Peace Now? How?
by the editors of America Magazine
When Adolfo Nicolás, S.J., superior general of the Society of Jesus, wrote to Jesuit provincial superiors and other advisers throughout the world about the main challenge of our time, he spoke in the spirit of Pope Francis. What, he asked, can the Society do for peace? The answers flooded in, and his reply letter to all 16,000 Jesuits worldwide was a challenge to think, pray and act.
Pope Francis recently told a crowd at an
Italian war memorial, “War is madness” and said it seemed as if World
War III were already being fought in a “piecemeal” fashion around the
globe. A dangerous confrontation between the West and Russia simmers in
Ukraine. The bombed ruins of Gaza smolder, and in Iraq ISIS tortures and
kills Muslims and Christians alike with impunity.
In 1973 Father General Pedro Arrupe told
his fellow Jesuits that some of them might die living a “faith that does
justice.” Sixteen years later, six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her
daughter were murdered in the midst of El Salvador’s civil war. Last
April Frans van der Lugt, S.J., was shot in the head in front of his
home in Homs, Syria, where he had served the people as a psychotherapist
and pastor for 48 years. Throughout the 20th century, in persecutions,
world wars, concentration camps and violent social movements, over 300
Jesuits met death.
The letter from Father Nicholás challenged
Jesuit schools to “take the risk of being wounded as Jesus was” and
develop interdisciplinary programs that instill spirituality and
forgiveness. But first, he said, Jesuits must achieve “reconciliation
among ourselves.” Only then can the Society become a “prophetic
institution that denounces the injustices that produce violence,” even
unto death.
Comments
What
the society can do, especially in the fields of education, is to create
in locations across the world, say SF, SL, NY, Montreal, England,
Italy, Spain, Jerusalem (Ignatius's longed for that mission), Cairo,
Australia, Manila, Japan, Argentina, Mexico City,; Institutes and
university schools of Abrahamic studies to include Jewish, Islamic,
Christian, Protestant philosophies and theologies that will bring about
historical, anthropological, archeological, spiritual and religious
cohesions to emerge into a world of cooperation and peace, especially in
knowledge and worship.
I'm replying, not a Jesuit myself, to the first paragraph. "If you want peace, work for law."
Holmes laughed that lawyers were getting desperate when they started talking about justice.
Gaza is a good example. If we want peace in Palestine, from the river to the sea, we need civil rights, and for that we need a law state. Israel spends a hundred times as much per capita on Jewish students as on non-Jewish ones, says the executive director of Jewish Voices for Peace. My scant research suggests a Jew (by Israel state accounting) has a hundred times better chance of getting a building permit as a non-Jew (ditto). There is no law in Israel, evidently.
Let's send a lawyer to Israel.
Where will we find one? I would send a likely candidate to the Karl Rahner School of Law, contained in two volumes, Spirit in the World and Hearers of the Word.
The essence of civil law is that people know according to the images they hold in their imaginations, and they know these images for a fact. The most deluded bigot, one could extrapolate (Karl does not like to talk about evil, but "if there were no evil people there would be no good lawyers," said Dickens), knows she is in bad conscience because the faculty by which she knows her prejudices is the same faculty by which she refuses to see the other person before her: her bigotry is her choice and she knows it is a bad one.
None of this nonsense about competing narratives.
Source: http://americamagazine.org/issue/current-comment-56
Holmes laughed that lawyers were getting desperate when they started talking about justice.
Gaza is a good example. If we want peace in Palestine, from the river to the sea, we need civil rights, and for that we need a law state. Israel spends a hundred times as much per capita on Jewish students as on non-Jewish ones, says the executive director of Jewish Voices for Peace. My scant research suggests a Jew (by Israel state accounting) has a hundred times better chance of getting a building permit as a non-Jew (ditto). There is no law in Israel, evidently.
Let's send a lawyer to Israel.
Where will we find one? I would send a likely candidate to the Karl Rahner School of Law, contained in two volumes, Spirit in the World and Hearers of the Word.
The essence of civil law is that people know according to the images they hold in their imaginations, and they know these images for a fact. The most deluded bigot, one could extrapolate (Karl does not like to talk about evil, but "if there were no evil people there would be no good lawyers," said Dickens), knows she is in bad conscience because the faculty by which she knows her prejudices is the same faculty by which she refuses to see the other person before her: her bigotry is her choice and she knows it is a bad one.
None of this nonsense about competing narratives.
Source: http://americamagazine.org/issue/current-comment-56
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