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1) The Independent: Excerpt from Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor's lecture
"The doctrine of pre-emptive strikes will only invite aggression"
2) (For reference) Full text of this lecture: "Christians Confronted by
Violence"
--------------------
http://argument.independent.co.uk/podium/story.jsp?story=406303
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor: The doctrine of pre-emptive strikes will
only invite aggression
>From a lecture by the Archbishop of Westminster at St Ethelburga's Centre
for Reconciliation and Peace, in London
15 May 2003
How ironic that the first "great" war of the 21st century should occur in
the birthplace of our civilisation - Iraq. We must pray that the first great
peace of our century is peace in the birthplace of our Christian faith - the
Holy Land.
The history of Western and Eastern Europe in the last 60 years is a salutary
reminder of the inadequacy of many of our traditional responses to
belligerence and expansionism. And the events of recent months also suggest
that we have a long way to go in our search for peaceful, but persuasive,
means to resolve conflict. The grave risk we face today is more than the
threat of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It
is also the increasing sense of insecurity and the temptation to shoot first
and ask questions later. The doctrine of pre-emptive strikes risks
proliferating beyond the boundaries intended for it by its promoters. It is
hard to see how this can be in anyone's interests.
Today more than ever - with the availability of dangerous weapons and the
means to purchase and transport them - we must guard against succumbing to
any kind of reasoning that appears to favour violence and aggression over
peaceful persuasion and negotiation.
If we - and I refer particularly to the developed, democratic and largely
Western countries - are not very careful, and self-critical, our belief in
our own rectitude could so easily become, or appear to become, arrogance -
the failure to recognise another point of view, or an alternative approach.
We have an unfortunate tendency to regard ourselves as morally superior to
our brothers and sisters in poorer parts of the world.
We confuse prosperity and power with moral force and right thinking. In
fact, economic prosperity, diplomatic clout and military strength do not
always aid the active listening that is key to negotiation or the
willingness to seek compromise and understanding. I do not believe this is a
good place to start building a more peaceful world. It begins with a
recognition of shared vulnerability, weakness and failure.
---------------------
http://www.stethelburgas.org/Cardinal%20Lecture.htm
Christians Confronted by Violence
A Lecture given by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of
Westminster at St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace,
Wednesday 14 May
I would like to begin this evening by sharing with you a reflection given by
one of the monks of the Cistercian Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Atlas in
Algeria who was killed, together with six of his confreres in May 1996 - in
fact their anniversary is next week. Two years before their assassination by
Islamic fundamentalists, Fr Christian de Chergé, their Superior, wrote an
A-Dieu which he asked his brother to keep in case his life was taken. It
captures much of what we come together this evening to reflect upon. I
should like if I may to quote extracts.
When an "A-Dieu" takes on a face.
If it should happen one day-and it could be today-
that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to engulf
all the foreigners living in Algeria,
I would like my community, my Church, my family,
to remember that my life was given to God and to this country.
I ask them to accept that the Sole Master of all life
was not a stranger to this brutal departure.
I ask them to pray for me -
for how could I be found worthy of such an offering?
I ask them to be able to link this death with the many other deaths which
were just as violent, but forgotten through indifference and anonymity.
My life has no more value than any other.
Nor any less value.
In any case it has not the innocence of childhood.
I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil
which seems, alas, to prevail in the world,
even in that which would strike me blindly.
I should like, when the time comes, to have the moment of lucidity
which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God
and of my fellow human beings,
and at the same time to forgive with all my heart the one who would strike
me down.
I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today,
and you, my friends of this place,
along with my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families,
the hundredfold granted as was promised!
And also you, the friend of my final moment, who would not be aware of what
you were doing.
Yes, I also say this Thank You and this A-Dieu to you, in whom I see the
face of God.
And may we find each other, happy good thieves, in Paradise, if it pleases
God, the Father of us both. Amen. (In sha 'Allah).
(Algiers, December 1, 1993-Tibhirine, January 1, 1994)
Here are the elements of a deeply reflective Christian response to conflict
and violence - a response which recognises the need for forgiveness, for
healing and for reconciliation. In such a witness we see the profound
identification of the Christian with the one who achieves this for us -
Jesus Christ. He is our gift of forgiveness, our gift of healing and our
gift of reconciliation. In Him are fulfilled the two-fold commandments: love
of God and love of neighbour, and in this is the overcoming of violence.
"You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and
with all your mind, and you must love your neighbour as yourself".
