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A Theological Reflection on September 11, 2001
By mission and mandate Woodstock was founded to do "theological reflection on the human problems of today," in the words of our late beloved General Superior Father Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Father James Connor, S.J., director of the Woodstock Center invited three people to share with us their theological reflections on the terrorist attacks of September 11. Each of our contributors -- Professor Maysam al Faruqi, Father Brian O. McDermott, S.J., and Father Drew Christiansen, S.J. -- are identified prior to their comments below. They were chosen from among a variety of people we discussed because of their varied experience and backgrounds, but their shared competence and facility with "theological reflection." All are theologians with rich life-experience. We are especially grateful to Dr. Maysam al Faruqi for sharing so freely a perspective that none of us at Woodstock could have offered. She can speak frankly and we can hear her attentively because she is so deeply devoted to the Society of Jesus, its mission, and many of its members.
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A BIBLIOGRAPHY ON ISLAM, DIALOGUE, AND VIOLENCE AND PEACEMAKING IN RELIGIONprepared by James D. Redington, S.J. and Drew Christiansen, S.J.
Islam: The Straight Path, by John L. Esposito (3rd ed., Oxford U. Press, 1998). Readable, reliable, and widely used introduction by the director of Georgetown University's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Islam and Politics, by John L. Esposito (4th ed., Syracuse U. Press, 1998). Perhaps still more relevant for understanding September 11. Guidelines for Dialogue between Christians and Muslims, by Maurice Borrmans (Paulist, 1981). Although outdated on certain matters (e.g., jihad), simply masterful in the quality and conciseness of its information, and in its useful advice. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, by Mark Juergensmeyer (Berkeley, U. of California, 2000). An examination of the cultures and the logic of religious violence based on two decades of interviews. The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence and Reconciliation, by R. Scott Appleby (Lanham, Md.: Rowman, Littlefield, 2000). Surveys both religiously motivated violence and religious peacemaking. The Forgiveness Factor: Stories of Hope in a World of Conflict, by Michael Henderson (London: Grosvenor, 1996). Examines the role of forgiveness in civil and international conflict from the post-World War II period through the end of apartheid in South Africa, treating both official efforts and the work of citizen diplomats. Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence and Peacemaking, by Marc Gopin (Oxford, 2000). Explores the failure of modern culture to understand religiously motivated violence with special emphasis on Jewish and Mennonite approaches. |
Maysam al Faruqi is an visiting assistant professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University. She holds a B.A. in economics from the American University of Beirut, a B.A. in anthropology from St. Joseph University in Beirut and a Ph.D. in Islamic studies from Temple University. Her specialization is in Islamic law, Islamic theology, and Qur'anic studies.
Connor: What have you found the Muslim reaction to the terrorist attack of September to be?
al Faruqi: Muslims around the world are horrified. People who perpetrate a crime like this must be brought to justice. Such acts should not be tolerated. But the most terrifying part is that people who do such acts are not acting in a human way anymore. To be able to willingly take innocent people to their death is unfathomable; one has to become inhuman. And something drives people to this inhuman level. Not to be able to realize that such an act is inhuman is the worst part, the total destruction of what is human in us. And this must be addressed. Something leads people to become inhuman.
Connor: What is it that is so frustrating to these people?
al Faruqi: They have given a list of their grievances: the sanctions against Iraq which have resulted in the deaths in hundreds of thousands of civilians, the dispossession and killings of Palestinians who have been kept in refugee camps, more like concentration camps, for 50 years where they are born, live, and die without any hope of a normal life or the possibility to return to their homes and their lands. They also have cited the presence of the U.S. troops in Arabia, which is seen as the symbol of the failure of Muslims to defend themselves, their causes and their holiest land; it is the symbol of their failure to take their fate and their destiny in their own hands. This has been building up since colonialism broke up the traditional fabric of Muslim society and created a myriad of nation-states, a political structure that is not part of Islamic ideology; current Western aid to some governments and intervention in the Muslim world against people who are abused and dispossessed is seen as a continuation of this colonialism.
