church hierarchy, which undermines the Church's ability to comment publicly on issues of international affairs. Jo Renee Formicola of Seton Hall University agreed, adding that as the process of letter writing has become more widespread, it has lost some of its force.

Russett went on to point out that the Bishops' letter in response to the attacks of September 11 was not written "by" the conference but "on behalf of" the conference. This semantic change reveals either a lack of consensus among the bishops or else their reluctance to go on record about a difficult and controversial subject. The irony is that the U.S. military response appears to coincide well with the principles of the "just war" tradition that the bishops had drawn upon in 1983.

Russett also highlighted the process by which the 1983 letter was drafted and promulgated. At their 1980 meeting, Auxiliary Bishop P. Francis Murphy of Baltimore requested that the conference address the issue of nuclear war. In response, the conference created an ad hoc committee headed by Archbishop Joseph Bernardin of Chicago. The committee then drafted a letter that was then subject to a long process of revision and discussion among experts in moral theology, international affairs, and public policy, including European bishops, Vatican officials, and representatives of other religious groups. The resulting letter (which took four drafts) was written in such a way that it could appeal to a broad audience. As noted in William Au's account of the bishops' deliberations:

The document must speak to both the faithful and the civil community, and see both to form the conscience of the believer and to contribute to the wider public policy debate. The bishops would therefore have to employ distinct but complementary styles of address which combine both prophetic and philosophical modes of discourse.12

The letter clearly had an impact on public discourse, with critics from both sides of the political spectrum joining the debate. Because it sought to find a space between a pacifist and just war position - both of which have long pedigrees in the Catholic Church's teachings on war and peace - the letter generated controversy and discussion both within and outside the Church. It remains one of the most influential public statements by the American Catholic Church on U.S. foreign policy, concurred workshop participants.

III. Discussion: The Church's Foreign Policy Teachings

Participants said that three areas in particular have been the subject of modern Church teachings on important themes in U.S. foreign affairs: human rights, economic justice, and the use of military force.

Human Rights

The Christian tradition is founded on the dignity of the individual person. But the idea of human rights was regarded with deep suspicion by the nineteenth century papacy. Vatican II marked a profound change in the Catholic Church in favor of human rights. But has the Church's support for human rights had an influence on U.S. foreign policy? Gerald Powers, who directs the Office of International Justice and Peace at the USCCB, suggested that the challenge has been for the Church to translate its cosmopolitan approach into policy suggestions for those concerned with the interests of particular nations. As a result, the Church has limited its focus to just a few human rights concerns. In the early 1990s, for example, the Church actively campaigned for the United States to become involved in preventing conflict through humanitarian intervention.

Powers further noted that the Church also faces the difficult challenge of not having a strong presence in many of the regions of the world where human rights violations are currently taking place. The lack of local Catholic communities makes the work of American Catholic bishops more difficult, as they do not have information about, let alone access to, those suffering human rights violations. This puts them at a disadvantage in terms of advising the U.S. government on policies to undertake. The problem has been compounded since the attacks of September 11, after which the U.S. government became focused on countries with predominately Muslim populations.

Clearly, current Catholic thinking supports human rights. But how the Church can translate that thinking into advocacy remains unclear. Especially now, as the U.S. government orients its policies toward combating terrorism, concern for human rights may lose its priority on the foreign policy agenda. If the Church cannot provide information and analysis to policy makers because of its lack of access to communities struggling to protect their human rights, the Catholic human rights revolution that helped shift Latin American polities to democracy and topple East European communism will decline in influence in the coming years, participants said.

Global Economic Justice

Charles Wilbur, who teaches economics at the University Notre Dame, pointed out that many in the United States continue to see issues of global economics in terms of charity rather than justice. This subtle distinction allows a form of moral evaluation that is less demanding of the developed world. If they are called on to forgive out of a spirit of charity rather than justice, individuals will not feel obligated to change their behaviors or pressure their government to restructure international institutions, Wilbur said. For instance, the bishops' call to debt forgiveness may have led some Catholics to believe that they are not obligated to advocate broad social and economic change.

Wilbur observed that policy makers in Washington are today less willing to listen to the bishops on matters of economic justice than they were in the past. As a result, he, along with other workshop participants, suggested that American bishops seek to reach the "pew" rather than the policy maker. Reflecting this, the USCCB is now providing resources to parishes suggesting measures that can be taken, both at an individual and a community level, to sustain the global environment.

Catholic bishops, however, have long been engaged in direct action to relieve poverty around the world. Fr. William Headly, who is responsible for policy and strategic issues at Catholic Relief Services (CRS), explained that CRS was created in 1943 in response to the devastation caused by World War II. It today provides aid to impoverished communities in the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe, and frequently lobbies the U.S. government on issues related to global economics. For instance, the coordinator for CRS in Sudan recently testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the difficulties of providing humanitarian aid in that war-torn society.13

Headly went on to argue, however, that simply testifying before Congress and lobbying the U.S. government is not enough. He called for the CRS and comparable institutions to encourage Americans to think more about the responsibilities of the United States in the global economy and argued for more education at all levels of society to frame global economic issues in terms of justice rather than charity.

