Thinking Anew: Age-old problems in a new year

The main headline on the front page of the first Irish Times of 2017 read: "Police hunt killer after 39 shot dead at Istanbul nightclub". Grim news at the start of a new year to remind us that while the numerals change, we still live in the same troubled world. The old world with a new address.

Martin Luther King had no illusions about humankind’s difficulty creating a better world, one of peace and harmony: “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Even a superficial look at history reveals that no social advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concerns of dedicated individuals. Without persistent effort, time itself becomes an ally of the insurgent and primitive forces of irrational emotionalism and social destruction.”

Selective condemnations

When confronted by terrible events like those murders in Istanbul and similar atrocities elsewhere, we rightly condemn the religious and political ideologies that are used to validate them. But we can be selective in our condemnations – pointing a finger at those we disapprove of while turning a blind eye to the activities of those we identify with. It is not so very long since people on this island were placing bombs without warning in restaurants and bus stations and other public places, believing their actions to be morally and politically justified. Their supporters found these to be acceptable.

In tomorrow’s gospel we read that John the Baptist referred to Jesus as the one “who takes away the sin of the world”. Archbishop William Temple reminds us that it is “sin” and not “sins”. He says: “There is only one sin, and it is characteristic of the whole world. It is the self-will which prefers ‘my’ way to God’s – which puts ‘me’ in the centre where only God is in place . . . The world is one and its evil is one.”

Noted disability campaigner Martin Naughton dies at 62

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Apollo House occupiers to ask court to allow them stay

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This suggests that we are all part of the problem to a greater or lesser degree.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, who died last July, was one of the best-known survivors of the Holocaust. His book Night recounts his time in Auschwitz, Buchenwald and other Nazi concentration camps from 1944 to 1945, and gives a grim account of the torture and murder of men, women and little children. His experience of the "sin of the world" was personal in that his mother and younger sister were killed in the camps where his father died after a year of starvation and beatings. But Wiesel refused to abandon his faith or his belief in God, and instead accused humanity: "How can you believe in man? After all, God did not send down Auschwitz from heaven. Human beings did it. And most of them were cultured, educated. The [Nazis] were led by people with college degrees, some of them with doctoral degrees."

Human dilemma

In his book

With Open Heart

, Michel Quoist, suggests there is only one solution to this human dilemma: “Just as it was thought that developing science and technology would bring happiness and progress, there are people today who think that building just, social, economic and political structures will bring happiness and progress. It is true that better conditions help, but it’s illusory to believe that they alone are sufficient. Man doesn’t change anything – unless man himself takes part in these changes for himself and his brothers. What changes him then is his commitment, his dedication to others. It becomes a spiritual mission at the core of which the believer recognises the presence of God.”

Elie Wiesel tells of a visit he received in his later years from his young grandson, Elijah, while in hospital recovering from surgery. He was in great pain, and the child suddenly said to him: “Grandpa, I know you suffered a lot, and you have great pain but you know how much I love you. Tell me, if I loved you more, would you suffer less?” A song gives the Christian answer: Love changes everything. And that’s what’s missing in so many places this and every new year.