Gianfranco Testa
Forgiveness, an Intelligent Answer

---

1. The social, political global project is in crisis. The gap between rich and poor widens everyday and worrying statistics show the absolute poverty of millions and millions of human beings. The finances, the economy (and now they are talking about the free market) and the sale of arms are harmful mechanisms that provoke a greater imbalance than worldwide terrorism.
   Violence is one indication of crisis, maybe it is the most visible form with the worst consequences, such as marginalization, rejection, social injustice, both at the national and international levels, lack of solidarity, hunger, disease, misery and the lack of prospects and hope.
   We feel helpless in the face of a legitimate structure of a formal, exclusive democracy that neglects those who have fallen by the wayside on the road from Jerusalem to Jerico.
   Politics have little or nothing to do with the Samaritan, much less with the Good Samaritan.
   Religious life seems to prefer the private security of its own finality. Revolution has gone out of fashion after so many attempts to change reality. The reason given is that man needs to be changed before the structures.
   This leads to the second aspect.

 

2. The crisis also affects the social and political aspects (we are not capable of changing the world and history even though we affirm that the Christian is the one who shapes history). At the same time we must also admit that we are not capable of changing ourselves, again and again we show the same weaknesses, defects and sins.
   If Liberation Theology burdened us with too great a compromise, the exacting morality expected of us by the Catholic Church and the evangelical groups has created a dichotomy between life and faith. People have learned to solve their problems in their own way, but with anxiety and difficulty.
   Sexual morality, bioethics, the new means of genetic manipulation…. Not everything can be solved person to person, in a purely individualistic way.
   We feel part of a community, which has a language and views that will show us the way forward, a possibility somewhere. The practice of confession or examination of conscience will make us consider both sides of the question, keeping in mind what the Church says. All the same….

 

Searching for answers

The search for spirituality, religiosity, not necessarily Catholic or Christian, and the need to find answers to the crisis of values, makes us look at the great design of solidarity, peace, coexistence between peoples and cultures. However all of this is complicated by misunderstanding, non acceptance, and limits, not so much in a geographical, but in an emotional, closed and non-traversable, sense.
Therefore it is necessary to find another element that can underpin the drawing up of new rules for the game of life. This element, I believe, is forgiveness. In a world that is divided for lots of reasons: political, social, ideological … in a fragmented society, in communities that nourish old grudges or resentment, forgiveness may sooth the situation, ease the tension, and offer new approaches. To forgive does not mean to accept the unacceptable; nor to overlook injustices, nor to submit to the will of another.
Nor is forgiveness to be identified with actions, deeds, or duties one has to do.… Forgiveness is an option, an attitude a person adopts in order not to prolong a strained situation that prevents one from being happy, free and aware of the reality.
Today we are asked to forgive over and over again because the reality makes us suffer, and we are also called to forgive ourselves often because we discover many wounds and inconsistencies in our lives. To forgive is not plunge the knife deeper into the wound which has hurt us so much, but to heal the wound; without a doubt the wound will leave a mar
k, a scar, but that will not make us suffer.
One could give many examples:- A little girl who has been raped and does not know how to interiorise the situation will always loathe men (they are all the same…); the father who cannot forget the violent death of a son (in a car crash or from social or political violence) will forget the other members of the family (because he is traumatized).

2. The first important affirmation: to forgive is not to forget. A mother cannot forget her husband or son’s suffering. We cannot, must not, forget the massacre of the children in Russia or what happens around us. One famous song which we sometimes sing in church says: “I only ask, God, that injustice, that war … will not make me indifferent”. Forgiving does not mean forgetting but rather looking at things in a different perspective. And this cannot be achieved in an automatic way, but by continual practice.

The causes of violence

A difficult situation such as an act of violence, a misunderstanding, a badly solved conflict, etc., can cause different reactions. What are these reactions? And as they go, are they good or bad?
Some are good, others raise difficulties in communication but they cannot be judged on their own. Reactions of anger, sadness, pain, or joy are justified and must be accepted. The problem arises when the person is wrapped in his /her reactions or emotions, because rage, anguish or even joy without a reason can change the way a person is. Today without doubt, violence is one of the realities that brings affliction, sadness and anger. Terrorism, the wars shown on television and the subsequent indifference affect each person’s way of life.
However, we experience other kinds of violence daily that affect the home, the family, the religious community, in relation to work and relationships. Even an invisible form of violence can upset the home, or the people across the street, by failing to make or respond to a gesture of greeting.

