The Institute Exterior view of the ITHF in the building of the Catholic Academy (Katholische Akademie) in Hamburg. The Institute for Theology and Peace (ithf) is the academic research arm of the Catholic Church operated by the Catholic Military Chaplaining (Katholische Militärseelsorge). The goal of the institute is to examine and discuss questions of and the specific dangers to peace. Our interdisciplinary research projects deal with current problems in politics and military practice, as wellas in adjacent disciplines (i.e. political science and international law). Our research has a Christian value-orientated foundation and its roots in the Christian peace ethics tradition. This Catholic tradition is central to the scope of activities of ithf. In the past few years, peace thinking in Islam has also become more intensely researched. Since the founding of the institute in 1978, the collection, translation and documentation of significant theological and philosophical peace literature has continually played an important part in the work of ithf. The comprehensive library is testimony to this; it is comprised of more than 190,000 titles of monographs, multivolume works, serials, essays, and journals. Of note is the development of thematically orientated articles summarising selected journals and anthologies which are also researchable in the Online-Catalogue of Theology and Peace. The ithf researchers teach at various partnered universities and, by introducing their research results to the wider academic debate, are publically contributing to the peace and security discourse.
