For those who do not understand the Vatican's "pacifism"
Rome (AsiaNews) - I am not the first to wonder at how the Christian religion and the Catholic Church are excluded from the category of religions and sensibilities that deserve respect, and that it is not morally allowed to attack and to defame at will, at least not without risking accusations of intolerance or worse.
These days, in which an immense tragedy is taking place in the southwestern part of the Holy Land – and it is that, irrespective of who precisely is at the origin of it, who is majorly responsible for it – furnish further proof of this.
It is enough to point to the editorial of a highly respected Italian intellectual on the front page of Corriere della Sera of 11 January, titled “The impossible pacifism” [of the Holy See]. And elsewhere the assault on the Holy See is joined also by a famous Italian reporter and commentator on Church matters. For them, as for diverse others, the Holy See is failing in its duty in not aligning itself unconditionally with the government of Israel in the conflict underway. The heartfelt appeals of the Pope, for the sake of humanity, for the bloodshed to cease, for the weapons of war to fall silent, for dialogue and the search for an understanding, peace and reconciliation to be taken up again, are to them nothing but expressions of an enduring anti-Israelism inherent in the Church. For others, of course, the Church is failing in the opposite direction, in not joining ever more forcefully – perhaps with some sanctions too - in their own unconditional condemnation of the Israeli military campaign as such, on account of the truly heart-rending suffering of the civilian population, while resolutely ignoring the context and proximate causes of its launching. For all of these critics, the Holy See should simply act as if it were just another worldly power and not avoid loud, clear-cut political judgements on who fired the first shot, who is behaving worse, who is to be punished and who should be rewarded and supported.
Now as an Israeli (and it would be the same for the citizen of any other Nation), it never displeases me to see that there are those who look at my Nation with sympathy, who wish to understand its reasons, and who are determined to comprehend even the most difficult and controversial choices of its government. And as a human being, first and foremost, it can never displease me that there are those who feel deeply for the unending sufferings of a helpless civilian population, which is even otherwise sorely tried. But as a Catholic, as a Priest, it offends me that there are those who abuse this as an occasion to attack the Church. It displeases me very much that that there are still any who obstinately refuse to recognise that the Church in general, and the Holy See in particular, do not participate, and by their nature cannot participate, in political debate, do not take sides in temporal disputes, cannot and must not do it, and that in the end it is in the interest of everybody that they do not; that there are those who decline to acknowledge that the Holy See is not simply one more voice in the often cacophonous chorus of international actors.
The Church speaks on a completely different plane. She has a completely different mission. The Church never supports one Nation against another, and never acts as arbitrator, except when invited to do so by all the parties concerned. The Church promotes solely the exigencies of humanity and gives voice to mercy, to divine and human pity, to that righteousness that love alone fulfils. If there are circumstances in which political communities, acting within the specific logic of this-worldly power-relationships, judge that they cannot avoid the recourse to force, the Church cannot be there to bless their arms. This was recognised by Benedict XV well before being confirmed by Benedict XVI.
The persistence of the Holy See in discouraging and deploring always, everywhere and in whatever circumstances, the recourse to violence, and in promoting “in season and out of season” the sole ways of peaceful dialogue, cannot be reduced to the level of the disagreements among actors on the international scene, but must be seen as the pure expression of its own mission in representation of a “Kingdom that is not of this world. To read these expressions of that which is specific to the Church as if they were simple political partisanship, or the fruit of cold diplomatic calculations, or else ostentation of some “pacifist ideology” (in opposition to other political-military doctrines), means not knowing who and what the Church is. And when those who do so are cultured persons, who should be able to know better and understand more, this kind of attitude causes much wonderment, indeed perplexity and sadness.
Let all of these critics pause for a moment and think, and let them then admit that if the Church of Christ were to abandon this her high mission, and were to lower herself to the level of just another participant in the quarrel – albeit on the side that they believe to be in the right – our world would thereby be made frighteningly and dangerously the poorer.
* The writer is an Israeli Franciscan Priest
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24/06/2016 13:47
21/02/2006
