Editorial: Forgive us our trespasses
COMMONWEAL Forgive us our trespasses Getting our mea culpas right will be no easy matter. As the millennium turns, plans for a Jubilee year and proposals for debt forgiveness remind us that the...
...He does not speak beyond his own jurisdiction, but he does speak for the whole Catholic church of Milwaukee as well as himself...
...The report has a particular strength in that the man making it, Secretary General Kofi Annan, was also the man in charge of the peacekeeping force...
...In Srebrenica, the Dutch troops literally stood by while the Serbs overran the town and deported its citizens to their horrible fate...
...The second example is remarkable not for its novelty but for its manner and content...
...On Sunday, November 7, to mark the beginning of the Jubilee year, there was a special worship service in Milwaukee gathering Jews and Catholics...
...Yet at this time of the year, we are also reminded of how hope is renewed and long-deferred promises fulfilled in surprising ways...
...The litany-like intonation of his "confession" sets this statement within the context of prayer...
...For even when we get the words right and make the appropriate gestures, we must still share a heartfelt remorse for the sins of the Catholic church, and the sins of those institutions, governments, and bureaucracies that act, or have acted, in our names...
...The massacre was carried out by Serbs in a "safe area" designated by the UN and guarded by Dutch troops serving in the UN peacekeeping force...
...It does not promise, of course, that the UN will do better next time...
...Each Christmas we begin again the work of the generations that have preceded us...
...He acknowledges a communal sense of responsibility...
...Most recently, Cardinal John O'Connor, in a Yom Kippur letter, asked the forgiveness of New York's Jewish community, and the bishops of France and Germany have written letters acknowledging the direct responsibility of their own churches for the H.;'ocaust...
...The constant shelling of Sarajevo made the headlines and provided the pictures, but whole areas of eastern Bosnia were subject to even worse treatment...
...Archbishop Rembert Weakland began by acknowledging "before my fellow Jewish citizens of this city of Milwaukee the wrongs we Catholics have done...
...There have been, over the last three decades, words and gestures of repentance to the Jewish community from popes, beginning with John XXIII, from Vatican congregations, and from cardinals and bishops...
...Some of these statements have helped to heal and some have raised further questions about the church's willingness to come to terms with its responsibility—full and communal responsibility...
...The first is an admission of responsibility by the UN for the massacre of thousands of Muslim men and boys in 1995 in Srebrenica during the war in Bosnia...
...As the millennium turns, plans for a Jubilee year and proposals for debt forgiveness remind us that the times call for a spirit of repentance and reconciliation...
...It is, and was, no secret that the peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, in a misguided policy of maintaining neutrality, treated the Bosnians and the Serbs as equals, and stood by while the Serbs killed Bosnian Muslims...
...Here are two recent, perhaps incomplete, but nonetheless genuine expressions of repentance...
...The richness of this litany was further deepened by the archbishop's request that the Catholics in the congregation intone "Amen" after each of his acknowledgments, "if they feel in conscience they can do so...
...When the UN peacekeeping forces finally began to establish so-called safe areas, a sense of relief was felt by the beleaguered citizens of those towns and cities...
...Among those wrongs to which the archbishop testified was: "We Catholics, by preaching a doctrine that the Jewish people were unfaithful, hypocritical, and God-killers, reduced the human dignity of our Jewish brothers and sisters, and created attitudes that make reprisals against them seem like acts of conformity to God's will...
...As the year 2000 proceeds, we're sure to encounter both heartfelt atonement and self-serving defenses...
...Among these were: "...all the statements that implied that the Jewish people were no longer loved Commonweal 5 December 17, 1999 by God, that God had abandoned them, that they were guilty of deicide, that they were being, as a people, punished by God," and, "all the teaching and preaching in Catholic churches that may have led up to the Holocaust and that may have contributed to the horrors of that attempt at genocide...
...The UN, in a report released on November 15, accepts responsibility for a misguided policy of neutrality, for failing to defend those under its protection, and for refusing the Bosnians the means to defend themselves...
...That the UN, which so often seems overwhelmed by the strictures of diplomatic rules, should admit so openly and so soon how tragically misguided were its policies is new and it is remarkable...
...This included the affirmation "that the God we Catholics worship and that we worship together with the Jewish community will not be divided by our human hatreds, that our God cannot be the source of hatred and harm to others," and "that the God we worship together cannot go back on his word...
...There is nothing like a trend to ruin a good idea, but there is also nothing like a good example to show the way...
...Perhaps Archbishop Weakland's words have carried us a step further...
...That will be the real test of the UN's resolve to avoid the sins of Bosnia...
...The archbishop cited five transgressions for which he asked forgiveness "personally and in the name of the Roman Catholic community I represent...
...But even after that, the UN's senseless policy of neutrality allowed it to negotiate unrealistically with the Serbs bent on slaughter, and it kept UN officials from authorizing a more aggressive response by its troops and from calling for air strikes when they were needed...
...By doing so, I confess that we Catholics contributed to the attitudes that made the Holocaust possible...
...These two very different examples of repentance remind us how difficult it is to say the words and make the gestures that will genuinely express our remorse...
...A covenant made by God will not be a covenant rejected by God...
...Finally, the archbishop acknowledged the need for a firm purpose of amendment...
Vol. 126 • December 1999 • No. 22
