THE MAP is not the territory, wrote Polish scientist Alfred Korzybski, “but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.”
When I glanced through the participants list at the second Vatican consultation on nonviolence and just peace, I recalled Korzybski. The list was organized by ecclesial rank. Cardinals on top, followed by archbishops, bishops, monsignors, and reverend fathers. Next were women in religious orders, then male and female laity with titles, finally misters and Mses. My name was last.
Lacking even alphabetization, the list had no “similar structure” to the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative’s roster of hundreds of grassroots leaders, many of whom gathered to bring the fruits of their work to Vatican officials. The list is not the church, I repeated to myself.
Nevertheless, as a “genetically Catholic” woman of the laity who never dreamed of attending a meeting in Rome, I was excited to climb the marble steps in April—even if I was last, even if I was primarily a notetaker. Any such indignities, as Don McClanen, founder of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, used to tell me, are just “splinters of the true cross.”
Behind a glass wall sat the all-female translation team, headsets on, as 80 people from across the globe bumbled around the too-small space seeking seats. Vatican staff directed some to the large U-shaped table and others to an outer circle along the wall. Good humor prevailed as we stumbled through translations in French, English, and Spanish. On day two, many of us switched seats. Name cards became a nonviolent tool for poking fun at “the list.” I sat in the place of an archbishop who’d left early.
Into this miasmic culture clash, a serious conversation—based on results of CNI’s global listening process—ensued.
Tomo Vukšić, the military bishop of Bosnia-Herzegovina, addressed his country’s war and mass killings. He emphasized the need to consult moral theology for how to stop violence in war, concerned that unconditional nonviolence may not always work.
Nonviolence may not always work, others countered (though it works more often than most think), but neither does violence. At least nonviolence allows for negotiation and leaves less damage if it fails.
“These questions raised are ones we have struggled with in our classes in South Sudan,” said Mathew Pagan, vice chancellor of the Catholic University in Juba and no stranger to genocide. “But we must ask, what will we teach our children?”
Elizabeth Kanini Kimau, working among warring pastoralists in northern Kenya, described effective anti-violence practices. “Nonviolence is a powerful tool for bonding and disarming,” she said.
Aseervatham Florington addressed the armed liberation struggle in Sri Lanka. “Coming from a paramilitant background, I was transformed by the Christian teachings of peace and nonviolence. We need the proactive leadership of the church in these issues,” said Flori, now team leader of the Nonviolent Peaceforce in South Sudan.
Our cramped room warmed in the afternoon. Roman collars loosened.
The map is not the territory—but perhaps we were finding each other in the landscape.
To my impish delight, “the list” became an object lesson.
Françoise Keller, president of the Center on Nonviolent Communication in France, remarked that the list’s formulation crystalized her own need for her church to be different.
“Who made the list?” asked Pietro Ameglio, Gandhian civil rights leader from Mexico. “Social order made the list. And we must break the logic of this violent thinking and question blind allegiance to the authority at the root of this social order. If the logic of peace had made the list, then women would come first because they are the leaders in peacebuilding and nonviolent struggle.”
I have to believe that the desire to find one another does indeed lead us closer to encounter. By mid-afternoon, we broke for Roman merenda, where cardinals poured wine for translators and archbishops shared cookies with notetakers.
Rose Marie Berger, a Catholic peace activist and poet, is senior editor of Sojourners magazine. She is author ofBending the Arch: Poems.
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