Bishops and politics

The editor’s responses to letters  are customarily confined to brief footnotes, and even these are few. On rare occasions, however, letters merit a response more comprehensive than the space available for such footnotes would allow. Dr Bernard Cole’s letter this week provides one such occasion.

Dr Cole is taking issue with Bishop Kevin Dowling’s comments concerning the recent conviction of former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok and others for the attempted murder of Frank Chikane in 1988, a crime for which the defendants pleaded guilty.

Bishop Dowling, interviewed in our issue of August 29, welcomed the sentences, saying that this case struck a good balance in upholding justice while enabling reconciliation.

Dr Cole in his letter questions why Church leaders should comment on matters of politics without qualifying why they do so.

Church leaders frequently speak out on political issues. From Pope John Paul II to lay leaders, many did so in their solid opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Bishops regularly make public statements and representations to policy makers on matters such as abortion, capital punishment, same sex marriages, poverty, social justice and so on.

They do so on the basis of Catholic teaching and sometimes based on their own interpretation of these teachings. The Gospel message and the Church’s teachings cannot be divorced from the social and political conditions in which they are propagated.

Bishop Dowling’s comments have a firm and obvious basis in Catholic teaching. The commission of a crime warrants proportional punishment for justice to be served (which, in turn, can facilitate forgiveness and reconciliation). Mr Vlok and his co-defendants, by their own admission, had committed a crime and murder, attempted or otherwise, was a crime even under apartheid. For this they were sentenced in a fair judicial hearing.

No good is being served by trivialising the heinous nature of the crime, regardless of how Mr Vlok and others regarded Mr Chikane. Extra-judicial killings of political opponents might have enjoyed protection by the security apparatus, but none in law (nor, of course, in Catholic teaching).

The attempted poisoning of Mr Chikane was just one of countless cases of illegal acts of violence committed in the pursuit of crushing political opposition. The victims of these state-sanctioned crimes are right to seek justice. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a means to accomplish a form of justice by giving perpetrators of political crime, on all sides, the opportunity to come clean. By failing to take advantage of this opportunity, Mr Vlok and others knowingly exposed themselves to future prosecution.

This prosecution of Mr Vlok et al must not be interpreted as some form of racial or political retribution, but as a victory for justice. At the same time, critics are correct to point out that allegations of political crimes committed by members of the African National Congress should likewise be tested in a court of law, if these have not been subject to amnesty by the TRC. If they are not, then perceptions of inequity will not be dispelled.

Dr Cole is committing a wild leap of logic when he attributes to Bishop Dowling approval of the execution of the aristocracy during the French Revolution. The bishop, a committed opponent of capital punishment, would certainly not condone such actions. Besides, it is difficult to spot a relationship between the prosecution of men who have acknowledged their participation in a crime and a killing frenzy under entirely different political circumstances.

When our Church leaders speak out on politics, they interpret the teachings of the Church. Catholics are free to exercise their prerogative to disagree, as Dr Cole has done.

Little is gained, however, by stating such disagreement uncharitably.

Below is Dr Cole’s letter:

Your front-page report Dowling welcomes Vlok verdict (August 29-September 4) refers.

I respect Bishop Dowling, but when our bishops get involved in politics, they need to tell us why they find it necessary to do so.

I think Adriaan Vlok got a pretty raw deal for doing his duty, as he saw it, to get rid of a traitor.

I see the fall of the Nationalist government as like the fall of the aristocracy in the French Revolution, except that the Nats were spared the same fate as the French aristocracy. I suppose Bishop Dowling would approve the slaughter of the French aristocracy because of their getting their just deserts.

Is this the morality we are looking at? Is this what the Church is teaching? What happened to do not judge lest you also be judged and forgive and forget?

I never did understand the TRC and all that song and dance.

Dr Bernard Cole, Krugersdorp