Back in the sixties and seventies, the international Catholic peace movement Pax Christi always found a way to be in the news. Its activists protested nuclear weapons, joined civil rights demonstrations or denounced the Vietnam War.
However, this Catholic peace group rarely appears in the news these days. The movement is suffering an existential crisis as it seeks relevance in a changing world. Most directors are aging boomers, and despite recruiting efforts, few young people seem interested in its message.
The organization was founded in 1945 in France as a way to reconcile with Germany after the Second World War. It later embraced the pacifist cause against all war and injustices. It now claims some presence in 50 countries. However, its influence has steadily declined over the years.
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Neither Pax Nor Christi
While most chapters suffer from aging memberships, the crisis is especially acute in Germany, where its activists are finding neither pax nor Christi as they struggle to survive. The pax or peace in its name is a mirage since wars are raging in nearby Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and other places.
The movement also is missing the “Christi” component of its name. In secular Germany, there are ever fewer Christians. For the first time in decades, the number of Catholics has dipped below twenty million.
The National Catholic Reporter reports that the movement is at a standstill due to a lack of young pacifists.
Turning to Leftist Causes
In Germany, graying members are confounded at the failure of their efforts to appeal to youth. They have done everything they imagine would attract young activists but to no avail.
Indeed, these peacemakers with pacemakers have repeated the mistakes of many religious orders and congregations that changed their messages to conform to the times after Vatican II. Their mistake is believing that leftist causes, not orthodox spirituality, would bring idealistic young Catholics in droves to their movement. This effort wholly failed.
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Linking Up With the Greens
For example, to show its links with the left, Germany’s Pax Christi aligned itself with environmental advocacy groups that it thought would attract people to its peace message. Politically, some have even joined the Green Party, hoping to convince some eco-radicals to pursue peace instead of trees. The outreaches have done little to increase Pax’s numbers.
Others in the movement feel that the problem is messaging. Perhaps a reexamination of how it presents itself to the public or the running of some Facebook ads might liven up the movement’s sagging image. Even the media cannot be counted upon to provide coverage. They have moved on to more dynamic protesters.
A Changing Germany
Nothing seems to be working. One 83-year-old Berlin activist called the organization’s future “depressing.”
To make matters worse, Germany is going in the opposite direction. In light of the Ukraine War, the German government is militarizing by investing hundreds of billions of euros in new weapons systems.
With an aggressive Russia at its doorstep, many Germans see the wisdom of the adage, “If you want peace, prepare for war.” Germany is rearming accordingly.
What Attracts Youth
Like many dying religious congregations, Pax Christi is finding out the hard way that reliving the sixties will never attract today’s youth.
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The sixties were a disaster for the generations that followed. Young people were the victims of the excesses and disorders of their parents and grandparents. Today, youth crave order, structure and ritual. They are not looking for worn-out ideologies and class struggle narratives.
Pax Christi should look rightward, not left, to see what is attracting Catholic youth. In their quest for meaning, young Catholics, and especially young men, find liturgy, tradition and beauty attractive. They enthusiastically flock to the traditional Latin Mass and other devotions.
Those who want the peace of Christ or Pax Christi must look for true peace, which is found in the tranquility of order, not just the absence of war. No amount of political activism can replace Christ, the Prince of Peace.
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