However, in order to understand his reconciliation, forgiveness and healing,
we need to understand something of the power of violence, and the power of
failure in our human lives. Christ comes, in all of his gifts, to heal, to
forgive and to reconcile and he helps us to become healers, reconcilers, and
people of forgiveness. But in order to appreciate and understand his gift,
we need - if you like - to look violence in the face, to see it for what it
is; what is its root and what is its foundation?
In this talk this evening I would like, if possible, to begin to do that.
Firstly, I wish to look at some of our Catholic tradition and to see what
that shows us about an understanding of violence? Secondly, I will take a
creative and imaginative contemporary author who will help us explore one of
the origins of violence in our midst. And thirdly, I would like to look at
examples of how Christians in particular have imagined new, alternative, but
practical responses to violence and conflict consistent with Gospel values.
So firstly, what does the tradition teach us about violence? Well, at the
beginning of Creation, we hear in that most powerful first chapter of
Genesis, God creates order out of chaos, and the culmination of that order
is the creation of the human person, made in the image and likeness of God.
So we are created in a situation of harmony and are destined for order. The
creative act of God is one that always brings us from darkness to light;
from chaos to order; from death to life. Violence is always a work of
un-creation, undoing the handiwork of God; a moving backward into chaos and
darkness.
The Christian, of course, always looks at the Book of Genesis and sees
within the narrative of Creation the hand of the Trinitarian God. We are
created in the image and likeness of God and that means that we are created
in the image and likeness of the community of love, which is the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit. In the Trinity there is no violence but a constant
interplay of relationships of mutual self-giving and total love. It is this
primary community of the Trinitarian persons, which is the foundation for
all other communities, including the human community. We are modelled upon
that primary community of self-giving and mutuality.
So this is the first important thing to note about violence and conflict -
that violence and conflict are always a result of failure, and distort the
image of the Trinity within us. Again the Book of Genesis captures it in one
of the most creative ways in the story of Adam and Eve. I always think it is
important to read Genesis in a way that manifests to us something of the
mystery of who we are - where we come from, and where we are destined.
Within the presentation of our beginnings in the Book of Genesis we see
something of the mystery of evil, of sin and of suffering. There is at the
heart of the human experience of creation, as well as the experience of God'
s infinite love and the infinite community of love to which human beings are
called, the reality that we resist. Our relationships are fractured and our
understanding of ourselves and others is coloured by selfishness. The
Christian tradition calls this "original sin" and recognises the "problem of
evil." I don't want to say too much about that. However, I think it is
vital for us in any reflection on violence and conflict to recognise that
there is something that is present at the very depths of who we are which
distorts the image of God and the gift of His love, and which becomes in all
human relationships an obstacle for the overcoming of violence and conflict.
Fr Christian, in his testament, recognises this when he says, "I have lived
long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil which seems to
prevail in the world." And I think that is true for all of us.
In the Catholic tradition, the great exponents of this, of course, were St
Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas. Augustine talks in his City of God of us
belonging to a divided kingdom - one the city of God and the other the
earthly city. One, where peace and reconciliation and justice and love hold
sway, and the other where selfishness, destructive tendencies, malice to my
neighbour reigns. This divided city exists both without and within.
In one of his Tales of Hassidim, Martin Buber describes how each of us comes
into the world bearing two deep pockets. I put my hand in one pocket and
pull out the truth 'for me was the world made'. I put my hand in the other
pocket and pull out the truth, 'I am dust and ashes'. Our created reality is
that we stand between these two truths of omnipotence - feeling that
everything is within our control - and insignificance - feeling and thinking
that we have no place. And it is this rupture at the centre of the human
heart which is the locus of violence and of conflict. The Christian
revelation reminds us that Jesus Christ has conquered this division, he has
resolved this tension at the heart of human life, he has overcome suffering,
sin and death. This is what reconciliation, and healing and forgiveness
means for us.
The Church is founded to continue His witness and to make it possible for us
to know and experience the gift of God's love and the possibility of real
freedom.
Meanwhile violence remains for us an enormous challenge. Our responses to
it reveal in us a genuine sense of ambiguity. On the one hand we abhor
violence, and have created laws and systems - from policing to prison - to
eradicate it. On the other we implicitly accept its existence and appear
sometimes to be complicit in its promotion - we watch boxing on television
and we buy violent video games for our children. We recognise the
importance of the role violence appears to play in our lives and seek to
understand it through images, stories, music and make believe. Some would
argue that we risk making violence attractive to our children even as we
teach them to negotiate their differences, not to fight over them. A
majority in this country would vote for a return to capital punishment
despite miscarriages of justice. Many support armed resistance in
situations from house burglary to the struggle for liberation from unjust
oppression. We are even prepared to support, in certain circumstances, the
unleashing of the huge and destructive violence which is used in modern
warfare.
