Published January 18, 2002
Russians, with less than enough, give to Sept. 11 victims
As I headed for Magadan and Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East, I speculated that these remote cities paid little heed to Sept. 11, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon tragedies.
I was en route to celebrate Christmas in Magadan. It was a bit of a nostalgic trip. In 1990 I offered the first public Mass ever in Magadan. I was accompanied by an Anchorage pastor, Father Michael Shields. Little did we realize that he would become the pastor there and be assisted, as he is now, by Father David Means, also of Anchorage.
En route and returning I stopped in Khabarovsk, where two Maryknoll priests are reclaiming the Catholic presence which was literally buried during the Stalin era. To my surprise, in both cities Sept. 11 was of high interest and great concern to the people.
In Magadan the people spoke most sympathetically about the American victims. They had genuine anguish over the villainous attack. They were edified by the public rally to the support of the president as he launched the U.S. counter attack.
The former governor’s assistant for religious affairs in Magadan, Igor Pavolov, called from his retirement home just south of Moscow. He had been the key operative in steering me through the government agencies in 1990 to register our parish in Magadan. "Did you get my fax after Sept. 11?" he asked.
I told him I had and that we appreciated his thoughtfulness and his prayers (yes, prayers, even though he describes himself as an atheist).
I encountered a similar stunning story in Khabarovsk, 1,000 miles south of Magadan. The young German pastor of the local Lutheran community asked me to deliver the special collection his people took up for the victims in New York.
"They wanted to do something," he said. The amount was 600 rubbles, about $20 U.S.
I was stunned. Their income is a mere pittance. I thought immediately of the widow in Mark’s Gospel who put two small coins in the temple treasury: "She, with less than enough, has given all she had to live on."
On the flight home I mused about my experiences in Russia and with the church. I knew that people would ask how the church was doing over there. Wherever there is compassion, it is doing very well.
Crossing the international dateline my thoughts shifted to the war in Afghanistan. I had been able to follow the developments on the Internet. The bombing seemed to be winding down. The country was still unified behind the president.
I experienced a bit of angst in reading about suggestions that there be a preemptive strike against Iraq and other countries judged to be sanctuaries of terrorists. Preemptive strikes would change the nature of this war from defense against an aggressor, which was judged by most leaders, including most Catholic leaders, as morally justified.
From the day after Sept. 11, leaders in the Catholic church, from the Vatican to the national bishops’ conference to local bishops, have recognized the moral justification of using military force in self defense. The victims of evil are not to be paralyzed by the evil of others.
The use of military force, however, must always be contained within certain parameters: no direct targeting of civilians, the use of arms proportionate to the situation. To go from self defense to a preemptive strike calls for more moral evaluation.
One such evaluation was carried in the last Catholic Anchor (Jan. 4), in a column by George Weigel.
Mr. Weigel described a hypothetical terrorist country which was internally and externally vicious. These he declared verified in the outlaw state, Iraq, under Saddam Hussein. Preventing possible aggression "through the proportionate and discriminate use of armed force, is … morally justifiable," he wrote.
There are two major flaws in his scenario. First, he admits that preemption "is an issue on which the just war tradition needs development." Such development must take place before unleashing the destructive power of an American arms system.
Second, he seems to hedge his point by saying it works "if events follow the script" he outlined. That is a big "if" on which to hang an order for releasing America’s might.
Saying an action is morally justifiable (my conscience is clear) does not mean that the action may take place.
What would be the effect on the Muslim world — which stretches west from Iraq across Africa and east to India and Thailand — to see the U.S. juggernauts strive to wipe out Hussein?
It would be seen by the Muslim world as proof that this is a religious war, as so many of them are judging it to be now. How many millions of young Muslim children would grow up believing that the United States is indeed the evil empire?