Connor: Are you referring to U.S. support of Israel?
al Faruqi: Primarily, yes. It is not only Israel, but it is a major factor. Israel was created on Palestinian land; the majority in Palestine were not the immigrant Zionists from Europe, they were Muslim and Christian Palestinians who owned 90 percent of the land. Israel's militia drove out through massacres or intimidation the Palestinian people who were made into refugees. On the basis of international law, numerous U.N. resolutions have demanded the return of the refugees. In fact, Israel was accepted into the United Nations on the condition that it would allow the refugees back. It accepted that condition in order to become a member, but it never fulfilled it. Strictly speaking, its membership in the United Nations is not valid. And Muslims around the world are asking how it is that international law, and U.N. resolutions can be so flagrantly dismissed. The United States keeps vetoing any resolution from the United Nations addressing the matter, and in most cases, it is the only U.N. member siding with Israel against practically the whole world. In this way, and in providing financial and military support to Israel, it becomes responsible in the eyes of the Muslims for what Israel is doing. Israel perpetrated and still perpetrates acts of terror, and those who help it are seen to be as guilty as Israel itself is. This last summer, al Jazeera television asked its viewers whether the United States or Israel were responsible for the current situation in Palestine, and 94% of 200,000 viewers polled pointed to the United States.
Connor: Do Muslims see the United States as aligned with others than Israelis in the Middle East?
al Faruqi: There is a general perception that the United States preaches democracy but sides with and supports particularly distasteful dictatorships for its own interests. The United States supported Iraq, even while Saddam Hussein was conducting mass murders of the Kurds, because at that time, he was attacking Iran, and that was in the interests of the United States. Muslims are convinced that if it weren't for oil, the United States would have little interest in the region, and that all of its policies are directed towards satisfying its own interests, even if these contradict the concepts of democracy or human rights.
Connor: Is this a widespread perception?
al Faruqi: It is practically the only perception in the Muslim world. It is also shared of course by non-Muslims in the Muslim world, such as Christians in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. It breeds tremendous anger and resentment; it is a slow poison that has been accumulating over years and years, as the Muslims witness the horrors of Bosnia, Chechnya, Palestine, again and again. Consider the horror and anger that we here in the United States felt when we witnessed the atrocities of September 11. The Muslim world has been witnessing such horrors again and again. The massacres of the Bosnians, the massacres of the refugees at Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon, the daily killings of unarmed civilians and children in Palestine, the bulldozing of their homes; this is what you see on television in the Muslim world every day. Imagine if one were to witness September 11 again and again - God forbid. But this is what the Muslims witness and they do not see the United States clamoring for justice and international law. Muslim governments have been warning of this and begging the United States to take a more balanced approach in international conflicts.
Connor: So it is U.S. policies that are frustrating people?
al Faruqi: Yes. The anger is very deeply rooted. Mind you, it is not that Muslims hate Americans or for that matter, Swedes, or the Chinese. They hate the foreign policy of the U.S. government. Some fanatical groups are going to then take this to the extreme. They will point out that the United States does evil, and therefore stands for evil. And then they will claim that to force the United States to stop its policy, they can commit acts of terror. That's where they part company with the majority of the Muslims who do not accept that the end justifies the means; practically all Muslims condemn U.S. foreign policy, but they maintain that no act of terror can ever be justified. But these Muslims will also say that ends never justify the means and acts of terror may not be tolerated in the case of Bosnia, or in the case of the shootings by Israeli soldiers of three and four-year-old children in Palestine, and not just in the case of the September 11 acts of terror.
Connor: But will the Taliban ever let up - even if after careful examination and consultation U.S. foreign policy is revised? Or are the Taliban, by definition, terrorist fighters?
al Faruqi: The Taliban grew up in refugee camps in Pakistan, when Afghanistan was fighting the invasion of the Soviet Union. They have witnessed only extreme conditions, and their understanding of Islam comes from their traditions, not from Islamic law and theology. They and other extremists from other parts of the Muslim world paint the world in black and white. The United States does evil, it must be all evil. It is an ideology that comes from frustration and ignorance. But years of frustration, such as being forced to live in refugee camps, lead to despair, to acts of despair, and to a very distorted view of the world.
Connor: What is a jihad? And what warrants it?
al Faruqi: "Jihad" means literally to strive in the cause of God. Anything that is done for God's cause-the public good, the service of others, is considered a jihad. Anything that is not done for one's own self interest. Muslims often use the word "jihad" in the same way you would use the word "crusade" against evil or crusade against cancer or the like.
