This essay explores the ways in which economic policy might promote peace. It begins by considering what conditions are essential to a peaceful community. Here, I draw on the varied tradition that equates peace with human development. Such a conception is explicitly articulated in the writings collectively known as Catholic Social Thought (CST). It can also be clearly inferred from other quarters, for example, in the writings of the economist Amartya Sen (1999), the Dalai Lama (1999), and in various United Nations Human Development Program reports. Do current economic arrangements support human development and, hence, peace? What changes in economic arrangements help bring us closer to authentic development?

This paper argues that liberationist ethics can contribute method and content to religious discourse on peace and war. The christological grounding for this ethic forces us to take more seriously the will toward peace as capable of being progressively realized in the face of structural sin. Moreover, it seeks to address a Christian audience first that may then join others in prophetic denunciation of cultural attitudes that embody social sin by masking structural violence. Directives for state action may be modified through cultural actors; the state is not usually the immediate addressee. Liberationists move through the social to the political dimension, thus avoiding a tendency to absorb political functions.

Liberation theology's account of how Latin America's rich (the small upper class) exploited the poor (its majority lower class) described things perfectly in El Salvador. On behalf of the crucified majority, Ellacurfa prophetically denounced, for over twenty years, the oppression of the crucifying oligarchy of El Salvador. This paper concerns a part of that denunciation, the part of it for which I, as a North American, as a citizen of the United States, have some responsibility.

The intensification of ethnic and religious identity, accompanied by growing tendencies for creating new national states and escalations of regional conflicts, characterize the post-Cold War era. This article examines the growing impact of religion and the potential of religious activism as a tool for peacebuilding. A case study of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be accompanied by a historical-genealogical approach and analysis and deduction methods. By using those methods, I will answer the question of whether religion has a cohesive role (building of civil society) or divisive effect (accentuation of mutual differences and distancing of ‘other’) in the process of peacebuilding. The research results show that religious activism did positively contribute to peacebuilding but that the existent conciliatory potential is not adequately used for overcoming mutual differences and the creation of civil society, primarily due to the political and institutional framework in which it operates.

Nationalist narratives in Bosnia and Herzegovina generate organized hypocrisy against the culture of memory which involves different protagonists of this society. The real name of the culture of memory of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the culture of denial. This is the very structure of its culture. By examining the perpetuation of memory into organized oblivion as a particular form of structural and cultural violence, the author will establish scholarly and axiological criteria in favor of the creation of conditions to end the culture of oblivion. In contrast to the ontology of oblivion, as an instrument of the culture of denial, this article affirms Emmanuel Levinas’s principle of the responsibility for the Other, as a relationship of pure holiness, as an a priori ethical requirement. Also, to reinforce the argument in favor of a responsible culture of memory in the face of its ideological stagnation, the author also examined critical objection to culture of memory by radical left intellectuals, in whose view culture of memory inhibits emancipation of the oppressed class. Although such argumentation should not be dismissed outright, it dances around the reality of post-conflict communities like Bosnia and Herzegovina, where war victims cry for justice, and hold it as important as their very existence.

As displacement increases due to conflict and climate change, it is vital to find permanent solutions to the global refugee crisis. Currently, refugees are predominantly hosted in less-developed states, to the detriment of both the refugees and the communities providing shelter, while developed states with the financial capacity to provide permanent resettlement restrict the number of refugees accepted. Despite anti-immigrant rhetoric, many developed countries are dependent on economic immigrants to provide population influx and economic growth. Examining this dependency while exploring the social factors which facilitate successful newcomer integration, this paper proposes an immigration system which balances the ratio of refugees and economic immigrants to encourage an equitable system of resettlement. Linking refugee resettlement with economic immigration addresses the needs of refugees, ameliorates pressure on less-developed states currently hosting refugees and serves the national self-interest of developed countries.

This essay explores the prophetic—peacemaker dynamic using Oscar Romero’s theology of the Transfiguration as an interpretative key. I argue that there is a continuum between being a prophet and being a peacemaker and that one is dependent on, and informs, the other. For Romero, the mystery of the Transfiguration involves a journey undertaken by the community from Calvary to the Resurrection. The Transfiguration is a stark reminder that the Cross always leads to the Resurrection and that there can be no Resurrection without the Cross. Before being realised in the community, however, this is embodied in those individuals or communities that sound a prophetic voice, thus acting as peacemakers. In so doing, the community finally partakes of a foretaste of Christ’s Resurrection.