Why this ambiguity and why, despite our best efforts to control, or avoid
violence, is it constantly sniping at our heels?
I have found one of the most cogent explanations for the existence of
violence in human society is provided by the French anthropologist and
philosopher, Rene Girard. Observing how humans, unlike animals, learn by
imitation, Girard began to reflect on the imitative processes and mechanisms
related to rivalry and the violence that flows from rivalry. Girard argues
that a key to the emergence of any group or community - the building blocks
of what we know as society - was the unity afforded by the arbitrary
selection of a victim on whom the ills of the nascent community could be
blamed. "One thing we can all agree on is that x or y is a thoroughly bad
sort." In rounding on the victim and expelling him, or in extremis killing
him, the group finds itself unified. It believes it will also find healing.
Critical to this belief is the group's understanding that there is a reason,
a logic, as to why the victim must be expelled. What if there were no reason
or logic behind the identification of the scapegoat? Consensus would fall
apart; there would be no founding act of community and no healing. The ills
and violence of the community could not be expelled along with the victim.
Fundamental therefore to the process and its healing power is the belief, or
the lie, that the scapegoat has not been arbitrarily chosen. The choice is
well thought out. It's logic is wholly justified. So, therefore, must the
violence done to the victim. The end is good - the expulsion of the ills of
the community. The means to this end is justified - the expulsion of the
victim, or scapegoat.
Without being an expert on Girard I imagine like me you can recognise some
of the power of his analysis, and how it might be applied to many
contemporary situations from what goes on in the playground or the prison;
to some of the mechanisms of party politics or the treatment of certain
groups - asylum seekers for example - by sections of the media. There are
also parallels to consider in Northern Ireland, Iraq and between Israelis
and Palestinians.
We need to be alert to this and other psycho-social mechanisms which allow
the seeds of violence to be planted, and then to flourish. Only then can we
begin imagining more effective ways of disarming those mechanisms.
Girard's treatment of the scapegoating mechanism eventually led him -
intriguingly for us - to the heart of our own Christian story - the Easter
event. At the heart of the story of God's self-revelation in Jesus is a
re-founding act on which is built a new community - the Church. This is the
act of Jesus' gift of Himself as the innocent victim. Jesus unmasks the
myth - the victim is not, as we were supposed to believe, guilty. He is
entirely innocent. As Christians we cannot allow our communities to be
fostered by acts of expulsion and violence perpetrated on the innocent. Our
faith is not in violence but in beatitude: paradoxically we believe in the
powerlessness of the meek, the humble, the faithful, the peacemakers, and
those who hunger and thirst for the truth.
This is not to say that violence is banished. We know it isn't. It is to
say that the truth revealed in Jesus Christ is the fundamental truth for
human beings because he unmasks the lie concerning violence, and highlights
for us any ambiguity we may feel when faced with others' apparently powerful
arguments for the use of force to achieve just ends. We are right therefore
to continue our struggle to imagine future generations, beginning with our
own children, being more prepared to follow non-violence than past
generations, or indeed our own. There is no violence in our Creator in
whose image we are made. Which means there can be no intrinsic violence in
us. Violence results from our failure to imagine other, better ways to deal
with the challenges of the human condition.
We need to recognise violence as part of our failure to live more deeply and
authentically our true nature. We know and believe this because of our
Judaeo-Christian tradition. As Christians we know it because of the Easter
event. Jesus' violent death was not the end. It was the beginning. Jesus
unmasked the myth that violence serves our ends. We are in the process,
and it is a long and faltering process, of becoming the new community of the
resurrection. We are in the process of becoming the communion of
communities whose lives are inspired by the new possibilities revealed in
Jesus. If we are true to ourselves, our imaginations will be fired not by a
spirit of vengeance, or violence, but by the Spirit promised us by Jesus.
We are called by God into a permanent re-imagining of how things ought to
be. In the cross, and in the resurrection, is our inspiration to believe
in another way.
