editorial" "
Scenario 1: “Once again, there have been days of blood and death” for people “on an endless downward spiral of violence and reprisals”. Pope John Paul II spoke these chilling words after praying the Angelus with the faithful gathered in Rome last Sunday, 15 June. Speaking of horrible developments in the Holy Land, he exhorted “the international community not to tire of helping Israelis and Palestinians to recover their sense of humanity and brotherhood”, in order to build their future together. He appealed to everyone, particularly everyone in the Holy Land, to absorb his oft-repeated words: “There is no peace without justice, there is no justice without forgiveness”. The Pope’s appeal was entirely human and visceral in character, expressed with feeling but calmly, with no reference to religion, other than his hope that Mary would be with us in our efforts for peace. Scenario 2: Heads of State and Government of the Member States (and of the States of enlargement) of the European Union, meeting in Thessaloniki on 19-21 June, will “hear a presentation by the President of the European Convention (President Giscard d’Estaing) and… discuss the final document containing the outcome of the Convention’s work”. The proposed constitution will govern the lives of 450 million Europeans, so it is no surprise that there was serious, lively debate about whether the preamble should mention God or Christianity. What is surprising is that neither God nor Christianity was mentioned simply “the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe” which is “always present in its heritage” and “has embedded within the life of society its perception of the central role of the human person and his inviolable and inalienable rights, and of respect for law”. Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of what should or should not have been mentioned, the result is dull and impersonal. Scenario 3: “Mercy on me. Oh, say that I’m forgiven and wrap your arms around me. To your goodness I surrender. Without mercy where is goodness? Won’t you have mercy on me?” These are lyrics from a song by British rock group Prefab Sprout. One would expect such words to be addressed to a loved one. Perhaps, but other songs on the same album ( Jordan: The Comeback, August 1990) make it clear that the writer addressed them to God. Paddy McAloon was a seminarian, but was never ordained, and the song captures him in reflective mood. Obviously, mercy is the supreme quality he values, the quintessential human experience of God. Mercy is also the quality that allows us to live in the image and likeness of our Creator. “Without mercy where is goodness?” McAloon’s answer is clearly that there is no goodness without mercy. That is a challenging insight. Enlightenment obscurity: people sick of “religious” wars confused religion with God, and decided, as Feuerbach eventually put it, that the world is not big enough for both God and us. We outgrew God, but that maturity gave us what Cardinals Murphy-O’Connor and Martini called a “fatherless society”: a fatherless continent, perhaps? Adolescent Europe spawned an ideology based on rights: fine, but unless it is balanced with a recognition of our duties to each other it is egoism writ large. The madness of it all is summed up in Elie Wiesel’s cry in the face of death in Auschwitz: “where is God?” and the sudden spark of wisdom: “he is right there”. Despite our madness, God has never left us, not even in Northern Ireland, not even in the Holy Land today. Europe ought to have the wisdom to share with those currently overwhelmed by hatred of the evils their neighbours have perpetrated in the past. Political jargon will never capture Europe’s soul as much as the impassioned cry of the venerable Pope who still dreams dreams based on a vision of the world where God and man complement each other, or the young man whose words echo his, the man who has already decoded the mystery of peace by recognising a naïve truth the key is the divine-human quality of mercy.