Connor: Jihad as a crusade against cancer? You really would say that?
al Faruqi: Yes. And dying in that process would make one automatically a "shaheed." This word is usually translated as "martyr" but it is not exactly that. It is anyone who dies serving something greater than herself or her own purposes. One can become a shaheed if one dies while building a mosque, or a public hospice. Another expression of jihad is defending one's country, because accepting to risk one's life to defend one's people is fighting for the greater good. So jihad has a broad range of meanings, including defending oneself in a just war.
Connor: Is there a just war theory in Islam? And, if so, do the Taliban embrace it?
al Faruqi: Just war theory is a very large field in Islamic law. For instance, one may not take hostages, and the killing of civilians is prohibited even in battle. The justification that a nation-state may give for killings such as in Hiroshima or Nagasaki in order to win a war is absolutely rejected in the Islamic theory of jihad. Muslims did not always abide by their law, but it is to their credit that they mostly did so. After all you do not see them carrying out holocausts or pogroms anytime during their history. They have a very tolerant history, of which they are rightly proud. And that makes them all the more horrified when people like the Taliban or other Muslims act against their religion and their heritage in such a flagrant and terrible way.
Connor: We are all in a precarious situation right now, if I hear you correctly. On the one hand, most of the Arab and Muslim world is deeply resentful of and angry at the United States. On the other hand, most of the Muslim world disagrees with the terrorism of the Taliban, but sympathize with their criticism of U.S. foreign policy and behavior. Is there something that the religious communities should do to head off the worst possible scenario here?
al Faruqi: I've always felt that religious communities should be doing much more because they are the ones who have a much more balanced perspective of things and should act on it. We should be involved in conflict resolution. There is general agreement in the religious communities about basic rights, and basic truths, and basic justice, but I don't think we are doing nearly enough.
Connor: Do Muslims - do you - agree with the statement of principles developed by the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington?
al Faruqi: Absolutely. I can't think of any Muslims who could possibly disagree with those principles and the universal values they express. It is on the basis of principles like these that we need to form a partnership of all the religious traditions to secure a just social realm, a just economic realm, and a just political realm. Partnership and cooperation is the one way to bring this about. It cannot be done by just one religion; it has to be done by all. This kind of partnership is very clearly enunciated in the Koran.
Connor: There has to be common understanding leading to common action if ever you hope to have a just social, political, and economic order. Is that it?
al Faruqi: Exactly. And the religions can greatly assist nation-states, who tend to focus narrowly on national self-interest - which in the long run can be self-defeating, as we are seeing. Religion, on the contrary, is universal by definition. Whatever your religion, you have God, and God is the creator of all of humanity. Religion creates a common bond and mandates that you accept all others. Religion is socially revolutionary. It is invariably a "liberation" theology - liberation from nationalistic or other self-interest.
Connor: So we need to go much deeper than the face value actions themselves, to underlying motives.
al Faruqi: Yes. If we say we want justice and democracy, it is not enough simply to pursue terrorists. We need to address the underlying causes that lead people to inhuman behavior. And we must truly be committed to justice and democracy everywhere, not only when it is in our interest. Religious concern for justice, peace, and prosperity for all supports such an effort, and this is the responsibility of people of faith and the challenge to which they must rise.
Connor: So religion and the religions might open the way to a broader examination of interests and policies?
al Faruqi: Absolutely. I should mention that Muslims make a clear distinction between Zionism and Judaism. Judaism is a universal religion; for the Muslims, God says in the Koran "I revealed the Torah." And Muslims are required to revere all of God's prophets and the religions of the Book (Judaism and Christianity). Zionism on the other hand is a secular political ideology seeking to create a state to serve an ethnic entity by depriving Palestinians of land that belongs to them. Of course, many Jews oppose this.
I think of the beautiful writings of Marc Ellis, for example. You cannot use Judaism to justify acts of killing and stealing. So if Jews demand that the moral law be served, that refugees be returned to their homes, they would then honor their commitment to God and to the concept of being chosen to lead by moral example. It is Judaism that can rectify the situation in Israel. The Taliban have been maintaining in recent interviews that acts like those of September 11 are not allowed; they have to do so, because Muslims will not tolerate such a claim in the name of Islam, and because it is clear that Islam does not allow for anything like that. So it is Islam (and not national self-interest) that can stop such claims and such acts. The same goes for Christianity and its responsibility to the community, which the Church has been carrying in the Western world.
