Forgiveness in the Face of
Terror
By Dwight Longenecker
I was at Downside Abbey when
I was told about the horrific events in New
York and Washington last week. The monks shared
their television, and like everyone else, we
sat spellbound as the apocalyptic images were
seared into our hearts and minds. As an expatriate
American I never considered myself particularly
patriotic, but suddenly it was my country and
my home being attacked with a demonic rage
that was terrifying in its simplicity and cunning.
As one who loves both England
and America I was deeply moved by the expressions
of support from English friends and neighbours.
It was the symbolic and ceremonial declarations
of support which meant the most. I was touched
when they sang our national anthem and sang Jerusalem at
the last night of the Proms. When the guards
at Buckingham Palace played the Star Spangled
Banner and the queen sang our national
anthem at the memorial service a vent was opened
up for my own feelings as well as the shock,
rage and frustration felt by my whole nation.
Soon after the disbelief
and horror came the fury. My first reaction was
to agree with an American solider who said, ‘We
oughta turn Afghanistan into a parking lot.’ I
wanted to see television pictures of American
and British warplanes flying into action—their
bellies heavy with bombs. Who doesn’t want
revenge after such atrocities? But it is exactly
at this point that our moral and religious
capabilities should kick in. Even a child knows
revenge only makes things worse. Revenge is
to justice what lust is to love. Revenge is
a desire for justice twisted into murderous
rage. When faced with the lust for revenge
both sides have to stop and take stock. If
they profess to be religious people, then this
is the point where their religion must condemn
them, not confirm them.
There is much talk of a jihad or
holy war, and certainly the religious element
in the conflict cannot be ignored. This is
indeed a clash of cultures, a clash of values
and ultimately a clash of religions. But the
clash of religions is not between Islam and
Christianity but between twisted Islam and
twisted Christianity. Both the Koran and the
New Testament condemn violence and encourage
forgiveness instead of revenge. The clash therefore
is between men of violence and men of peace
on both sides. On one side are ranged all the
terrorists: the Protestants and the Catholics
of Northern Ireland, the economic terrorists
who control the world by the purse-strings,
the secret services of the powerful countries,
the Muslim extremists and all others who serve
their ideology with murder, pillage and rape.
On the other side are those who try to follow
the difficult route of justice and peace. Someone
said to me, ‘At least the terrorists were courageous.’ They
were not. It is all too easy to kill yourself
in an act of vengeance and hatred. It is far
more difficult and courageous to respond with
calmness, restraint and justice. It is easy
to hit back. It is far harder to turn the other
cheek.
It is one thing to speak
of forgiveness. But real forgiveness needs to
be defined. Whether on the global scale or
the individual scale, whether here today or
at the final judgement, real forgiveness is
costly. Forgiveness is never a sentimental
release from responsibility. It is not letting
people off the hook. Forgiveness always recognises
the gravity of the crime and demands justice
on the one hand while it grants mercy on the
other. Catholic teaching on justice and forgiveness
sheds some light on the whole situation. In
the sacrament of penance we are taught the
difference between eternal forgiveness and
the temporal punishment of sin. God forgives
our eternal culpability for sin, but natural
justice still demands that the sin be punished,
reparation made and purification accomplished.
We can therefore say, ‘Forgive them Lord they
do not know what they are doing.’ But we can
also take steps to justly punish the evildoer
and eradicate the evil from the world.
It is in this sense that
we can speak of a war between good and evil.
To
do so is not to pretend that all Western Christians
are good and all Muslims are intrinsically
evil. Instead it is people of goodwill from
all religions who set out to rid the world
of this new and awesome terror. For a Christian
then, it is valid to declare war, but a valid
war is not simply the punishment of a terrible
evil, but the drive to rid the world of that
evil. The Catechism gives clear teaching about
war. Even in the most terrible situation there
remain strict limitations on our actions. The ‘mere
fact that war has regrettably broken out does
not mean that everything becomes licit between
the warring parties.’ (CCC, para 2312) ‘Every
act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction
of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants
is a crime against God and man, which merits
firm and unequivocal condemnation." (CCC,
para 2314) ‘The strict conditions for legitimate
defence by military force require rigorous
consideration. The gravity of such a decision
makes it subject to rigorous conditions of
moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
-- the damage inflicted by
the aggressor on the nation or community of
nations must be lasting, grave and certain;
-- all other means of putting
an end to it must have been shown to be impractical
or ineffective;
-- there must be serious prospects
of success;
the use of arms must not
produce evils and disorders graver than the evil
to
be eliminated. The power of modern means of
destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating
this condition. (CCC, para 2309)
I felt last week as if I were
witnessing events that would alter the course
of human history forever. In a much more immediate
way than Tielhard de Chardin was caught up
in the terrible events of the first world war.
In The Making of a Mind: Letters From a
Soldier-Priest 1914 - 1919, a letter from
de Chardin describes the horrors of the battleground
and expresses his awareness that in the midst
of it all he was caught up in the mysterious
and terrible drama of God’s eternal plan for
humanity. Despite the bitter destruction of
young lives and the seeming hopelessness of
the moment, he had a vision that through the
terror God was still bringing his sad and sinful
sons and daughters to some greater and more
glorious future.
After describing the utter
horror of the trenches de Chardin writes, ‘I
don't know what sort of monument the country
will later put up on Froideterre hill to commemorate
the great battle. There's only one that would
be appropriate: a great figure of Christ. Only
the image of the crucified can sum up, express
and relieve all the horror, and beauty, all
the hope and deep mystery in such an avalanche
of conflict and sorrows. As I looked at this
scene of bitter toil, I felt completely overcome
by the thought that I had the honour of standing
at one of the two or three spots on which,
at this very moment, the whole of life of the
universe surges and ebbs -- places of pain
but it is there that a great future (this I
believe more and more) is taking shape.’
