Catholic Peace Fellowship

Catholic Peace Fellowship (CPF) is a community of Christians, founded in Philadelphia in 1968,  who have joined together to bring a gospel-based perspective to peace, justice, and environmental issues.

Catholic Peace Fellowship serves as a forum where people who share these concerns can come together for prayer and discussion, education, mutual support, and collective action:

• Education programs are designed to increase awareness of contemporary issues and the rich tradition of Church teaching on Peace and Social Justice.
    

• Action programs help apply those teachings to key issues of our time.
    

We Believe That . . . 

• War, and preparation for war, are alien to the life and example of Jesus.
    

• Nonviolence is the essential message of the gospel which we are called to practice in every dimension of our lives: to be nonviolent in spirit, word, and action.
    

• The call to be peacemakers and seekers of justice is not an optional commitment, it is a requirement of our faith.
    

• Because of their embrace of the gospel, Christians should be recognizably different from others in their response to military initiatives and injustice.
    

• The gospel imperative is that our concern be universal, embracing the entire human family, indeed all of creation.
    

• All life on Earth is intimately interwoven, a single sacred reality. As part of the sacred community of life, it is our responsibility to discern and live in harmony with the natural rhythms of our planet.
    

Catholic Peace Fellowship works to apply our beliefs in concrete ways. For example:

• We actively oppose the militarism which so pervades our society. Abolition of nuclear weapons has been, and continues to be, a particular focus of our efforts.
    

• We work to increase awareness and concern for victims of war and oppression everywhere. We support the diversion of war funding to assist the most marginalized members of our society: poverty, homelessness, health care. We try to provide life-affirming perspective in the public debate and encourage political action.
    

• We actively support groups of people, such as Catolioc Workers and farmworkers, in their pursuit of economic justice.
    

• We advocate the abolition of capital punishment.
    

In our education and advocacy efforts, we:

• Sponsor meetings, with speakers and discussion
    

• Publish a bimonthly newsletter
    

• Participate in vigils and other forms of witness to increase public awareness
    

• Work to influence public policy through organized petitioning of officials on selected issues
    

• Work cooperatively with others who share our views on peace, justice and concern for the environment. We are a local chapter of Pax Christi USA.
    

• Serve as a source of support for persons who have committed themselves to lives of active, nonviolent resistance to militarism and injustice