Muslims, Christians, and Jews may commit atrocities; but their faiths demand that they denounce these actions and live up to their universal ideals. Only universal faiths put such universal demands on their followers because they are committed by definition to divine, universal values. By contrast, nations, tribes, and races define themselves only on their own terms; ultimately, they can only demand self-interest. Only universal religions committed to a universal God who speaks in universal values can bring about the understanding of, and therefore the commitment to, universal peace and justice.
Brian O. McDermott, S.J., is presently the rector of the Jesuit Community at Georgetown University and professorial lecturer in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University. From 1973 to 2000 he taught systematic theology at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is a Woodstock board member.
Connor: Brian, what does a Christian theologian think and have to say about our current situation?
McDermott: I think one of my strongest hopes is that we not allow ourselves to see ourselves simply as "victim." That could too easily translate into seeing ourselves simply as "just avengers." And there is a subtle way in which that blocks us from the willingness to be open to take realistic stock of our own situation and ourselves. And that, in turn, blocks what I think is a God-given opportunity for growth as individuals and as a people.
Connor: What do you mean about the downside of seeing ourselves as "victims"?
McDermott: I mean we can be so overwhelmed by the horror and the magnitude of this terrorist strike, that we take all of our "signals" from what they did to us. That would be seeing myself almost solely as "victim." In that case, my identity - the way I see myself and behave - comes from what these other people have done to me. And out of that self-identity I go on to relate to them accordingly. So, if I am the victim, then they are "the persecutor." Pure and simple in both cases. And I have allowed them to lock me into the predictable pattern of behaviors that invariably play out in such a relationship. It's a kind of prison that I have allowed them to lock me into. Of course, we must acknowledge the horrendous crimes and seek justice, but that's different from accepting my identity as "victim."
Connor: In that case you'd be doubly "victimized," right?
McDermott: Exactly. The terrorists would have not only taken the lives of our loved ones, destroyed our property, weakened our economy, and created continuing anxiety, but also locked us and our self-identity into what they think of us, and what they are doing to us. We would have let them do this.
Connor: But don't we overcome that possibility by going on the offensive aggressively against them?
McDermott: No, just the opposite. That's feeding right into the "victim identity" they dictate to us. We still remain identified in our own mind as "the offended one, the victim." And they remain identified, to us, as the "offender or enemy."
Connor: So, the big question is how can we be angry with terrorists and want justice done to them, but still remain free to work out our own identity in this relationship?
McDermott: Precisely. The question, put in other words, is how, and even whether, we can find a position from which to look at ourselves with objectivity in our relationship with other people. That relationship would include how they are affecting us, and how we are affecting them.
Connor: So you think we need to take time for some careful reflection?
McDermott: I think it's terribly important for us right now. As a people we have done wonderfully so far in face of this terrible attack. The spirituality we are living right now is helping us to find some grounding and give us some peace in the midst of shock and heartbreak. And that's good and necessary. Realizing our vulnerability and that we're not as safe as we once thought has brought us to entrust ourselves and our loved ones to God in a much deeper way. But I think we are being called beyond that stage to take a deeper look at our relationships with others in the world to get beneath the "victim - offender" image.
Connor: What do you think we would see if we did that? Any suggestions?
McDermott: I'll try. I'd say, first, that ours is an acquisitive culture. There's no denying that we have a fascination with things, with having things, not just for convenience and comfort, but for prestige and position. We rank one another on how much we earn and what we have. That's the popular measure of success. And we are passionately protective of this life-style.
Part of protecting this life-style is our insistence on public policies that continue to support it. Many people around the world say that our interest in the Middle East is based solely on our desire to acquire and protect oil supplies for the United States. So, on that basis, we choose some people to be our "friends," while others are ignored, even in their need.
Related to this is the often-noted perception that the United States is disposed to "go it alone." We decide unilaterally what treaties we'll observe. It all depends on our perception of what's good for our country. Others see this as quite aggressive and arrogant.
