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Fr. Gerry Creedon's homily delivered at St. Charles during the Feast of the Solemnity of Mary, December 31, 2001
[First lines lost in the recording] ... He (the Pope) repeats this phrase, "There is no peace without justice and no justice without forgiveness." No peace without justice. We all know this from our own experience of fighting in school yards. "It's not fair, it's not fair." If something is not fair we fight about it. That's true for children; that's true for adults; that's true for our nations. And while injustice is never an excuse for terrorism, it's never an excuse for violence; it oftentimes is the foundation or source of violence. It is a routing out of situations that are unfair that is part of the work for peace The Bishops Response to 9-11 The president of our Bishops conference in this country, responding to the events of September 11, said that a much broader long-term understanding of security is needed. "In a world where one-fifth of the population survives on less than a dollar a day, where some 20 countries are involved major armed conflicts (we forget that), where poverty, corruption and repressive regimes bring untold suffering to millions of people, we simply cannot remain indifferent." He's talking about the war on terrorism is part of a broader campaign against the sources of violence in our planet. We want peace, work for justice. Or, as the Pope says, "There is no peace without justice." Getting to Forgiveness And then there's that more controversial expression, "no justice without forgiveness." I think again on a family level and on a personal level we recognize that justice is not enough; we also need forgiveness. What often happens on the human level is that violence is done, and we repeat the violence, and then it escalates. You hit me, and I hit you, and then we have a boxing match. How do you stop this spiral of violence? How does a person stop once they've been hit, without hitting back harder? How do you teach children to do this? To find an alternative way of dealing with what's unfair? Of dealing with the abuse of other people? "They abuse me, therefore I should abuse them." What comes in between is forgiveness, an alternative way, a way of breaking the spiral of violence. It's a hard thing to do. The number one indicator that you'll go to jail is if you've been there before. In this society, we have not found it easy to rehabilitate people. Just keep going around in circles. I was delighted over Christmas to see a young man sitting over here in the right side of the church who had been in jail for the last year. He's out. He's back with us. Rehabilitation is possible! Forgiveness is available not only in the confessional but even in our justice system there needs to be room for forgiveness. You've paid your dues to society; let's have some restoration. Get back in. The Human Action of Forgiveness The Pope says, "no peace without justice, and no justice without forgiveness." Now how does that apply between nations? I'm not so sure about that. It's OK for the Pope when he's shot at to go to the jail of the person who shot him and forgive him. But he's the Pope. The rest of us are not expected to act in that way. But he does sort of expect all of us to move away from a society that teaches vengeance or retaliation as the appropriate response to violence? Somehow or other we need to transcend the normal, natural human tendencies toward vengeance that every cowboy movie teaches us. We need to get excited about it when someone stands up and does something about it and takes physical action. We need to get excited when someone stands up and doesn't just take physical action but takes human action, the human action of ... forgiveness! How do we do that? How do we take this notion of forgiveness outside of the church and apply it to the community? Apply it to the relationships between groups of people? How do we apply it to the relationships between nations? How can people who slaughtered one another live peaceably together? It's humanly impossible. Everybody said they could never do it, for example, in the North of Ireland. People were doomed to keep repeating their grievances, their grudges, and to use them as excuses for more violence. It's the nature of the beast; it's the way we are; it's original sin; it just keeps going on and on and on. Well, guess what? One of the miraculous things after 9-11 is that Protestants and Catholics or however we want to identify them, started to lay down their arms ... started ... and they began to deal with one another politically, through processes of negotiation, of political participation, which are the alternatives to the wonderful thrill of killing somebody else. That's the alternative: to develop the structures of negotiation, structures of participation. Not at all as exciting as killing people. This is what the Pope was talking about; learning to live with one's enemies. Learning to live with people when you remember how many people they have killed. And they're not all locked up. How can we find security through the processes of conciliation, reconciliation, forgiveness? It's a hard message to believe. South Africa has probably practiced it better than any other. And it's a marvel, and an exception. In Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, they have alternatives before them - to continue these great cycles of violence that could, in fact escalate and become more deadly, or to find alternatives through some kinds of processes of negotiation and dialog. Let Go of the Past and Start Anew in the New Year We are at the end of a year, and many people are saying, "I can't wait for 2002." Hopefully, it's going to be a lot better year for our planet and for all of us. But turning another page, opening a new chapter, starting all over again, isn't just a nice idea for a New Year, it is a fundamental dimension of the Christian gospel. Most of us as Catholics used to believe it. We all used to go to Confession and think we had wiped out the slate. We're not so sure about that any more; that's probably why we don't go as much as we used to. But it's a good idea, that we can wipe out the slate, turn over a new page, start all over again, brand new. Maybe we've got to start believing it ritualistically, liturgically, and maybe we need to start practicing it in our lives. The Italians, I know (and other people may have this custom), have fires on New Year's Eve, and the purpose of the fire is to burn and bury the past. Let's not continue to re-live our old grievances. Let's not exercise our minds in all of the reasons why we can't trust other people, whether it's your next-door neighbor or a member of your family or another nationality. It's time for us to let go of all that, burn it up and put it in a bonfire. Let's start all over again, from scratch. Some people don't believe that the penal system should be about rehabilitation-it should be about punishment. Some people believe that we Catholics believe in magic when we believe in absolution. I don't think so. I believe there is room for rehabilitation. I believe there is room for forgiveness. I believe that there is a time when we can let go and start all over again. And we were never as ready as we are this New Years Eve. So let's stand in that faith.* * *
or Faith Resources
Revised/reviewed January 11, 2002