n July the Archbishop of Boston Cardinal Seán O’Malley led a pilgrimage from Boston to Knock and during his days there he gave an interview to RTÉ News in which he warned against scapegoating Muslims following the recent atrocity in Nice and other terrorist attacks on the West. This was very timely advice which we Catholics in the Western world must reflect on and take to heart. Hardly a day passes now without news of some new Islamist atrocity in France, Germany, USA or of course the Middle East, and as we go to press comes news of the brutal murder of Fr. Hamel near Rouen – as clear an example of Christian martyrdom as you will ever find. The hallmark of these atrocities is a truly diabolical desire to murder innocent men, women and children at every opportunity and to strike terror into those of us who witness these events through the mass media. But more than the terror the danger is that these atrocities would inspire in us a reciprocal hatred of the perpetrators themselves, and then by extension a hostility towards the Islam which these terrorists claim in one way or another to embody.
The most pressing question for us then is not about the nature of Islam (whether or not it is indeed a religion of peace) nor about immigration (which in the words of Cardinal O’Malley “is such an important issue, and requires a lot of reflection. It requires people with wisdom to come together and talk about what is best for the common good”). These two issues are not unimportant, but the issue we must grapple with in the immediate aftermath of these atrocities is the psychological and spiritual reaction they evince in us, because our reaction in the face of such shocking actions could very easily become one of hatred or at least resentment, and this is not the reaction of a Christian.
The reaction proper to a Christian is well summed up by St Josemaría Escrivá when he writes:
We have to understand everyone; we must live peaceably with everyone; we must forgive everyone. We shall not call injustice justice; we shall not say that an offence against God is not an offence against God, or that evil is good. When confronted by evil we shall not reply with another evil, but rather with sound doctrine and good actions: drowning evil in an abundance of good. That’s how Christ will reign in our souls and in the souls of the people around us (Christ is Passing By, 182).
I remember as a young schoolboy in the mid 1970s hearing stories from a school friend who for one reason or another spent time in England with his family. This was the time of the terrible IRA bombing campaign there. He reported the anti-Irish remarks and insults he and his family experienced at the time. It seemed to me back then so unfair that the Irish at large would be blamed for the atrocities of a few. And yet forty years on we may be inclined to do the same with Muslims, or at least be ambivalent in the face of such a reaction.
Part of such ambivalence can be seen in a tendency of some conservative Catholics to ally themselves increasingly with a far-right reaction against the perceived incapacity or unwillingness of the political left to defend traditional Western values. While their judgment of the left’s inaction may be true, the swing to an extreme reaction is very dangerous, and has its precedents in the political events of pre-war Germany, as observed by one political commentator:
That is the lesson from the right-wing populist upsurge in Weimar Germany, which culminated in the Nazi assumption of power. The political language of fear and hostility directed at “foreign” elements (never mind the fact that many and even most of those so-called foreigners had been residents and citizens for generations) enables moderate and radical conservatives to come together. The moderates make the radicals salonfähig, acceptable in polite society. That is the real and pressing danger of the current moment (Eric D. Weitz, Weimar Germany and Donald Trump).
The Catholic is not called to political naivety nor quietism. But he is called to embody Christian love, mercy and forgiveness in his political choices, and also to witness to the world that evil is conquered not by further evil, but is drowned in an abundance of good. This is the trial to which we are now subject; the same trial undergone by Christ in his passion:
Let us test him with insult and torture,
that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance (Wisdom 2:19).