Connor: Do you believe all these criticisms people are making about us?
McDermott: What I believe is not the point. The point I'm making is that we need to acknowledge that many others are saying these things and be open to ask, "Why are they saying this?" "Is there any truth to what they are saying?" "Are there some underlying facts here - however erroneous their interpretation might be?" These people, and some are our "friends," may be giving us information that we need to know in order to re-examine our priorities and policies for the sake of improving the whole situation.
Connor: What do you think we need to do to become more open to hear what people are saying?
McDermott: You opened this interview by asking me what I thought as a Christian theologian. So, I'll answer this question as a Christian and be speaking especially to my fellow Christians - though I hope others will find what I say helpful.
The Christian faith is rooted in Christ crucified and risen. He was a victim of hostility and hatred. He died, not retaliating, not denouncing, but forgiving. In doing so, he didn't condone injustice or violence. He brought their mechanisms into the light and held them up for all to see. We today take our life-stance on the position we take on Jesus' death. At heart, it is a stance regarding two competing value systems. The first system values acquisitiveness and destructive rivalry as what identifies us as a "community" - "us" over and against "them." The other values love and forgiveness as the source of community. In the former case, the world and life itself are seen as a "zero-sum game:" what you have I lack, so it's you against me, and vice versa, in destructive competition. In the latter case, in the option for love and forgiveness, there is no such limiting factor, because love grows in the giving. Individuals don't "acquire" love, as if it were a piece of jewelry. We share love, giving and receiving it, one to and from the other. And, of its very nature, it bonds us, it does not divide us. Love is a relational reality. It is a "we" that results, not an "us versus them." James Alison develops this insight beautifully, by the way, in his book, The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin through Easter Eyes, (Crossroad, NY, 1998). In this fine work Alison explores how Jesus' life and ministry were characterized by the "intelligence of the victim," what I would call the wisdom of the victim, without letting his identity come from the victimizer; it always came to Jesus from his Father in the power of the Spirit.
Connor: Love bonds, of course, and that's consoling. But you mentioned the crucifixion and its violence. That sounds divisive to me.
McDermott: To step forward and offer love and forgiveness to others, especially long-standing rivals, can be a high risk venture. This "other" may see life and the world as a "zero-sum" game of acquisition and destructive competition which require aggressiveness. In that case, an overture of forgiveness and reconciliation might well arouse wariness and defensiveness and lead to further aggression.
In that event, we have every right to self-defense, but that is simply a "holding operation" against the day when we can reach out again in forgiving reconciliation. Even in our self-defense, even in a legitimate seeking for justice, we are striving to love the "other" even if that striving requires our dying. And we see that dying as simultaneously rising. In Jesus' death we see how an expression of total love bursts all the boundaries of time and space that human bodiliness inevitably includes. To die as Jesus did is resurrection. And since love is bonding and invites communion, Jesus' death-unto-life is the life of all who believe in him.
Connor: So that gets us back to the "where do I locate my identity" question.
McDermott: In the experience of God's love, I come to realize that my identity does not come from what people do to me or think of me. There is a deeper ground of my identity. It is the Christ-life. Who gives us our identity? The risen Christ in whom we live. And this begins to mean something in our practice of the Ignatian "examination of consciousness," in our prayer, and in the attentive reflection we give to our relationships. From God's confirming love, as we grow to experience it, we get the freedom to look at our situation from a perspective far beyond "what they are doing to us as victims."
As I mentioned earlier, this, I think, is the next stage that our spiritual journey has to take. It is easier said than done, of course. I find it very hard to do this consistently. But it is the grace we have to pray for, because it is the way Jesus lays out for us. It is the only way to peace, and freedom, and joy for all of us.
Drew Christiansen, S.J., is a senior fellow at Woodstock where he directs the International Visiting Fellows program. He is the former director of the Office of International Justice and Peace at the U.S. Catholic Conference, where he also acted as policy advisor for the Middle East.
Connor: Drew, how would you characterize the reactions of people to recent events?
Christiansen: There were lots of emotions: grief, anger, fear, vengeance perhaps, and even survivor guilt, but they were held and wrapped in a deeper emotion, I think. And that was a sense of shock at our vulnerability, which left us mute, speechless. And in this vulnerability people became conscious of their contingency and creatureliness. Thrown back on our heels, down on our knees, Americans recognized in their silence their position before God. Any pretensions to being "numero uno" fell away. It brought us to a very realistic humility. I found it a profoundly religious moment, like none I remember in my lifetime.
