The Church's Role in Promoting Peace Amidst Conflict
From Cardinal Contarini to Pope Francis
I’ve been reading Elisabeth Gleason’s biography of Cardinal Gasparo Contarini, the 16th-century statesman and ecclesiastical leader best known for leading the Catholic delegation to the 1541 Diet (or Colloquy) of Regensburg, the valiant but failed attempt at reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformers. Before he was appointed a cardinal by Pope Paul III in 1535, Contarini (at the time a layman) served as an ambassador for the Republic of Venice, his native land, first representing Venice in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and later as the ambassador to the Papal States. These were crucial roles because, throughout this period, Italy was wracked by war as the Holy Roman Empire and France vied for influence on the peninsula while the small states of Italy, including not just Venice and the Papal States, but also other city-states like Milan and Florence, sided with one or the other of the two great powers in a series of shifting alliances.
As Venice’s ambassador to the Papal States (a role to which he was appointed in 1528), Contarini was tasked with convincing Pope Clement VII to rejoin an anti-imperial alliance (the “League of Cognac”) with Venice, France, Florence, Milan, and England. This was a hard sell. For one, Clement had helped organize this anti-imperial alliance in 1526, but as armed conflict commenced, the Empire held the military advantage, culminating in the sack of Rome in 1527. During the pillaging of Rome, Clement was imprisoned in Castel Sant’Angelo, and afterwards he fled the city, only returning in 1528. In this context, Clement felt constrained to seek peace with Emperor Charles. Second, after the sack of Rome, Venice occupied the papal cities of Ravenna and Cervia (claiming they were merely “protecting” the cities from Spanish conquest on the pope’s behalf). Clement refused to take on further ventures with Venice until these cities were restored to his jurisdiction.
Contarini largely failed in his diplomatic mission, and in fact Venice was forced to make its own peace with the emperor in 1530 as the anti-imperial alliance’s military fortunes continued to founder. Contarini’s dialogues with Pope Clement (of which we have extensive records through the letters sent back and forth between Contarini and the political leaders in Venice), however, are significant not for their political impact, but for what they reveal about changing views of the role of the papacy in political affairs. Contarini was convinced that a strong alliance among the Italians could keep the Empire out of Italy and create a balance of power between the Empire and France, contributing to peace in Christendom. Contarini pleaded with Clement not to think of himself as merely the temporal head of the Papal States, arguing that the latter’s fixation on control of the cities of Ravenna and Cervia jeopardized the peace of Europe. Rather, Contarini urged Clement to think of his spiritual role as the head of the Church, with a political responsibility for the whole Christian commonwealth.
As Gleason notes (and as Pope Clement pointed out at the time), Contarini certainly had mixed motives here, arguing as he did that the welfare of Christendom and the interests of the Republic of Venice were aligned. She concludes, however, that Contarini’s defense of a more “spiritual” Church and his insistence that the pope should act differently from other heads of state reflect real convictions that remained consistent throughout his life. This was confirmed a few years later when Contarini was appointed by Clement’s successor, Pope Paul III, to head a commission tasked with proposing reforms of some of the abuses in the Catholic Church. The resulting report, Consilium de Emendanda Ecclesia (“plan for reforming the Church”), proposed, among other things, that corruption and intrigue in the papal court undermined the Church’s spiritual mission. Although the report’s recommendations were not immediately implemented, it laid important groundwork for the reforms of the Council of Trent. But Contarini’s work demonstrates an awareness that the Church had become too entangled with temporal things, whether political interests or material wealth, and this was tarnishing its spiritual vocation.
Contarini was certainly not the first to call for a more “spiritual” Church not tied down by its temporal possessions and interests—for example, the 14th-century dispute over evangelical poverty involving several popes (at the time residing in Avignon) and the Franciscans, including the philosopher and theologian William of Ockham, was in part a conflict over a similar call. Likewise, it was only with the fall of the Papal States more than 300 years later, as part of the reunification of Italy, that the role of the papacy in international affairs dramatically shifted, perhaps more radically than Contarini had envisioned. As I argue in more detail in my contribution to the recent Oxford Handbook of Vatican II, since 1870, and especially since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, the Catholic Church’s role in international affairs has shifted to being an advocate for humanity, for peace, and, more recently, for the environment, without neglecting the institutional interests of the Church. Although by no means completely free of corruption or narrow interests, the Catholic Church has to a remarkable degree realized Contarini’s vision of the Church playing a more spiritual role in political affairs.