As Christians we have a profound responsibility to discover the alternatives
to war and to violence. As a community whose life is founded not on the
power of rejection, expulsion or violence, but on the charism of love,
nurture and forgiveness we must find ways to share with others our hope in
the possibility of real liberation.
So how do we do this? I think we need to begin by recognising our own
poverty in the face of the temptation to violence. Before looking at the
world around us we ought first to acknowledge our own failures. The Church
has a far from unblemished record. The temptation for the Church to succumb
to a defensive, even at times a militant and aggressive posture with regard
to its rights has to be acknowledged. Particularly in the pre-modern period
the Church's wagons were too often drawn up in a defensive circle. Enemies
within and without were pursued, often with violence.
But the notion of a Church militant has long had its day. In the modern
Church the rejection of violence as a means to pursue even just ends has
gathered considerable momentum. The development of nuclear weapons of
mutually assured destruction in the post-war period concentrated minds. In
his masterly and challenging encyclical Pacem in Terris, "On establishing
universal peace in truth, justice, charity and liberty" Pope John XXIII
addressed the pressing problems of building peace in a world where "one
would think that the relationships that bind men together could only be
governed by force". [1] Shortly afterwards the Second Vatican Council
marked a decisive shift in the Church's perception of itself, and its role
in the world. The interests of humanity as a whole, and the active pursuit
of truth, justice and peace in the conduct of all human affairs became a
major priority for the Church in its proclamation of the Gospel. There
could no longer be any case for a Church concentrated on self-protection and
promotion. Dialogue and the building of bridges between faiths, peoples,
nations and communities rightly became a central pre-occupation of the
Church.
This dialogue needs to be further developed. Christians must see their
place in the world in an ecumenical context. And it is crucial,
particularly in the light of recent violent conflict in Afghanistan, Iraq
and the Middle East, that we remain deeply committed to inter-faith
dialogue. Peace in our world cannot be achieved as long as there is intense
rivalry between the great world religions. Peace building must begin at
home, and alongside our brothers and sisters in the tradition of Abraham.
How ironic that the first "great" war of the 21st century should occur in
the birthplace of our civilisation - Iraq. We must pray that the first
great peace of our century is peace in the birthplace of our Christian
faith - the Holy Land.
The history of Western and Eastern Europe in the last sixty years is a
salutary reminder of the inadequacy of many of our traditional responses to
belligerence and expansionism. And the events of recent months also suggest
we have a long way to go in our search for peaceful, but persuasive means to
resolve conflict. The grave risk we face today is more than the threat of
terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It is also
the increasing sense of insecurity and the temptation to shoot first and ask
questions later. The doctrine of pre-emptive strike itself risks
proliferating beyond the boundaries intended for it by its promoters. It is
hard to see how this can be in anyone's interests.
Today more than ever, with the availability of dangerous weapons and the
means to purchase and transport them, we must guard against succumbing to
any kind of reasoning which appears to favour violence or aggression over
peaceful persuasion and negotiation.
If we - and I refer particularly to the developed, democratic and largely
Western countries - are not very careful, and self-critical, our belief in
our own rectitude could so easily become, or appear to become, arrogance -
the failure to recognise another point of view, or an alternative approach.
We have an unfortunate tendency to regard ourselves as morally superior to
our brothers and sisters in poorer parts of the world. We confuse
prosperity and power, with moral force and right thinking. In fact
economic prosperity, diplomatic clout and military strength do not always
aid the active listening which is key to negotiation, or the willingness to
seek compromise and mutual understanding. I do not believe this is a good
place to start building a more peaceful world. Peace begins with a
recognition of shared vulnerability, weakness and failure. The first of our
failings is the temptation to dominate others through force, or the threat
of force.
At the international level, may I say a word in support of multilateralism
and in particular the UN. It seems to me that the closest we have got, in
modern times, to a recognition that co-operation, respect for universal
human rights and self-determination of peoples, and the rule of law (i.e.
justice) as the key to building, and then preserving peaceful co-existence
between nations, is the UN Charter. The Charter was signed in 1945 with the
express intention, to quote the very first words of the preamble, of saving
"succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime
has brought untold sorrow to mankind". This was a noble purpose then. It
remains a noble purpose now. Everyone would accept that our collective
capacity to live up to that purpose has been flawed. But unless someone can
come up with a purpose more worthy, or a system better designed to achieve
just ends, we should stick by it. And we should resist the temptation
constantly to blame the UN itself for the failures of its members.