Ethics and the Use of Force

The debate continues to rage over the legitimacy of military force in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11. Many have judged the American administration's initial response, its attack on Afghanistan, to fulfill all the criteria of the just war doctrine. Yet calls to expand the war to places like Iraq and the Philippines have raised questions about the role of international norms in the conduct of the war. Moreover, as policy makers adopt the language of just war, it loses its power as a limit on the use of force while increasing the danger that key components of the doctrine will be lost as policy makers seek to justify their actions on moral grounds.

A number of workshop participants openly wondered whether the just war tradition has lost momentum in its attempt to limit the use of force. George Lopez, director of policy studies at the Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame, argued that the use of just war theory by U.S. officials has undermined the presumption against the use of force on which the tradition rests. Whereas previously the evaluation of the justice of a cause was a matter of public debate, this is no longer the case. Nowadays, citizens tend to be asked to approve the use of military force on moral grounds without being given enough information to make that judgment. The most recent example is the debate over an attack on Iraq as part of the war on terrorism. The Bush administration has not produced evidence that the Iraqi government played a role in the September 11 attacks but rather has asked the American public to trust that such evidence exists. Citizens are unable to evaluate the moral worth of military force because in this instance, they have not been given the necessary facts and information.

Lopez went on to suggest that the terms used to establish jus in bello such as non-combatant immunity and proportionality have been undermined by new weapons technology. Precision-guided missiles, for example, have made U.S. policy makers more willing to use force because they believe that these weapons will not harm civilians. Thus the concept of non-combatant immunity no longer appears to limit the use of force in the same way as before.

In an e-mail exchange with Lopez following the conference, Patrick Callahan, a professor at DePaul University, suggested that Lopez may have understated the problem:

My reading is that policy makers don't even use JWT [just war tradition] as systematic checklist. Rather, they seem to address two criteria: just cause and non-combatant immunity. Just cause, or something that can be called just cause, . . . creates the presumption for force. If the battle plans do not call for directly targeting civilians, then resort to war is considered justified. Other criteria - last resort, competent authority, right intent and proportionality - generally get little if any consideration.

Other workshop participants pointed out that a tension still exists in Catholic thought on matters of war and peace. Alongside the just war tradition, there is a strong pacifist tradition in Catholic thinking, one that rejects the use of force. As workshop participant Drew Christiansen noted in a recent article, "The just war tradition is fast becoming a contested field of ideas in Catholic circles."14 Both pacifists and just warriors continue to struggle with their respective traditions in an attempt to evaluate the justness of the current war against terrorism

1 Mark Amstutz, "Faith Based NGOs and U.S. Foreign Policy," in The Influence of Faith: Religious Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy, Eliott Abrams, ed. (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001): 175-176. [Back]

2 On the role of Christianity in the thinking of Dwight Eisenhower, see Seth Jacobs, "Our System Demands the Supreme Being: The U.S. Religious Revival and the 'Diem Experiment, 1954-55," Diplomatic History (Fall 2001): 589-624. Jimmy Carter's religious faith clearly played an important role in his foreign policy orientation; see his autobiography, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (Toronto and New York, 1982). For an analysis of the role of religion in statecraft and why scholars have tended to ignore it, see Religion: The Missing Dimension of Statecraft, Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). [Back]

3 George Weigel, "Dignitatis Humanae and the Future of the Catholic Human Rights Revolution," 7 December 1995 speech delivered at the Becket Fun for Religious Liberty's conference on secularism and religious liberty in Rome, Italy. [Back]

4 See Margaret Crahan, "Religion and Societal Change: The Struggle for Human Rights in Latin America," in Religion and Human Rights: Competing Claims? Carrie Gustafson and Peter Juviler, eds. (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1999): 57-80. [Back]

5 The Vatican's Web site provides the encyclical in translation: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html; likewise for the commemorative encyclical issued by John-Paul II 100 years later: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html [Back]

6 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy (Washington: NCCB Publishers, 1986). [Back]

7 Many argue that the just war tradition is no longer uniquely Catholic in its heritage; Paul Ramsey,for instance, is a leading Protestant theologian who argues that the just war tradition "belongs to all Christians." See his bookThe Just War (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002). Notably, Michael Walzer, who has written one of the most important analyses of the just war tradition, does not draw on Catholic teaching in any significant way; see his Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1992). Another important source for this viewpoint is The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspective, Terry Nardin, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). [Back]

8 Wilson D. Miscamble has addressed this topic in the following two articles: "American Catholics and Foreign Policy: Past Limitations, Present Obligations," in America magazine (8 December 1979): 370; and "Catholics and American Foreign Policy from McKinley to McCarthy: A Historiographical Survey," in Diplomacy History (Summer 1980): 223-240. [Back]

9 Jo Renee Formicola, Pope John Paul II: Prophetic Politician (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2002): 94-95. [Back]

