Dorothy Day, Pacifism, Venezuela, and Catholic Theology of Gospel Nonviolence
- London Catholic Worker
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
Sr Katrina Alton, National Chaplain to Pax Christi England and Wales, reflects on the theology of Gospel Nonviolence in the wake of the US attack on Venezuela.
Dorothy Day’s essay “We Are Un-American; We Are Catholic” is not merely an antiwar polemic but a sustained articulation of Catholic pacifism rooted in the Gospel. Written in 1948, her opposition to Universal Military Training and to war itself, arises from a theological conviction: violence, in all its forms, is incompatible with fidelity to Jesus. This conviction places her in direct continuity with what is now articulated as Catholic Gospel Nonviolence.
For Day, pacifism is not a strategy but rather an essential element of discipleship. She rejects the idea that preparation for war can ever be morally neutral or morally necessary, describing it as “sin.” Crucially, she
refuses to limit this judgment to armed conflict alone. Any system that trains people—psychologically, economically, or politically—to accept the suffering or killing of others as expedient participates in the same moral corruption. In this sense, Day anticipates contemporary Catholic critiques of structural and economic violence.
Day’s theology challenges the way Just War reasoning functions in practice. While she does not engage it systematically, she exposes how theological distinctions collapse under the lived reality of violence. War
and coercion require the cultivation of hatred, the simplification of the moral imagination, and the suppression of compassion. This insight closely parallels contemporary Catholic teaching, especially Pope Francis’s call to move beyond a reliance on Just War theory toward nonviolence as “a style of politics for peace.”
Applied to U.S. actions toward Venezuela, Day’s pacifism offers a clear moral lens. Economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and threats of arrest operate as coercive tools meant to force political outcomes through
civilian suffering. Though non-military in appearance, these measures rely on the same logic Day condemns - that harm may be inflicted if the ideological goal is sufficiently urgent. From the standpoint of Gospel nonviolence, such policies constitute forms of violence displaced into economic and legal, or ‘illegal’, structures.
Across the globe we are witnessing the rise of ‘Christian Nationalism’, an oxymoron that Day was only too familiar with in 1948. Fidelity to Christ, she argues, requires refusal, refusal to cooperate with systems that
demand violence for their stability. Just as she called for conscientious objection and withdrawal from the war economy, contemporary Gospel nonviolence challenges Catholics to resist participation in political and
economic regimes that weaponize deprivation and fear. When faced with the choice between two Herod’s, like Day we are un-American, un-British, un-Venezuelan. We are followers of the One crucified by Empire, the One
who calls us to ‘put down your sword.'
Finally, Day’s pacifism is inseparable from her Christology. She grounds her witness in Christ’s refusal of armed defence and his acceptance of vulnerability rather than domination. The Church, she insists, has no need to be defended by force, sanctions, or imperial authority. Her task is not survival but fidelity. In this sense, Dorothy Day’s vision continues to confront Catholics with a radical question: whether peace is merely an aspiration or a command that governs even our foreign policy.
The essay that Sr Katrina references can be found here.