My first observation then is that if we do not begin our task with a real
sense of humility, whoever we are, I fear those efforts will be doomed to
failure.
I greatly admire the St Egidio movement which for nearly 40 years has been
working for peace. It began in Rome in 1968 with groups meeting for shared
prayer and reflection on the gospel. It now has 40,000 members in 60
countries. It was responsible for creating the space - a safe (I like to
think a sacred) space - in which for the first time the enemies of Frelimo
and Renamo could meet, in what proved to be the beginning of the end of the
civil war that had torn Mozambique apart for so many years. The beginning
of the end of war, the beginnings of the peace was a meeting around a table;
a meal in fact. Sounds familiar doesn't it?
The St Egidio community explains that "the means to this service to peace
and reconciliation are the weak means of prayer, of sharing difficult
situations, meeting and dialogue". Andrea Riccardi, its founder, says: "If
you want to make peace you have to try to reason with those making war". He
describes war as "the greatest poverty of all". John Paul II has called
war "always a defeat for humanity". So how do they do it? Another founder
member Mario Marizziti says: "Our strengths have been an extensive network
of personal contacts, credibility from not having a vested interest
economically, and no ulterior motives. Our credibility comes from St Egidio
's weakness".
In short peace, and non-violence, is about poverty not power. It's about
finding the ways and means to moving beyond prejudice, fear, hatred,
vengeance, and the pursuit of self-interest. It is about the common goods
of humanity, of communities and peoples. These are goods which, for complex
historical, cultural, religious, national or ethnic reasons may require
extraordinary patience, tenacity and good will to discover. And then yet
more patience, vision and good will to develop to the point where they are
accessible, and acceptable, to all sides in a conflict. Northern Ireland is
surely a good example of how such a process can work; the peace process in
the Middle East will need to be another.
It seems to me that we are back again to the requirement - not so much for
vision, something about which people, including politicians, talk a lot, and
rightly so - but for imagination. Particularly in the case of long-standing
conflicts, whether marked by sporadic or continuous violence, imagination
will always be required if ways - new ways - are to be found to move beyond
enmity, hatred and the desire for revenge. You can't have vision if you
haven't got imagination. Imagination prefigures the unveiling of vision.
Before there can be a political process there needs to be the creation of a
non-political, or at least non-partisan, space. A space has to be imagined
where people in conflict can be invited, and where fear and hatred can
safely be laid (for a moment) to one side; and where new possibilities can
begin to be imagined, discussed, chewed over, tried on for size.
Something new, unpredictable, and probably risky needs to happen between
people before the professional managers of peace processes - diplomats,
civil-servants, negotiators and so on - are invited in. St Egidio's
Riccardi reflects: "How can we change the world if we don't change the
hearts of people? We believed the Gospel had those words that could change
the hearts of people".
Now I am not saying that politicians and diplomats are not the right people
for this creative pre-process in which alternatives to violence are imagined
and explored. But I do wonder whether others, who are not involved in the
political, economic, and diplomatic processes to which we are becoming so
inured, might not have an innovative role to play. I am speaking of men and
women of peace. Peace-makers. Peace-builders. Peace-imaginers. Their part
in all of this may not be to sit around the negotiating table. But it might
be to imagine a table in the first place, or to act as the disinterested -
in political terms - party which brings the table into being. Isn't this
what St Egidio is trying to do? Isn't it what St Ethelburga's will try to
do?
I was very struck by Nelson Mandela's beautiful tribute to his comrade and
life long mentor and friend Walter Sisulu in the Independent last week: He
contrasted his own particular and well-recognised gifts with those of his
less renowned friend. In the process he highlighted for me the rare
qualities of leadership needed if we are to find the hope and the courage to
move beyond the violence which ensnares us, and poisons our relationships:
"By ancestry", Mandela says, "I was born to rule. Xhamela (Sisulu's
traditional name) helped me to understand that my real vocation was to be a
servant of the people. He was courageous, and his quiet self-confidence and
clarity of vision marked him out as a leader amongst us. However, he
neither sought nor wielded his authority by virtue of office. He was ever
ready to draw others into leadership.. Walter did not become a member of
parliament, a cabinet minister or a president. yet he towers above all of us
with his humility and intrinsic dignity.He had an inexhaustible capacity to
listen to others, and therefore he was able to encourage others to explore
ideas".
