Special
Report Speakers explore gift of forgiveness
By CLAIRE
SCHAEFFER-DUFFY Worcester, Mass.
On Sept. 14 and 15, the same weekend that President Bush told
America vengeance will take a long time, Holy Cross College of
Worcester, Mass., hosted a conference on forgiveness. The conference was
scheduled more than a year ago as the centerpiece of a semester-long
exploration of the subject. But in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, forgiveness suddenly became
more than an academic question at Holy Cross.
After Sept. 11, people were intensely interested in the
whole complicated questions of forgiveness that involves justice, not
forgetting, said David OBrien, director of the Jesuit
colleges Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, which sponsored the
conference. What kind of waiting, abiding with a terrible thing like this
[must transpire] before you can even begin to think about how you can take
responsible action?
OBrien, a professor of history at Holy Cross, said he
considered canceling the conference, primarily because some speakers were
having transportation problems. (One third of the presenters were unable to
attend.) But the centers steering committee opted to host the event
anyway.
Guest lecturer Donald W. Shriver, president emeritus of Union
Theological Seminary in New York, said it is premature to talk
about forgiving the terrorist act of Sept. 11. Shriver said he is not ready
to use the language of forgiveness until the wrong has been
confronted, acknowledged and maybe partly punished.
Repentance and forgiveness are interdependent, Shriver said, and
he is not on the side of those who say we must forgive because it will
make us feel better. Forgiveness is the launching of a new relationship, and if
the other party is not interested, I say, forgiveness stalls at the starting
gate.
Nonetheless, Shriver believes forgiveness is a viable policy
option for nation states, and he cites the United States decision to
resume relationship with Germany in the aftermath of World War II as a good
example of the repentance-then-forgiveness formula. Resumption of that
relationship, he notes, was contingent on Germany publicly renouncing the
Nazis.
Shriver believes that as the United States responds to the Sept.
11 attacks, it should keep in mind the possibility of forgiveness in the
future. Among the things we should be thinking about even now is how do
we oppose certain evils in such a way that we can think of an eventual
repentance and forgiveness between the antagonists. An analogous question is
how do you fight a war in such a way that you do not make it more difficult to
have a peace?
Although she did not directly address the terrorists attacks
in her lecture at the conference, Elise Boulding, professor emeritus of
Dartmouth College, said the capacity to forgive is inherent in American
society. Alongside the bellicose America, there is another America with a
long history of peacemaking and forgiveness and reconciliation.
In contrast to Fortress America, Reconciling
America has promoted tolerance and the caring community. The
abolitionist movement, the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the
restorative justice movement are just some of the numerous examples of
Reconciling America at work, Boulding said.
Peaceableness exists in the United States and therefore a
peaceful, nonviolent, forgiving American society is possible, she
said.
Boulding noted that America has no truth commission to deal with
its own wrongs, like slavery, the forceful acquisition of Indian land, and the
bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and more recently Kosovo and Iraq.
Seeking forgiveness is one of our countrys major tasks -- a
task that can prepare the way for a new U.S role in the family of
nations, she said.
From a theological and Christian perspective, said
Holy Cross president Jesuit Fr. Michael McFarland, our ability to forgive is
made possible by Gods generosity. McFarland, homilist for the opening
liturgy of the conference, said, If we are really honest, we have to
admit that we carry in our hearts some little bit of the evil that drives mass
murderers. None can stand before God and say we are innocent or worthy of
Gods love and friendship.
Nor are any of us God, he added. Although human beings have to
make practical judgments about who gets punished or
rewarded, only God can decide whom to save or whom to
condemn, he said. And God, McFarland emphasized, wants to save people --
a truth that is at the heart of forgiveness.
McFarland spoke about the Peace Memorial in the city of Hiroshima,
Japan, a broken twisted structure of the one building left standing when
the atomic bomb hit, leading to the eventual deaths of 200,000 people, most of
them civilians. That building, he said, could easily have become a
symbol of resentment, hatred and the need to strike back. But instead it
symbolizes a transformation of attitudes, a commitment to everything
possible to ensure that such an event never happens again.
It is not that evil and suffering are not real, said
McFarland, but they need not define us or control us, for the gift of
forgiveness that Christ offers on the cross is even more powerful.
McFarlands words were especially pertinent for the Holy
Cross campus. On Sept. 14, the day he delivered his homily, five alumni were
reported dead or missing and four students had relatives -- an uncle, a father,
two cousins -- who were still unaccounted for.
Claire Schaeffer-Duffy is a freelance writer living in
Worcester, Mass.
National Catholic Reporter, October 5,
2001
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