‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God’ (Mt 5:9). This is what Matthew, the evangelist, report Jesus Christ stating in the Sermon on the Mount.
Although both Pope Leo XIV and President Donald J. Trump are American, the similarity ends there. Pope Leo XIV is a peacemaker, President Trump is no longer the peacemaker that he claimed to be when the Maltese Foreign Minister nominated him for the Nobel prize for peace. Now he has shifted sides and is a warmonger.
If one goes through the speeches of the Pontiff, he is incessantly preaching the virtue of peace. If one goes through the speeches of the US President, one sees a contradictory stance. On the one hand, he brokers peace between warring states, on the other hand, he defies the rule of international law by engaging in illegal activities in his war of aggression against Iran, his harsh criticism at his European allies for not joining the war bandwagon and instead staying out of Trump’s war with Iran whilst opting to respect the United Nations Charter and all the values of peace that it represents. Whilst Iran undoubtedly is a rogue state that supports terrorism against the USA and its main ally in the Middle East – Israel – there are other non-violent ways and means how to convert a terrorist-sponsoring state like Iran to one that understands that peace is the only way forward how to solve conflict among states.
Pope Leo XIV is proposing Christian active nonviolence. This philosophy of theology, about which a lot has been written, is proclaimed by Jesus Christ Himself in the Gospel. But Jesus did not only proclaim it, He lived it. Of course, there are several misrepresentations in the social media that depict the Messiah as a coward or as a violent man. For instance, when Jesus says love your enemies as thyself, turn the other cheek to be slapped on the other cheek, and give up not only your outer garment but even the inner one, Jesus is branded a coward.
On the contrary, when Jesus goes to the Jerusalem Temple and causes havoc among the money changers and vendors of sacrificial animals, Jesus is labelled a violent man. But He was neither. He was not the submissive pacifist that has blindfolded obedience to authority or a terrorist ready to take up arms to justify and propagate His cause. He is no zealot or Bin Laden. Further, in the Temple incident, Jesus did not use violence against any person or any animal. He spared animals from certain death and he overturned the tables of money changers. He did use force, but not violence. Nobody got hurt. If at all He saved the life of the sacrificial animals.
Currently I am writing the second book of my Treatise on the Principles of Maltese Public Law where I am researching legal concepts such as authority, power, coercion, force, obedience to law, and disobedience to law. One of the chapters studies violence of law, that is, when law is used by the state as an instrument of violence rather than as an instrument of peace and promotion of wellbeing or what Aristotle calls ‘happiness’. Indeed, there is no comparison between the violence that a state can mete out when compared to the violence perpetrated by a single individual. Take the crime of crimes – genocide. This is a crime perpetrated by the full machinery of a state either by its own officials or in tandem with private military armies (mercenaries), violent non-state actors, and elements of civil society, including – at times – religious organisations.
This study has mandated that I introspect not only state violence that is exercised through both lawful and unlawful means, but also responses thereto. Some of these responses are recognised by law. The right to conscientious objection is a case in point. But there are then other ways that have been used to combat violence not with violence but through peaceful means. This is the fundamental tenant of Jesus’ teaching: do not combat violence with violence as that is an interminable self-defeating venture: combat violence with love that is a more durable venture.
Take the case of Mahatma Gandhi or of Martin Luther King, Jr. Both secured their goals through nonviolent means. India defeated the British Empire without recourse to arms. The black community got its God-given rights not through the barrel of the gun but through nonviolent means. Take the case of Nelson Mandela who not only defeated apartheid from prison but when appointed the first black South African President he ensured that South Africa would bury once and for all its apartheid discriminatory policy and ensure that post-Mandela South Africa would be built not on discrimination but on equality between all South Africans, irrespective of the colour of their skin.
Pope Leo XIV in his papacy is continuously referring to futile wars and conflicts that bring only pain, suffering, and misery to humanity. In war, there is no winner for even the supposed winner is a loser. Take the illegal war of aggression that Russia is conducting in Ukraine. How many Russian causalities have there been? Whilst Trump’s war with Iran has so far led to by far a smaller number of American troops returning back home in a wooden box to the anguish of their beloved ones, there can be no war with a complete victory and no causalities. That is why the Pope – on the footsteps of Jesus – is advocating active nonviolence.
Active non-violence must be distinguished from passive non-violence. This distinction reminds me of our neutrality provision in the Constitution that is an active neutrality not a passive neutrality and can be considered to be one form of active non-violence. Although the Republic of Malta is neutral, it does not mean that it cannot attempt to broker a peace agreement with states at war or in conflict as Pakistan is doing today between the US and Iran, as the Pope has traditionally done in the past in mediating between states, and as other countries have done as mediators in other conflicts, at times successfully, at other times unsuccessfully. If at all, our government can be criticized of transforming this active element of neutrality into a passive dormant one. Malta is nowhere to be seen in the international arena in relation to the ongoing conflicts as a mediator advocating durable solutions thereto.
Active non-violence is therefore not an act of cowardice, or an act of submission. It is the opposite. But with one caveat. It is resistance without resorting to evil measures, to violence. The message of Christ when referring to turn the other cheek, give the inner garment in addition to the outer one, and walk an extra mile with the oppressor, is clear: do not fight evil with evil because you can never win. But this does not mean that you stay quiet and complacent. Quite the contrary.
When Gandhi liberated India from British colonialism he did not employ violence. If anything, it was the British who employed violence against the Indians. Remember the massacre at Amritsar of around 1,500 innocent Indian civilians shot dead by British soldiers. The same applies to the followers of Martin Luther King who ended up beaten up by the white supremacists but did not respond to violence with violence. And who won in these conflicts?
I cannot, therefore, but not thank and praise Pope Leo for his incessant and painstaking efforts to secure peace in the eventual hope that his appeals will be listened and heeded to by the people in authority. They must understand that war does not pay. They must also listen to this beacon of light and take seriously his good intentioned advice.
Kevin Aquilina is Professor of Law at the Faculty of Laws of the University of Malta