3. If we stop to think we realize that organized violence, the violence caused by war and by resistance, claims numerous victims, but less than those who die daily due to over-speeding, or by failing to obey the Highway Code, or from the intentional poisoning by the big industries, and the incapacity to coexist, etc.
An amateur statistician reported that organized violence, even in countries engaged in civil war, like Columbia, does not account for more than 15-20 per cent of the death toll; the others are victims of societal violence. So that, were the war to end tomorrow, there would still be a high number of casualties to deal with.

What are the causes of violence?

Today, aside from the objective causes, like the unfair distribution of goods, marginalisation, exploitation, etc., over which we have little control, but there are other causes in our control which we call subjective causes.
The first is the inability to handle our own emotions. We are easily dominated by anger, and we get carried away by antipathy, hostility, rivalry with another person. For example, a close relationship or a situation we see on television immediately makes us react with a revengeful attitude or rejection and we remember and nourish it for several days.
It is not easy to maintain an even mental and emotional balance in the face of the destruction of the Twin Towers, or the death of a peacemaker such as Enzo Baldoni, or the kidnapping and murder of Ossezia’s sons. Sometimes, months or years later, we feel the same strong emotion. We are not responsible for the anger we feel, but for the rage that we keep and brood over.
Sometimes, a strong emotion, even in short seconds, can condemn a life to prison or to limitless suffering.
Second, another cause of violence depends upon a widespread mentality: we believe that violence is normal. The theories of Darwin and Freud have made us think that in life’s struggle, the strongest survive. We must be strong (or more aggressive) in order to survive. Today many anthropologists doubt this belief. In the caves, where our ancestors lived, not only stones for defence or attack have been found, but also the remains of food brought probably from other places; the sign of interdependence in order to survive. Today, we can say that survival was more the result of solidarity than of force. This theme deserves deeper study because it might help to base humanity’s future on a different foundation from the actual confrontation of arms. Peace is based on solidarity, interaction and not on preventive wars.
The third cause of violence, apart from the limited ability to control our emotions and the belief that the use of force is inevitable, consists in the abundance of instigators and the lack of mediators. Violence is a spectacle, whether in the street or on television. Lasting peace certainly demands more intelligence than violence, maybe peacemakers are fewer and less enterprising than fighters. When a situation demands a solution, it is quicker to act than to search for an alternative. It was clear that Saddam Hussein was a problem for humanity in general. Finding a solution that would not have affected the Iraqi People nor involved the use of arms needed time, imagination and invention. The simplest solution was the one Alexander employed when, instead of undoing the Gordian knot, he cut it with his sword.
The same lesson, under the pressure of competition, goes for education in Catholic Colleges, which focus more on competition than service, more on confrontation than mediation.

4. The irrationality of forgiveness

Were somebody to ask us to love our enemies, to do good to those who have hurt us, we would certainly feel these demands to be unreasonable. There is no reason why we should love or forgive our enemies.
However, violence is also unreasonable. I am referring to what happened in Columbia, as an example.
In a run-down apartment, where a group of displaced children and young people were collected on account of the war, there was a boy, who told me one day how he was forced to watch while the paramilitary sliced his uncle with a motor-saw. It is unreasonable to kill someone in this manner and unreasonable to oblige a minor to watch this inhuman act done to a relation.
In another place the paramilitary behaved in a similar way to quell the partisans gathered in the town. To demonstrate that it is dangerous to treat the guerrillas in a friendly way, after delivering a speech, the called a girl, chosen at random, to go into the middle of the circle and, in front of everybody, choked her to death.
An unreasonable act.
Forgiveness is also unreasonable, but it deals with constructive unreasonableness in the face of destructive unreasonableness.
Besides it deals with unreasonable intelligence.
Shakespeare in one of his works said that to bear a grudge is like taking poison in the hope the other person will die. Not to take poison is more intelligent than taking it, above all if we want to stop harming ourselves.

The benefit of forgiveness

There are many advantages to forgiveness, especially if compared with wrath.
At the physical level rage is responsible for over a hundred illnesses, coupled with heart problems, hypertension, muscle pain, stress, insomnia and poor digestion. It is evident that forgiveness brings about a radical change at the physical level with a great improvement in health.

5. The most obvious and irrefutable proof is one’s budget, which shows less expenditure on medicine, on psychologists and treatment.
On the intellectual level, forgiveness offers a greater balance in judging situations with enlightened principles, serenity and clarity.
On the emotional level the benefit is serenity, tranquillity, the capacity to be affectionate, friendly and outgoing. One feels much better, because one was able to overcome the temptation to retaliate, because of the manner in relating to others especially in difficult moments.
The change in behaviour was achieved because forgiveness is an attitude more than an isolated action; it means acquiring a calm attitude open to the future.
It is clear that the major gain is at the religious and spiritual level. Forgiveness is at the heart of Christian experience. Jesus came to reconcile us to the Father and among ourselves and he made us ministers and ambassadors of Reconciliation. Only the one who forgives is forgiven. Forgiveness makes us similar to the perfect Father who makes the sun to shine on all, good and bad, and sends rain over the field of the just and unjust alike.
The community changes and stops being simply a place of co-existence or of fellowship, and is transformed into an experience of communion.

And, now we come to the political advantage.

If, today, there is a prophet among us he will discover the spirit of terrorism.
When the biblical Hebrew people realized they had no land, no temple, priest, nor king … they had the guts to question why.
What will be our question now?
When we feel weak in our pride, fragile and at the mercy of an unknown enemy, we must believe in ourselves, not only pre-occupied with profound questions.
In the religious sphere we meet the first cause in abandoning God, not simply in an atheist sense; we have also abandoned the Church, God’s project, the community project and life, to shut ourselves in a ghetto. What can make us feel better than the only saving truth and the ultimate formula to solve the problems.
In the economic field, it is clear that the exploitation of the goods of the Earth (among them the most attractive is oil), unfair trade, the domination of finance, the exportation and imposition of cultural models and policies that must not leave us indifferent to the great cultures and nations.
We have levelled cultures by a diverse concept of life, death and interpersonal relationships.
Terrorism is not acceptable, but we must all be lifted up, not only the enlightened spirits, the prophets whom we have admired, and lost sight of.
We cannot forgive the method, oh, if only we could succeed in discovering some reason. This is the first step towards building a reconciled world.
The prophets bewailed their people’s misfortunes, but they tried to understand the reasons and obeyed the Lord’s rod that could change the will of King Xerses and of Cyrus.

Pardon and Reconciliation

It is important to distinguish between the concepts of forgiveness and reconciliation. In ecclesiastical language they merge and this does not help.
One speaks simultaneously about the Sacrament of Forgiveness or of Reconciliation in order, at one stroke, to attain the maximum. However it is better to distinguish between the two elements.
Forgiveness is a process that one lives interiorly, it is an interior healing, that does not require the presence of, or relationship with, another person. And this will give a feeling of great tranquillity. Sometimes we feel that we have truly forgiven, but we do not have the strength or ability to approach the other person, we have not found the opportunity, the right moment. Do not worry. It is true forgiveness. I reconstruct interiorly the image of the person, the enemy who offended me, hurt me many times, whom I need to remove from myself, in order to become a simple human being.
Forgiveness is to make the enemy human. If we have faith, we can think that God loves him/her despite any defects. If God loves him as he is, why am I not able to love him as well?
Reconciliation is a different process: it demands the re-composition of the relationship with the other person or people.
We can say that if forgiveness is a psychological process, reconciliation is a sociological one. It is clear, then, that there is such a thing as, interpersonal, social or communitarian and political, reconciliation.
In this last type we know the historical examples, such as the reconciliation in: South Africa, El Salvador, Mozambique. Constructive reconciliation is still awaited in the Balcans, the Middle East, Cyprus, Ireland and in the African Nations of the Great Lakes Region.
Reconciliation cannot be a monologue; it must be built by both parties in a process that can be beneficial to all, where all, the two parties or realities, will fill responsible leading roles.
Therefore, there can be a process of forgiveness without reconciliation, but there can never be a true process of reconciliation without forgiveness.
It is evident that a fragile political reconciliation based on amnesty or pardon, but without the participation of the interested party has no future. We have observed this in Chile and Argentina in the laws to forgive and forget, that the people regularly reject.
At times it could be necessary for politics to close the pages of history (it was done in Italy, Portugal and Spain), but a strong public conscience and an effort to correct social situations is required to foster an optimistic outlook on the future.
However, now more than ever, the foundation of reconciliation, above all in politics, demands clear foundations which are truth, justice, agreement between parties and the solemn celebration of the memory and the restitution.
It is a possible and necessary way that has been started but it still needs incentive and courage.

6. Implementation

After a course on Forgiveness and Reconciliation in the popular barrios in Bogotá, a 30 year-old-man expressed what he had experienced in these words: “My Church has always said to me that we need to forgive, but has never taught me how to do it. Now I have learned”.
Forgiveness and Reconciliation demand a context and a pedagogy. To learn how to forgive it is first necessary to be convinced that little is to be gained by anger and revenge, and that in the end much good could be lost. We are better off without the emotions that do not make for a peaceful life. Forgiveness therefore is a decision, a possible decision because we are not obliged to be the slaves of our past. We can choose.
In order to free ourselves from the past we must look at it afresh. Often the offence received, that we felt justified in brooding over, was in reality the reaction of a person who is closed and wounded by many situations in life. By learning a new, discerning approach will help us to put such incidents in the correct perspective, because at times, the offence is more in the perception than in what really happened.
At this point, compassion, the capacity to recognize the needs of others and our own, is a beneficial and constructive emotion.

Now it is time to suggest possible ways of reconciliation.

Sometimes it is not possible, if the other person does not want to, or if the person’s whereabouts are unknown, if he is dead … at other times it is not desirable, for example in the case of violation by the person’s father. However, reconciliation can be a really joyful conclusion to an estrangement.
Reconciliation can also be achieved at different levels. It could simply become peaceful co-existence (a couple in an irrevocable situation separate, or at least agree not to harry each other and not to use their children to hurt each other). The peaceful co-existence between the Jews and the Palestinians could be a form of minor reconciliation, but extremely successful.
At the most profound level it could be a reconciliation of co-existence, where they could share schedules, styles and customs….
Another level is communion.
Each case will take a different form, whatever can help to heal the wounds in a relationship and re-establish communication will be useful.
I have already said that reconciliation needs to be based on truth, justice, agreement and celebration.
Truth means the minimum communication that will allow us to believe in the other. It will not seek unnecessarily to reconstruct what was done, if each tries to understand the reason why and for what purpose.
Justice will restore and regenerate the offended party, the perpetrator and society.
They must agree to build the future together.
In celebrating a healed memory, like in each Eucharist, we remember an assassination, that of Jesus, but as victory and salvation.

Conclusion

We are a community with a common destiny.
We must always do our best to understand that the global village is not only a reality but a project. The God of the Bible is a God who wishes to make all people one family. If Babel was the product of human pride, the anti-Babel of the Pentecost is the fruit of the Spirit of God.
In a family not all the children think in the same way, nor do they have the same attitude. In the human family, besides the richness of cultures, of languages and history, there is also a great wealth of religious experience. There is increasing preoccupation about the number of religious as well as how they are lived. Religion is real when it helps to favour integration and communion between people. Religion is also real when it favours forgiveness and reconciliation because in interpersonal or community history there may be a possibility of division or fragmentation, that forgiveness and reconciliation might heal. This is God’s only way whatever the culture or religion. In the Bible, God is clement, compassionate. And clement and compassionate is God in the Coran or in the religious conceptions of Buddhism, Hinduism or other paths.
We have fought wars in the Name of this God, and unleashed the worst violence, and we have given reasons for actual and future vengeance.
Maybe the time has come for the Church, in her mission as Church, in her new evangelization and pastoral ministry, to convert all, we and those who are not Christian, to the one and only true face of God.