(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call (651) 224-5733.)
I heard the same line of thought from other priests and clerics- both conservative and liberal – in the days following the terrorist strike at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It is a regrettable syndrome to which otherwise well-meaning Catholics seem vulnerable. Let's shake it off, once and for all.
What did the EWTN priest say that got under my skin? It was the subject of a sermon he delivered during his televised Mass on the day after the terrorist strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I submit that he allowed himself to be morally disarmed by a literal reading of Scripture not in line with Catholic teaching or common sense. In fact, I suspect that he sensed how indefensible his conclusions were even as he spoke the words.
I have to paraphrase what he said, but I can come pretty close. He began by making clear that there is nothing in the Bible or in the Magisterium that precludes Catholics from supporting a military move to apprehend and root out terrorist networks. So far, so good. But then he went on, with anguished look, to insist that “as painful as it may be, we must forgive those who have done this”; that “we must not submit to hate”; that Jesus' words are “clear and unambiguous.” We “must love our enemies and do good to those who hate us.” He insisted that such willingness to forgive those who have trespassed against us is central to Christianity, what separates us from many other religions, what makes us who we are.
I disagree. Vehemently. I insist that those who take this position are flat-out wrong. You do not have to be a Scripture scholar or a theologian to make this observation. It is a question where right reason trumps seminary training: We have no obligation to forgive the terrorists who killed so many of our fellow citizens. We are not fundamentalists; we do not take every passage in the Bible literally. We don't pluck out our eyes and cut off our arms because they have been the source of our sins in the past; we don't hate our mothers and fathers when we commit ourselves to following the Lord – even though Jesus calls on us to do these things in the Bible. Christ's language is often poetic and rich in metaphor. “Turning the other cheek” and “loving those who hate us” are among the numerous scriptural passages meant to be interpreted and filtered by human reason.
The Gospels make this clear: Christ never called for passivity in the face of evil. He did not encourage a mawkish willingness to embrace those committed to doing harm to us and our families. Doing that is not brotherhood. It's stupidity. Jesus was not stupid. He did not ask the moneychangers in the Temple to sit down and sing Kumbaya. He unleashed His wrath upon them, punished them physically for their sins.
His sermons are full of references to those who would not be forgiven their trespasses: broods of vipers, wolves in sheep's clothing, the bad seed; unfruitful trees that would be cast into a place of eternal punishment full of weeping and gnashing of teeth. He warned of punishments so severe that being thrown into the sea with a millstone around our necks would seem pale in comparison. He called the Pharisees “whitened sepulchers full of dead men's bones.” He did not invite them to an ecumenical brunch. He instructed His disciples to “shake the dust off your feet as a testimony” against those who did not heed His message. He did not tell them to preach with a respect for the right to dissent and the multicultural values of His time. He demanded that we take up our cross and follow Him, not do our own thing.
Then what are we to make of the Lord's call to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us? I do not know the source of the following quotation, but it contains the answer to the question at hand: “Even God cannot forgive an unrepentant sinner.” The logic is the same as that embedded in the quip that “God cannot square a circle.” The point is that God is truth; that God cannot, and would not if He could, do what is wrong, unjust, or in violation of reason. God is the source of reason, the divine spark within us. There is no reason to forgive the unrepentant, for God or for us. How could it be otherwise? Those committed to evil are beyond redemption, by definition, by the force of logic. Forgiving them would be squaring the circle. Even those theologians who argue for universal salvation rely upon some notion of a deathbed conversion – or in some cases a conversion after death – to make their case.
There are times when an emotional reaction to a scenario reveals truths we may have difficulty putting into words. To get the point, imagine our reaction if Osama bin Laden appeared on television, smiling and gloating and boasting of his role in planning and financing the events of September 11? Would a Christian be required to open his arms to embrace him and proclaim, “I forgive you, my brother”? Even if this despicable villain's response was to laugh and spit at us in response and threaten more violence? Would we be required to forgive and turn the other cheek in that event? That would be a preposterous demand. We know that. We correctly intuit that this is not what Jesus meant.
But, then, what did He mean when He directed us to love those who hate us? It is clear: Jesus taught us to “love them” by hoping for what is best for them: their conversion, the salvation of their souls. We are “to do good” to them by praying that they will renounce their evil deed and commit themselves to righteousness. This may mean that we are obliged to hope that Osama bin Laden and his fellow conspirators realize the error of their ways and repent even as we hunt them down to kill them. Only if they surrender to us and make a public admission that they have done us a great wrong – and ask for our forgiveness – would we be obliged to forgive.
At that point, yes, unpleasant as it may be, we are ordered as Christians to forgive them – while simultaneously determining the appropriately swift and terrible temporal punishment for the evil they have done. Encourage the soldiers on the firing squad to say a rosary for the terrorists' souls as they load their rifles.
I am not being glib. It was traditional in societies shaped by Christianity for the words “May God have mercy on your soul” to be pronounced over prisoners in the moments before their execution. These words were recited to make it clear that God's forgiveness is on a separate plane from our obligation to administer justice on a human level.