10 See Margaret Keck and Katherine Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Trans-National Advocacy Networks in World Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998) for an analysis of how Catholic NGO networks play a crucial role in world politics. [Back]

11 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response, and Building Peace: A Pastoral Reflection on the Response to The Challenge of Peace and A Report on The Challenge of Peace and Policy Developments, 1983-1988 (Washington DC: NCCB Publishers, 1983 and 1988, respectively). [Back]

12 William Au, The Cross, the Flag and the Bomb: American Catholics Debate War and Peace, 1960-1983 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985): 205. See also Jim Castelli, The Bishops and the Bomb (Garden City: Image, 1983); and Bruce Russett, "Ethical Dilemmas of Nuclear Deterrence," in International Security (Spring 1984): 36-54. [Back]

13 See the statement by Paul Townsend on implementing U.S. Policy in the Sudan at http://www.catholicrelief.org/where_we_work/africa/sudan/senate_testimony_sudan.pdf. [Back]

14 Drew Christiansen, "Hawks, Doves, and Pope John Paul II," America, August 12-19, 2002: 9-11. [Back]

Suggested Reading

Religion and International Affairs

  • Abrams, Eliot, ed. The Influence of Faith: Religious Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
  • Appleby, R. Scott. The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence and Reconciliation. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.
  • Jack, Homer, ed. Religion and Peace: Papers from the National Inter-Religious Conference on Peace. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1966.
  • Johnston, Douglas and Cynthia Sampson, eds. Religion: The Missing Dimension of Statecraft. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
  • Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
  • Mische, Patricia M. and Melissa Merkling, eds. Toward a Global Civilization? The Contributions of Religions. New York: Peter Lang Publishers, 2001.

Catholicism and International Affairs

  • Au, William A. The Cross, the Flag and the Bomb: American Catholics Debate War and Peace, 1960-1983. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985.
  • Weigel, George. Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Catholic Church Documents on International Affairs

  • United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Building Peace: A Pastoral Reflection on the Response to The Challenge of Peace and a Report on The Challenge of Peace and Policy Developments, 1983-1988. Washington: NCCB Publishers, 1988.
  • _____The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response. Washington: NCCB Publishers, 1983.

Religion and Human Rights

  • Witte, Jr., John, and Johan D. van der Vyver, eds. Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Legal Perspectives. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1996.
  • _____Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Religious Perspectives. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1996.

Religion and Global Economics

  • Finn, James, ed. Global Economics and Religion. New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1983.
  • Hicks, Douglas. Inequality and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  • Miller, David and Sohail Hashmi, eds. Boundaries and Justice: Diverse Ethical Perspectives. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
  • Reed, Charles, ed. Development Matters: Christian Perspectives on Globalization. London: Church House Publishing, 2001.

Religion and the Use of Military Force

  • Johnson, James Turner. Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
  • _____The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.
  • Kelsay, John. Islam and War: A Study in Comparative Ethics. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993.
  • Nardin, Terry, ed. Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
  • Ramsey, Paul. The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.


Workshop Participants

  1. R. Scott Appleby, Director, Joan B. Kroc Institute, Notre Dame University
  2. Andrea Bartoli, Director, Center on International Conflict Resolution, Columbia University
  3. Jack Becker, Department of English, Fairleigh Dickinson University
  4. Patrick Callahan, Department of Political Science, DePaul University
  5. Fr. Drew Christiansen, Woodstock Theological Center
  6. Margaret E. Crahan, Department of History, Hunter College
  7. Maryann K. Cusimano, Department of Politics, The Catholic University of America
  8. James T. Fisher, Department of History, St. Louis University
  9. Jo Renee Formicola, Department of Political Science, Seton Hall University
  10. Walt Grazer, Policy Advisor, Office of International Justice & Peace, U.S. Catholic Conference
  11. Rev. William Headley, Deputy Executive Director, Catholic Relief Services
  12. Rabbi Leon Klenicki, former Director of Interfaith Relations, Anti-Defamation League
  13. John P. Langan, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Professor of Catholic Social Thought, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University
  14. George A. Lopez, Director of Policy Studies, Joan B. Kroc Institute, University of Notre Dame
  15. Luis Lugo, Director, Religion Program, Pew Charitable Trusts
  16. Rev. Wilson D. Miscamble, Department of History, University of Notre Dame, and Carnegie Council trustee
  17. Martin Poblete, Northeast Hispanic Catholic Center, Columbia University
  18. Gerard Powers, Director, Office of International Justice and Peace, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
  19. Thomas Quigley, Office of Social Development and World Peace, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
  20. Peter Redpath, Department of Philosophy, St. John's University
  21. Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff, National Director of Interreligious Affairs, The American Jewish Committee, and Carnegie Council trustee
  22. Bruce M. Russett, Dean Acheson Professor of International Relations, Department of Political Science, Yale University
  23. Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, editor, Commonweal Magazine
  24. Robert White, President, Center for International Policy
  25. Charles K. Wilber, Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics, Notre Dame University

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