• Subsidiary of the Catholic peace movement Pax Christi International
• Depicts America as a nation plagued by racism, militarism, and economic injustice 
• Views military action as immoral and unjustified in every circumstance
• Favors open borders; opposes efforts to curb illegal immigration
  

Founded in 1972 by Bishop Thomas Gumbleton and a small group of American (mostly lay) Catholics, Pax Christi USA is a prominent subsidiary of the Catholic peace movement Pax Christi International. Dedicated to creating "a world that reflects the Peace of Christ by exploring, articulating, and witnessing to the call of Christian nonviolence," PCUSA seeks to "transform structures of society" -- one of those being the capitalist economic system that allegedly spawns racism, militarism, economic injustice, and international strife.

Viewing military action as immoral and unjustified in every circumstance, PCUSA promotes "nuclear, conventional and domestic disarmament," and "rejects war, preparations for war, and every form of violence and domination." All international disputes, says the organization, can be reconciled "through the United Nations and other channels."

PCUSA's major Programs and Campaigns include the following:

• Called to the Common Good: This program derides America for its involvement in "a war that seems to have no end"; its alleged absence of concern for "children who live in poverty within our own borders"; its lack of a universal, taxpayer-funded health care system for all U.S. residents; its culpability for "the increasing threat of global climate change"; its "rampant greed and materialism"; and its shameless "profiteering." 
  
  
• Brothers and Sisters All: Launched in 1998, this program is "a 20-year initiative to transform Pax Christi USA into an anti-racist, multicultural Catholic peace and justice movement." The organization's commitment "to embrace this new identity and do all its work from an anti-racist perspective" is founded upon its "conviction that personal and systemic racism continues to perpetrate deep spiritual and social brokenness" in the United States. The solution to this problem, says PCUSA, is to "transform structures and cultures of violence and domination" so as to better serve "people of color" and other "oppressed and marginalized people struggling for dignity" all over America. 
  
  Beatrice Parwatikar, Vice-Chair of PCUSA's National Council, explains the rationale for this initiative: "Law in the U.S. protects white skin privilege because White male landowners created the laws to protect their rights, their culture and their wealth. In communities of color, White privilege has kept White men in power as gatekeepers—they control the banks for loans and home mortgages, insurance for cars and homes ... The PCUSA analysis of racism (Racism = Prejudice + Institutional Power) can [also] be applied when we look at countries in the Global South—especially in looking at institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, as well as the lasting effects of colonization on the Global South. … We must not forget the arrogance of how U.S. government officials deal with governments in the Global South—we have observed that same arrogance when we advocate for [people of color] and the poor in the United States."
  
  
• People's Peace Initiative: This project  condemns "the suffering and death happening at the U.S.-Mexico border" when would-be illegal border-crossers occasionally succumb to the desert heat. In PCUSA's calculus, the unlawful migrations of impoverished Central Americans are no less morally justifiable than the relocations of "Appalachian … mountain people forced to leave their homes in search of work." PCUSA endorses the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride Coalition, which seeks to secure amnesty for illegal aliens, and policy reforms that diminish or eliminate future restrictions on immigration. 
  
  The People's Peace Initiative also laments the "widening gap between rich and poor" in the United States, which it characterizes as "a superpower in a world of globalization"; "a nation of wealth and poverty, [of] extravagant consumerism amid struggles for basic survival"; a land whose "national culture [is] too often characterized by fear, individualism, and domination"; and the perpetrator of widespread "economic violence" against African Americans.
  
  PCUSA demonstrated its pro-socialist leanings when it endorsed the Earth Charter, a document that blames capitalism for many of the world's environmental, social, and economic woes. The Charter maintains that "the dominant patterns of production and consumption are causing environmental devastation, the depletion of resources, and a massive extinction of species. The benefits of development are not shared equitably and the gap between rich and poor is widening."
  
  
• Global Restoration: Reasoning from the premise that human industrial activity is largely responsible for environmental problems, PCUSA impugns America's "reliance on non-renewable energy sources that contribute to the degradation of the air, water and land."
  
  
• Conscientious Objection: "For two thousand years, some people who identify themselves as Christians have refused to participate in war and the taking of other human lives. They have given themselves to the service of life, not the work of death. … They are ... motivated by conscience, which forbid their participation in war."

(d) Alternatives for Simple Living: This project is a critique of capitalism generally, and of American consumerism particularly.

(e) Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance: This initiative sponsors "Stop the Bombs," a series of protests aimed mainly at the Nuclear Weapons Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

PCUSA's public critisms are not aimed solely against the United States. In 2004, for instance, local chapters of the organization signed -- along with more than 200 other leftwing groups -- a letter exhorting members of the U.S. Senate to oppose Israel's construction of an anti-terrorism security barrier in the West Bank -- characterizing the barrier as an illegal "apartheid wall" that violated the civil and human rights of Palestinians. 

Pax Christi USA receives financial support from the Ford Foundation and the Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities.