This Week in Catholicism: Martyrs and Mercy

• Father Jacques Hamel, 85, was celebrating Mass when two men entered his church and murdered him in the name of ISIS. A servant of God, a man who could have retired long ago and not continued the active shepherding of his flock, was killed in cold blood doing sacred work for the people of God. This priest died because of his faith. That makes him a martyr. You know what doesn’t make someone a martyr? Dying in a hail of bullets after cutting the throat of a priest. That’s not dying for your faith. That’s committing a criminal act and getting the reaction a criminal act receives.
• In happier news, Pope Francis is in Krakow today celebrating the 31^st World Youth Day. His message? “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Mt 5:7). It is one of the Beatitudes, the great and golden rules taken from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It is a particularly timely message. In this period of political divisiveness, mercy is hard to come by. Pope Francis reminds us again: If you want to get it, you have to give it. Even when it’s hard.
• The Vatican sent out an Apostolic Constitution on women in contemplative life — i.e. cloistered nuns. These are nuns whose life consists of prayer for others. While the Pope praised the nuns, insisting that “The Church needs you!”, he also warned against “listlessness” and suggested ways to run a tighter ship. I find myself saddened by this. First, with all the problems in the world today (and within the Catholic church), listless nuns do not figure prominently, if at all. That these women, who have devoted their lives to God, need to be chided like children strikes me as the height of patriarchal nonsense. Come on, Francis. You’re better than this. (See above.)
•  The Nuns on the Bus continue their journey apace. Their message? “Mend the Gap” — that is, the economic and social gaps that keep people in positions of inequality. The sisters’ focus is on seven areas: tax justice, living wages, family-friendly workplaces, healthcare, housing, citizenship and democracy. I am rooting hard for these women and their message of inclusiveness and fairness. We seem to have forgotten, as Americans, that “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” (That’s Ben Franklin I’m quoting.) In other words, please try not to listen to people who want to divide us, to cause rifts instead of understanding. As the 2016 election process careens into Fall, it is the best advice I can give.

The We of Us

In Carson McCullers’ play, “A Member of the Wedding,” young Frankie searches for the “we of me” — the people to whom she belongs, who will lift her up and help her soar to her highest heights. Maybe that’s what we’re all looking for. And maybe that’s what makes us break ourselves down into groups by ethnicity, skin color, religion, political affiliation and the like. We all want to find the we of us.

Often in pursuing this goal, we end up hurting others — the key word here being “others.” We reject those who are not the “we of us,” sometimes violently. It is what ISIS seems keen on doing. They do not seem to understand where this will lead them. Even if every “infidel” were wiped from the face of the earth, they would not stop killing; they would merely turn on their own. ISIS, if given what it claims it wants, would eat itself alive.

They are not the only ones. We base our exclusivity, our hatred, on the most random and outward of appearances. I find it worrying that in a season that celebrates the birth of a savior born to a Middle Eastern couple in search of a place to stay, many people are using the actions of a minority to support a decision not to welcome Middle Eastern refugees.

But don’t they see? Origin of birth, differences in faith, variations in skin color — none of these things should exclude belonging. In fact, if you believe that we all originated from a single pair of ancestors — a common Adam and Eve — then we are all related to one another in a very real way. They are we, and we are they. We are the we of us.

The best thing we can do in an often weary and wicked world is to hold out a hand, extend an open palm. Perhaps no one will take it. But maybe he will. And maybe that person will extend her own hand to another. And another, and another and another.

Small lights in the darkness don’t do much. But bring enough of them together and maybe, just maybe, we’ll all see clearly. We belong together. We belong to one another. Nothing — no one — can make that untrue.