A missed opportunity for truth and reconciliation

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Wednesday on the "church trial of Episcopal Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. charged with concealing his brother's sexual abuse of a teenage girl decades ago." At Tuesday's session, the paper related, the abused girl now 50 years old, said tearfully, "I haven't wanted (the bishop) removed from his job. I just want him to acknolwedge his role." My fantasy is what would happen if rather than litigating innocence or guilt we called together a Truth and Reconciliation Committee?

Psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela authored a telling book about the legacy of Apartheid entitled, A Human Being Died That Night. She remarks “that the line separating good from evil is paper-thin.” She is interviewing Eugene de Kock, nicknamed “Prime Evil,” for the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. He has just told of his worst memory of a cross border raid. She observes: “A human being died that night in the murder operation. The reality seemed to hang between us. At that moment I thought I saw a man finally acknowledging the debt he owed to his conscience” (p. 51).

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela argues the importance of forgiveness for both perpetrator and victim. “Not to forgive,” she writes, “means closing the door to the possibility of transformation” (103). Conversely, hateful emotions “are a burden that prevent the victim from fully coming to terms with the trauma and moving on.” (96). Forgiveness, she says, does not “overlook the deed: it rises above it. This is what it means to be human,’ it says. ‘I cannot and will not return the evil you inflicted on me.’ And that is the victim’s triumph” (117). Finally, she observes hopefully, “it is within the grasp of ordinary people to forgive evil and to end generational cycles of violence” (118).

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela commenting on pain in South Africa wrote: “Empathy is a response to another person’s pain, even in the midst of tragedy, pain cannot be evil.” (p.100) And again, “there are internal psychological dynamics that impel most of us toward forming an empathic connection with another person in pain, that draw us into his pain, regardless of who that someone is.” (127) She adds that for many compassion “is deeply therapeutic and restorative.” (129) What will bring healing is not litigation but conscience, forgiveness and empathy.

So much, and the trial is no exception, of what we have seen played out on the diocesan and national scene is about power. In contrast, at Saint Paul’s, we are about relationship. While the press may sensationalize the sexuality of the case, in reality abuse is about power over others. Rather than “power-over,” our identity as Saint Paul-ites is one of relational power, the capacity to care for one another, to stand together before God. Our identity also is one of peace, that is the well being of all.

There is a particular quality to our witness that comes from the singular community of which we are a part. Saint Paul’s Church for over a century and a half has been a place of turning. You can call this conversion or conversation. In any case it is a “turning – each to the other – in Christ.” I like to call it our parish vision. This turning is part of the original energy of Saint Paul’s. Almost six months to the day after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in Ford’s Theatre, southern and northern clergy, enemies only a year earlier, stood before God at the altar of Saint Paul’s. They had gathered in Philadelphia for the Episcopal Church’s General Convention that year. At my celebration of new ministry in this church over two years ago, the preacher, President of the Standing Committee, had that week requested the resignation of the Bishop who was our celebrant at the Eucharist. They both were together before God at the altar of Saint Paul’s. It is our particular witness as a parish that people of great difference can stand as one, reconciled before God. In 1865 with so many southern clergy in the church, the rector at that time recalled years later that it seemed a great “omen of peace for the parish.” Peace is the second strand of witness that is particular to Saint Paul’s. Nearly a hundred years later the parish planted a Northern Red Oak, symbol of faith’s strength, in memory of Dag Hammarskjöld and all those who have given their lives for world peace. Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash in Zimbabwe while seeking to negotiate peace between United Nations and Katanga forces. This commitment to unity of those with differences and to peace has become part of our culture, part of the double helix (strands of unity and peace) or DNA at Saint Paul’s.

So my fantasy is a relational rather than litigious gathering. The reality will be a trial. The national church will litigate but will it own what has been broken? There will be accusations and defense, but will there be conscience, forgiveness and empathy? Will there be more “power over” one or the other, or will forgiveness rise above this? Will there be a turning away, or a turning – each to the other – in Christ? Will there be legal disputation or negotiated peace? "I haven't wanted (the bishop) removed from his job," the victim cried. "I just want him to acknolwedge his role." This is the cry for relationship, not for more institutional power.