Connor: That came through in the variety of religious services that were held.
Christiansen: Very much so. I think what's amazed me most about these last couple of weeks has been the prayerfulness of the American people. It has been deeper than a spontaneous reaction to death and destruction. It has the potential to sift and purge the American spirit as Abraham Lincoln understood the Union to be tried by the fire of the Civil War.
Connor: You see a comparison between Lincoln and us, the Civil War and this terrorist tragedy?
Christiansen: Yes. I was reminded of it when I heard President Bush's excellent remarks at the prayer service at the National Cathedral. He said: "God's signs are not always the ones we look for; we learn in tragedy that His purposes are not always our own . . . " President Bush reminded me of President Lincoln and his struggle to find meaning, to find God's will, in the massive suffering and death of the Civil War. Look at Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, where he reflects on the suffering brought on by the Civil War. It is worth quoting at some length:
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in the living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so it still must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
No president has done a theological reflection on the events of his tenure as solemn, truthful, and repentant as Lincoln did.
Connor: Is our suffering in this attack a result of wrong-doing on our part? Is that the point of this comparison?
Christiansen: From a Christian point of view, the puncturing of our psychological invulnerability is a spiritual gain, because it makes us aware of our true status as creatures before God. But it must be followed by repentance for our indifference to the Third World as Pope John Paul II has often admonished us. It is simply undeniable that U.S. policies contribute to the resentments that lie behind terrorist acts. To understand is not to pardon these horrendous acts. It will, however, help prevent terror in the future.
Reflection on the sources of terrorism is terribly important these days. Part of the patience that we need, the patience that the president keeps calling for, has to do particularly with assessing the situation in the Middle East and Central Asia. The cultural mix there is very complex. It's going to take a long time to sort things out. The resentments are not just against the United States. There are lots of resentments against the poverty people live in. There are resentments against the corruption of their own societies. There are resentments against oppression by their own governments. And it's in that context that we will be making policy. To choose and pursue wise policy under these circumstances is very difficult. Wisdom comes from careful reflection which disposes us to receive the Wisdom only God can give.
Let me offer a few texts that may serve as a context for doing theological reflection on the events of these days, and the way we experience and judge them. I will mention four in particular:
1. Time and again, Pope John Paul II has appealed to the story of the rich man and Lazarus to point to the indifference of the West to the suffering in the Third World. For the Holy Father, that story is the paradigmatic theological reflection on the state of the world today. We should read and re-read that parable prayerfully in Luke's Gospel, 16: 19 - 31.
2. Writing of the Gulf War in 1991, Pope John Paul II wrote, "It must not be forgotten that at the root of war there are usually real and serious grievances: injustices suffered, legitimate aspirations frustrated, poverty, and the exploitation of multitudes of desperate people who see no real possibility of improving their lot by peaceful means." (Centesimus annus no. 52) In that context, the pope called for a new concerted worldwide campaign for development. For the United States this means a new engagement in the world including that task which so worries us, nation-building.
3. In 1993 the American bishops wrote, "Moral reflection on the use of force calls for a spirit of moderation rare in contemporary political culture. The increasing violence of our society, its growing insensitivity to the sacredness of life, and the glorification of the technology of destruction in popular culture could inevitably impair our society's ability to apply just-war criteria honestly and effectively in time of crisis." We need to apply the just war tradition in a disciplined way to this struggle, not make it an excuse to do anything and everything.
4. The fourth text is in marble not on paper, and it is, for me, the most powerful of all. It is the "Pietà" of Michelangelo, to your right as you enter St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. In their reflections on violence and the use of force, on loss of loved ones and feelings of anger, I would invite people to look at the "Pietà," at Mary holding her dead son on her knees. I would ask people to be there with Mary, and to bring their grief and their outrage to Jesus and Mary beneath the cross - understanding that that is what evil does even to the holiest among us. And I would ask them to make what judgments they will, what decisions they will, in the light of that experience.
I hope these thoughts help others in their work of "theological
reflection on the human problems of today."