Hope and promise?

Without sadness and despair, hope and promise could find no home. So this column—actually two wrapped together—is being written in the reality of the first and in the expectation of the second.

This is one of The Catholic New World’s long-planned issues celebrating vocations and those in religious life. To some it may seem a difficult time to be inviting men and women into ordained and religious ministry.

Wincing from the continuing stories on clerical sexual abuse (see pages 5, 8-9, 39), even those touching the Archdiocese of Chicago, we nonetheless celebrate the vast majority who minister well, often without acknowledgement or notice. More on that in a minute.

But neither can we ignore the desperate troubles in the Holy Land, the place where Jesus walked and talked, a place being hacked apart by the religious strife which stalks that wounded cradle of three faiths.

Sadness and despair.

The unceasing TV and news photos of conflict in Bethlehem brought back memories—vivid, joyful, faith-filled and painful—of two visits I made there just before the current round of conflicts. I recognized many of the places where today people are dying.

The Church of the Nativity, where Israeli soldiers besieged Palestinians, is fresh in my memory. I have heard the bells of that church, whose simple bell-ringer was slain by a sniper on his way to perform the task he had accomplished for three decades.

Sadness and despair.

Bethlehem is where many of the dwindling number of Christians in Israel and the Palestinian territories live today. As much as half of Bethlehem’s population is Christian, placing our shared faith squarely in the middle of warring Jews and Muslims.

I’ve stood on the heights of Bethlehem University, a Catholic school which educates many Arabs, and talked with Christian Brother Neil Kieffe, a university official who once taught here in Chicago and who now is struggling as Israel soldiers commandeer his campus seeking to battle Palestinians.

Despite Israel’s vow not to harm Christian holy sites, ancient buildings—and too many young lives—are under fire. As this is written, the conflict goes on.

Sadness and despair.

Where do these two disparate themes come together—a shattered peace in the Holy Land and a shattered faith in those who minister in the name of God? Where does sadness and despair begin to show the glimmer of hope and promise?

The pages of The Catholic New World this issue are replete with the names—and actions—of religious men and women who have served the people of God unstintingly for more than five decades. Next issue—which also celebrates the five-year ministry of Cardinal George as the shepherd of the Archdiocese of Chicago—will mark the silver and golden jubilees of archdiocesan priests.

Hope and promise is found in the actions and service of many who will not be overshadowed by the sins of a few, no matter how disgusting those sins. And others will follow in those lives of service.

But is there hope and promise in the Middle East? (Stories, Page 1, 2, 20-21)

It is human nature to focus on anger and trouble; hence the stories of sexual abuse overshadow the lives of service detailed in our jubilarian section this issue (Pages 28-35). It is human nature to allow the violence and agony of the Holy Land to overshadow the lives of people, especially Christians like Kieffe and others whose faith places them in the valley of the shadow of death. There are many good people fighting for understanding in the Middle East; not everyone hates. That is the hope and the promise.

If that is a naïve view, so be it. But without hope and promise, we are a doomed people.

Tom Sheridan
Editor and General Manager