Evangelium Vitae
This an excerpt found in a cogent reflection at Minute Particulars:
from Evangelium Vitae Pope John Paul IIConsequently, no one can renounce the right to self-defence out of lack of love for life or for self. This can only be done in virtue of a heroic love which deepens and transfigures the love of self into a radical self-offering, according to the spirit of the Gospel Beatitudes (cf. Mt 5:38-40). The sublime example of this self-offering is the Lord Jesus himself.
My question to you all: What does it seem to mean.
I'll have to go to the source, but I may have found an answer to a bothersome question. Yes, I know this is not definitive, error-proof teaching, but it strikes me that it may at least contain the seeds of a solution to a difficult matter. Does this passage speak of pacifism at all? What does the reference to self-offering mean?