Earlier this month, America published an excellent article by Kevin Clarke on the alarming increase in armed conflict around the world and what the Catholic Church is doing in response to build peace. It is difficult to quantify how much conflict there is in the world—measures like the sheer number of conflicts occurring at any one time and casualties of war are essential, but don’t provide a complete picture of the scope of violent conflict. Clarke provides several pieces of depressing evidence that we are in the midst of a dramatic increase in armed conflict worldwide. Not only is “the number, intensity and length of conflicts worldwide . . . at its highest level since before the end of the Cold War,” according to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, but also:
The economic cost of these conflicts has risen to an unprecedented $17.5 trillion, or the equivalent of 13 percent of world GDP;
More than 114 million people have been displaced from their homes as a result of violent conflict;
Two billion people live in areas affected by violence, either directly or through the poverty, hunger, and destruction caused by war.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint a single cause for this increase in global violence. Clarke points to a few significant factors:
The emergence of a multipolar world in the aftermath of the Cold War has weakened international institutions like the United Nations Security Council, undermining the mechanisms that could alleviate conflict;
At the same time, although for decades the United States has been the primary defender of the international rules-based order, in more recent years the U.S. has flouted international law, most notoriously with the Iraq War, but also, for example, by refusing to accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. This has arguably weakened respect for the international laws of war among other nations and combatant groups;
The arms trade and the development of new weapons technologies like drones have made it easier for combatant groups to gain access to arms and have put noncombatant populations at greater risk;
Climate change has contributed to conflict by creating competition for resources and fostering migration.
How is the Catholic Church responding to this surge in violence worldwide? Clarke points to the increasing centrality of peacemaking and peacebuilding as the Church’s primary response to conflict, partly at the urging of Pope Francis, eclipsing, even if not supplanting, the traditional just war theory. Clarke notes that Francis has engaged in several diplomatic initiatives aimed at brokering peace; the most notable is probably his efforts to encourage peace negotiations in the war between Russia and Ukraine, but they also include his calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and efforts to bring the warring sides together in South Sudan, among others. Pope Francis’s diplomatic missions are part of a much longer tradition of diplomatic initiatives on the part of the Holy See, particularly since the nineteenth century, intended to foster peace.
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Clarke also emphasizes what could be called a more “grassroots” approach to peacemaking, or the work of nonprofits, church-related groups, and government agencies to address the underlying causes of conflict before, during, and after armed violence. He points in particular to the work of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the U.S.-based Catholic global development agency. After the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, CRS realized that peacebuilding work had to be integrated with work for development. Catholic and ecumenical peacebuilding efforts can be found around the world, including in the Holy Land and the Great Lakes region of Africa.
Local church leaders are also making important contributions to peacebuilding worldwide. For example, back in October of last year, I highlighted several African bishops and cardinals who have called for peace in regions stricken by conflict, promoted healing in areas already scarred by violence, and sought to strengthen democratic institutions to prevent new bouts of armed conflict. As part of my series on the individuals participating in last year’s Synod on Synodality, I also pointed to several church leaders in Latin America who have sought peace in the midst of social unrest and violence.
Although conflict in the twenty-first century is quite different than that in the sixteenth, and much larger in scale, there are certain similarities, as well. The so-called Italian Wars of the first half of the sixteenth century were particularly violent, in part due to the introduction of new technologies; they were among the first conflicts in which the use of gunpowder became common, and likewise new forms of artillery were introduced into battle, representing a significant milestone in the transition from medieval to modern warfare. They also demonstrated how weaker states can be exploited, and their populations endangered, by the political maneuverings of great powers.
Although the horrors of war have remained relatively constant, the Church’s response to conflict has dramatically changed over the centuries. Gasparo Contarini found that Pope Clement VII’s diplomacy was too tied to his role as the temporal ruler of the Papal States, overshadowing his role as the spiritual head of the Catholic Church and as a promoter of peace. Since the fall of the Papal States in 1870, and particularly since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has taken a different approach. As I wrote in the essay on the Holy See and international affairs from the Oxford Handbook of Vatican II cited earlier:
The Holy See’s diplomacy since the Second Vatican Council has been wide ranging, addressing the arms race, the promotion of human rights, peace in the Middle East, and sustainable development, among a host of other issues. What unifies these diplomatic efforts is their foundation in the Church’s identity and mission, which found renewed expression at the Second Vatican Council.
Although far from perfect, today’s Catholic Church is much closer to Contarini’s vision of a “spiritual” Church than he could realistically have imagined in his own time.