Christians do not have special gifts, over and above anyone else, when it
comes to building peace in our world. But we do have a particular vocation
to respond to the commandment to bring Christ's peace and reconciliation to
our world. With our Moslem and Jewish brothers and sisters in particular,
we must commit wholeheartedly to the patient dialogue which is indispensable
before we can move beyond the prejudice, fear and intolerance which fuels
discord and violence between peoples and cultures. Like the monks of
Tibhirine we must be strive to be so nourished by the beauty that is God,
his creation and especially the creation of each and every one of our
brothers and sisters, that we can gaze into the face of our aggressor and
see the face of God. I know that this will sound foolish, and I am not
suggesting we do not need laws, structures, protocols and whatever to assist
us as a society to move beyond violence. Ultimately though, the most
dis-arming response of which the human person is capable is the response of
love, of respect and of a desire to understand the other.
As Fr Christian de Cherge says in another passage of his 'adieu':
"My death will appear to justify those who hastily judge me naïve, or
idealistic: 'Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!' But these people
must realise that my avid curiosity will then be satisfied. This is what I
shall be able to do, if God wills- immerse my gaze in that of the Father,
and contemplate with him his children of Islam just as he sees them, all
shining with the glory of Christ, the fruit of His Passion, and filled with
the Gift of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to establish
communion and to refashion the likeness, playfully delighting in the
differences".
If that is a vision of foolishness it is the foolishness Jesus encouraged
his followers to imitate. For me it is a vision of very great power and one
we should feel challenged by.
In his conclusion to the book The challenge of L'Arche Jean Vanier shares
his very profound belief, born of nearly forty years of living with people
with profound disabilities, that the poor can open the door to peace in our
world.
"Our modern world has fantastic power and knowledge," he says. "Man has
conquered the moon, delved into the secret of matter and discovered immense
energies. Yes we have amazing knowledge. But the only real knowledge
necessary for the survival of the human race is lacking: the knowledge of
how to transform violence and hatred into tenderness and forgiveness; how to
stop the chain of aggression against the weak; how to see differences as a
value rather than a threat; how to stop people from envying those who have
more, and incite them to share with those who have less. The real question
of today is disarmament, not only on the international scale but in terms of
our own personal aggression. Is it possible for men and women to break down
the barriers of prejudice and fear that separates groups and races and to
create one people? Are we condemned to war or is peace possible?"...
"Handicapped people," he goes on, "cannot defend themselves; they have no
voice; they are not allowed to express themselves. They are rejected and
put aside, laughed at and considered 'mad'. They disturb the so-called
'normal people' for they do not abide by norms. Can it be that the broken
and the neglected of our societies can become a source of peace and unity if
people turn towards them as brothers and sisters, to welcome and serve them
and to discover the gift that is theirs?"
Jean Vanier is a man of the profoundest daring and courage. He dared to
imagine living alongside the poor; he did and so do thousands of others like
him across the globe. Nelson Mandela dared to imagine a traumatised society
putting reconciliation and truth, before revenge and retribution. Mahatma
Ghandi dared to imagine that non-violence, a salt march not an uprising,
could liberate India. The monks of Tibhirine dared to imagine that their
presence would be the most enduring witness to brotherhood - they are still
there.
I don't have answers to the million and one questions that people might put
about the resolution of this or that conflict, large or small, for example
Iraq. We mourn all those who died in that conflict. And I think it is right
to value the courage of our military personnel, while at the same time
continuing to hope that next time we will find another way to resolve such
seemingly irreconcilable differences.
So let us also pay tribute to all those who work for peace and for peaceful
solutions to conflict. And to those who are trying to imagine new ways to
move beyond the temptation to violence as a way of uniting, resolving,
purging, protecting or progressing. Ultimately violence cannot be the way
to achieve any of these legitimate purposes. There is a better way.
Remember Oscar Romero's heartfelt cry from the pulpit in San Salvador
shortly before he was gunned down celebrating the Eucharist. "In God's name
stop the killing". They did - but not before he had paid the price for
demanding in the name of God that they stop. I truly hope St Ethelburga's
can be space within which our Christian imaginations can provide
alternatives to that violence, as more and more people in our country begin
to understand why Romero cared so deeply.
Naturally we are tempted at times to lose courage and to abandon our foolish
imaginings. We mustn't, because as Romero says in his poem A future not our
own:
"It may be incomplete [our work], but it is a beginning,
a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter
and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
But that is the difference between
The master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
Ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own."
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[1] Pope John XXIII encyclical letter Pacem in Terris, April 11 1963, 1963
(4)
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