Violence In The Medellín Document On Peace

In the “Medellín Document on Peace,” produced at the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM), violence is said to be one of the gravest problems in Latin America. Violence is violation of personhood. The use of the word personhood in the definition of violence gives the implication of totality, so violence is therefore “an act that depersonalizes.” Violence is not simply war, but extends beyond into society as institutional violence. Therefore, there are three levels of violence which comes about: society injustice where the majority of the population is powerless, the revolt of the powerless in an attempt to gain power, followed by the repression by those who have power. The violence which is used by the church in liberation comes from the idea of Just War. Making reference back to the “Medellín Document on Peace,” “violence is neither Christian nor evangelical. The Christian…is not simply a pacifist, for [she] can fight, but [she] prefers peace to war.” This Just War thinking follows six conditions which allows for the usage of violence: it must be declared by a legitimate authority, carried out with the right intention, used only as a last resort, it must be based on the principle of proportionality, there must be a reasonable chance of success, and violence used with all the moderation possible. It is this violence that is found in the liberation theology of Latin American theologians.
It is relative because in most revolutionary situations-at least those with which we are concerned-violence is already a fact constitutive of the situation. Injustice, slave-labor, hunger, exploitation are forms of violence that must be weighed against the cost of revolutionary