Nuala O’LoanThe corrupt exercise of power is hard to challenge, writes Nuala O’Loan
It is strange to contemplate the fact that whilst we live today in a world in which living itself is so much easier for so many people than it has ever been – we have electricity, sanitation, modern communication, welfare systems, education etc. – yet still we know that research shows that people are less happy now, less connected with their families, less directly engaged with each other.
We know, too, that so many of our brothers and sisters live with monumental difficulties whether here in Ireland, or in the wider world. What does this mean for ordinary Catholics like you and me? Is it different for Catholics from others who do not profess belief that God made us and loves us, and that each of us is precious in His sight?
Pope Francis spoke of the criminality, exclusion and marginalisation so many people experience: “we cannot ignore the fact that in cities human trafficking, the narcotics trade, the abuse and exploitation of minors, the abandonment of the elderly and infirm, and various forms of corruption and criminal activity take place. At the same time, what could be significant places of encounter and solidarity often become places of isolation and mutual distrust. Houses and neighbourhoods are more often built to isolate and protect than to connect and integrate.”
Consequence
The consequence of living in this world, he tells us, “is that almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.”
Can that be true? Can we really become immune to the pain of others? We would surely say we could not. Yet it must happen to us, and the greatest evidence must surely be that we are able to sustain our way of life in the face of all that pain and misery. Of course, Ireland has been through a lot of pain in the past few years, but do we look, for example, on the plight of the immigrants in Lampadusa and Calais and think, this problem is beyond us? Do we pray for them in their pain and then sit back and wait for others to solve the problem and salve our consciences?
Do we then put it from our minds, so that we do not need to experience their pain? Do we justify what we do by saying that we do our best? We may even argue that the situation is so complex, so big and so overwhelming that really we cannot make a difference.
All this injustice can seem a bit overwhelming. The corrupt exercise of power (and this is the cause of the pain we witness) is hard to challenge, especially when that power reposes in the hands of oligarchs, presidents, and multinational companies. It can seem an insuperable task. Change can be achieved, but experience tells us that it will only be achieved in small steps.
That the steps may have to be small, must not be a deterrent for us in trying!
Our faith must be lived in the world in which we live, with the people whom we meet. It is not an intellectual exercise. Christ came to show us that we really need to love one another as He has loved us. So does this means that each of us must consider how we can change our own thinking and actions and those of others when those thought processes, those actions effectively deny real fairness and equality and love to so many?
In so doing it helps if we remember what we have learned from Jesus himself. Do we really believe that nothing is impossible? What does our faith show us about all the things with which we struggle, including the indifference and hostility to our faith which is so strong at the moment?
Pope Benedict said this in his final address:
“The Lord has given us many days of sunshine and light breezes, days when the fishing was plentiful, but also times when the water was rough and the winds against us, just as throughout the whole history of the Church, when the Lord seemed to be sleeping. But I always knew that the Lord is in that boat and I always knew that the boat of the Church is not mine, not ours, but is his. And the Lord will not let it sink. He is the one who steers her, of course also through those he has chosen because that is how he wanted it. This was and is a certainty that nothing can tarnish. And that is why my heart today is filled with gratitude to God, because he never left – the whole Church or me – without his consolation, his light or his love.”
Message
There is a message for us all in those words and in the continuing existence of our Church, which has survived so much over the centuries. In our beliefs, fully and truly exercised, lie the answers to all the world’s problems, no matter how insignificant we may seem, or how massive the problems may appear.
Right from the beginning, it was most unlikely, given all the might of the Roman Empire and the power relationships existing in the Holy Land at the time of Christ, that this man from a tiny village, who had lived and worked quietly for 30 years, should have been able, in the space of just three years, to found a global Church of 1.2 billion Catholics and millions of other Christians.
It is even more remarkable when one contemplates the tragedy and the triumph of the crucifixion and the resurrection, when one reads of the wanderings of men like Paul and Timothy, with no communication systems, very little written material, no modern transport, no churches, no liturgy, no vestments and of how they encountered such great hostility, being flogged and imprisoned and even executed for their attempts to spread the words of Christ and to create Christian communities.
As we come to the beginning of the holiday period for so many, could this be a time for each of us to try to identify at least one new action or activity which could make a difference, however small?
Is there something positive which each of us could do to address injustice, loneliness and exclusion? In so doing we may face challenge and even hostility, but that is no reason not to try. If we do, we are told, we will be much blessed.