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Sometimes, the situation being unequivocal, it is very easy to arrive at such an impartial and sober judgment; in other cases it is apt to be more difficult. Having made sure, then, that out rights have in fact been interfered with, we must further examine before God whether the right in question is of such objective value as to justify us in risking peace in order to vindicate it. To a Christian, the mere fact that some right of his has actually been tampered with does not by itself constitute a ground for conjuring up the danger of strife. In many cases, it may be more pleasing to God that we renounce our legitimate claim; particularly, sometimes, in controversies concerning our material possessions.

On other occasions, however, it may be our duty to take up the challenge: thus, for instance, when somebody is bent on curtailing our legitimate freedom of decision. In such cases we must oppose the encroachment, and therefore cannot shape our conduct with a view to avoiding a conflict at any cost. For our freedom is not ours to give away; it has been entrusted to us by God as an essential instrument for us to do His will.

Even in the midst of conflict, we must remain eager for peace

Still, whenever we have to defend our rights, we must do so in such a fashion that we avoid getting caught in the self-enclosed automatism of conflict. Steering clear of all irritation and malice, we must always preserve that inner freedom—that spirit of detachment—which looks upon everything in the perspective of God’s will and of objective right, as though the rightful claims of an unidentified third party, and not one’s own, were concerned.

As a first step, we should try amicably to persuade the offender to desist from his course; if this attempt fails, we should ask a third party to arbitrate the conflict. Again and again we should endeavor before God to evoke in ourselves that charitable attitude, free from all admixture of personal enmity, which makes us experience discord as a grievous thing.

We ought never to think ourselves dispensed from the essential pursuit of peace—justified, that is to say, because of the unreasonableness of our adversary, in giving free rein to the autonomous dynamism of conflict and tolerating in ourselves an essentially inimical attitude toward him.

Every further step imposed on us by the aim of protecting our right should impress us with pain. We must never lose our awareness of a fundamental duty of charity in regard to the person in question.

Never, in particular, must the immanent evolution of the conflict (which, once set in motion, cannot be stifled so far as the objective order of events is concerned) come to determine our moral orientation. We must not be seduced into enjoying the wrangle or the blows we may manage to inflict on our antagonist. In other words, it is not enough that we ponder the matter before God at the beginning of the struggle, so as to decide whether we should embark upon it at all. During its entire course we must continue confronting ourselves with God again and again, lest its autonomous dialectic should become the law of our inward attitude.

Even though engaged in a conflict we could not possibly avoid, we must remain lovers of peace, who would at any time prefer a peaceful solution to a victory over the adversary obtained by means howsoever licit.

Oversensitivity to one’s rights can be a vice

Notwithstanding the fact that in certain cases we are bound to defend our rights, we must never allow our mere displeasure at being threatened in some right of ours to become a motive of our conduct. There are people who feel upset by the fact alone that their sphere of rights is trespassed upon, though the offense referred to some good about which they care but little. Such a person will, for instance, if living in a tenement house, resent his neighbor’s indulging in some noisy occupation (beating carpets, say) outside the hours legally reserved for such work, not because he is sensitive to noise but in view of the disrespect for his rights involved