For over a month we have been witnessing with horror the scenes of the war playing out in Ukraine. I have been struck by a strange paradox in war. In war we see how the latest, most ingenious military hardware is showcased. We are hearing (and seeing) a lot of the new range of weapons of the twenty-first century: such as drones, thermobaric bombs, hypersonic missiles, and light-weight anti-tank missiles (NLAWs, Stingers, and Javelins).
While one cannot help but marvel at the technical ingenuity of such hardware, one has to marvel also at the incredible failure that war is: man’s greatest technical productions are firmly placed at man’s basest passions – the desire to kill one’s fellow man.
Every military “success”, for whichever side, is simultaneously an unspeakable tragedy for a father, a mother, a spouse, a child. I can still hear my aunt’s British husband speaking sadly of the loss of his aviator brother over the English channel in the Battle of Britain many years after the event.
This war, like all wars in human history, will produce in its wake decades, if not centuries, of pain, resentment and desire for revenge. As the American sociologist Lewis Mumford said after World War II: “War is both the product of an earlier corruption and a producer of new corruptions.”
We cannot lose sight of this. We must maintain a clear eyed view of such a tragedy, not allowing ourselves to be lost in the infamous “fog of war”. As Christians our first reaction must be a supernatural one: we must pray – really pray – for an end to war. We know that all war has it roots in human sinfulness. We know how the Blessed Virgin Mary in Fatima warned that World War I would be followed by a far worse conflict unless people stopped “offending God”. Such sentiments were very apparent in Pope Francis’ 25th March Consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, when he said:
“Yet we have strayed from that path of peace. We have forgotten the lesson learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two world wars. We have disregarded the commitments we made as a community of nations. We have betrayed peoples’ dreams of peace and the hopes of the young. We grew sick with greed, we thought only of our own nations and their interests, we grew indifferent and caught up in our selfish needs and concerns.”
In that same Consecration he speaks of “the mystery of iniquity that is evil and war”.
Speaking recently to a Russian father living here in Ireland with his wife and young family, he told me of how his young daughter told him recently of how she had heard the young boys on her road playing at soldiers separating themselves out in the goodies – Ukrainians – and the baddies – Russians. While it is undeniable that Ukraine has been subject to a barbaric injustice at the hands of the Russian army, it is important to know “the unknowns”. Every conflict is much more complex than could possibly be understood with just a cursory knowledge. In Ireland we only have to think of the complexity our own violent conflict in the North. I think it is also an incentive to try to get to a deeper understanding of such situations so that our judgements be as accurate as possible.
Perhaps the only silver lining on the very dark cloud that is war is that it brings us back to prayer and a rediscovery of God’s love for us, despite the depths of depravity to which mankind can sink. In the words of the Pope’s Consecration prayer:
“Holy Mother, amid the misery of our sinfulness, amid our struggles and weaknesses, amid the mystery of iniquity that is evil and war, you remind us that God never abandons us, but continues to look upon us with love, ever ready to forgive us and raise us up to new life. He has given you to us and made your Immaculate Heart a refuge for the church and for all humanity. By God’s gracious will, you are ever with us; even in the most troubled moments of our history, you are there to guide us with tender love.”