OPINION:
More than anything, the flap over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s long-time pastor and close family friend, and his incendiary outbursts concerning perceived injustices against those of color in America highlights the social question, as Pope John Paul II called it.
That is, how to achieve a society in which different groups — from varied ethnic, racial, religious, cultural, and economic backgrounds — interact harmoniously as opposed to clashing in ways that weaken and destroy the social fabric.
Mr. Wright’s offensive comments only serve to pour salt on the wounds, which Mr. Obama tried to salve in his March 18 speech on race, in his bid to salvage his correspondingly wounded campaign for the presidency.
But, more than our little corner of the world, this whole episode and the reality of so much unaddressed pain, brings to mind the social question spanning the globe and how to respond in ways that alleviate and not exacerbate the tension and suffering worldwide.
As John Paul presciently noted in his 1990 encyclical Centessimus Annus (On the 100th Anniversary of Rerum Novarum dealing with new things the industrial revolution ushered in), the social question has moved to the international stage given grave imbalances that exist between (and within) countries, partially because ethic, religious and racial minorities are mistreated.
Iraq and the broader Middle East is no better example of this.
This month being the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq is prime time to address the social question in that grief-stricken nation.
The causes of Iraq’s volatility are, in some ways, a mirror image of the misunderstandings, mistrust and mistakes in America — our history going back a mere 300 to 400 years.
In Iraq, the rivalry is between competing Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, and groups within those factions, going back 1,000-plus years, fueled by the looming prize of Iraq’s vast oil reserve, second only to Saudi Arabia. All the while the death toll mounts.
Mosul is one region where oil reserves (an estimated 20 percent of the total) — and strife — are both plentiful.
Unsurprisingly, it is the site of the kidnapping on Feb. 29, and subsequent death, of 65-year-old Chaldean Archbishop Monsignor Paulos Faraj Rahho.
The archbishop was kidnapped after he led the Way of the Cross — his two guards shot and killed on the spot. Nearly two weeks having passed without word of his fate, on Wednesday, March 12, his kidnappers called with the grim news: He was dead, lying in a shallow grave near Mosul. The next day, his body was retrieved amid signs he had died a few days before; and was buried the following day in a celebration led by Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans.
Pope Benedict XVI responded to this horrific turn of events during his pre-Angelus address in St. Peter’s Square after celebrating Palm Sunday Mass.
While maintaining his composure, the pope did not mince words over the grave injustice of this brutal terrorist act, an act that evidenced no regard for human life and dignity. While recalling the archbishop of Mosul’s beautiful witness of fidelity to Christ, to the Church and his people, whom he did not want to abandon despite numerous threats, this holy man’s tragic death, he said, moves me to cry out forcefully and with distress: Enough with the bloodshed, enough with the violence, enough with the hatred in Iraq.
Furthermore, he concluded, I make an appeal to the Iraqi people, who for five years have endured the consequences of a war that has provoked upheaval in its civil and social life: Beloved Iraqi people, lift up your heads and let it be you yourselves who, in the first place, rebuild your national life. May reconciliation, forgiveness, justice and respect for the civil coexistence of tribes, ethnic groups and religious groups be the solidary way to peace in the name of God.
Enough in Babylon! A region that, coincidentally, was home to Hamurabi, who some 3,788 years ago, wrote the first legal code to rid society of the wicked and to protect the minority against abuse by the more powerful, which many scholars consider the origins of democracy.
Enough with the hatred! Let the rule of law — and the law of love — envelop all humankind from Mosul to Chicago.
MARY CLAIRE KENDALL Ms. Kendall is a journalist and commentator, both print and television.
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