CSDC 496

Violence is never a proper response. With the conviction of her faith in Christ and with the awareness of her mission, the Church proclaims “that violence is evil, that violence is unacceptable as a solution to problems, that violence is unworthy of man. Violence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity. Violence destroys what it claims to defend: the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings”.¹⁰²⁹ John Paul II, Address at Drogheda, Ireland (29 September 1979), 9: AAS 71AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 71 (1979) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1979), 1081; cf. Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, 37: AAS 68AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 68 (1976) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1976), 29. The contemporary world too needs the witness of unarmed prophets, who are often the objects of ridicule.¹⁰³⁰ Cf. John Paul II, Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (12 November 1983), 5: AAS 76AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 76 (1984) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1984), 398-399. “Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defence available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risk of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death”.¹⁰³¹ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2306.