Why We Must Drop the Labels of Left and Right

At a time of much conflict, in the Church and in the world, there must be a way to arrive at co-operations for the common good. BISHOP GRAHAM ROSE suggests one model.

Thirty-one years ago I was involved in the writing of a thesis. It was the mid-1980s and liberation theology was alive and well.

It was in 1985 that the Vatican document “On Christian Freedom” was published. Closer to home in  South Africa, the cry for liberation was loud on the streets of the townships.

So it was, too, in theological circles — I recall the “Kairos Document” of the same year, 1985.

Some two years earlier, on being requested by my archbishop to go to Ottawa in Canada to study canon law, I had pleaded rather to be allowed to study moral theology. Though attracted to other areas of moral theology I chose to study social ethics — such, most would have agreed, was the need of the times.

The thesis I had begun in 1985 emerged finally under the title, “Liberation and the Construction of Justice”. My concern in writing as I did — notwithstanding the righteous rage and, not subtracting an iota from the need for liberation — was with what would happen after the ousting of the apartheid regime and the eradication of its oppressive structures.

What would take its place? It was not unheard of in history, nor on our continent, that an unholy regime had only given way to worse.

The Gospel itself describes how a home, having been swept clean of evil, came eventually to be inhabited by seven more demons. (Lk 11:24-26). My criticism then of Liberation Theology was that it was incomplete: caught up in an all-consuming passion to destroy injustice, it failed to give enough attention to the future shape of justice.

The subtitle of the thesis was “Towards a model of socio-political transformation from a theological perspective.” The model, in short, proposed the need for three agents actively promoting three vital tasks.

– The Liberator who spent himself, quite obviously, in the struggle for liberation;

– The Creative Governor who was concerned with what shape justice could take;

– The Totaliser.

Experience had shown that the first two agents were normally so focused on their immediate task alone that they overlooked—if they did not even work actively against — each other.

The Liberator would accuse the Creative Governor of not being radical enough; in his claim to be more realistic he was nothing more than a sell-out, an accomplice of the regime.

On the other hand, the Creative Governor too easily saw the Liberator as utopian, as failing to recognise the stubbornness of sin and evil; in his irresponsibility he was often accused of provoking anarchy.

Here then was the task of the Totaliser — to be able, as it were, to step back from the fraught situation and to see the fuller picture.

Which agent was needed and when — now the Liberator tearing down structures of oppression, now the Creative Governor building up the structures of justice?

A Church torn apart?

All this came to my mind during and since last year’s Synod of Bishops on the Family, and in our attempts to understand Pope Francis’ post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

There was much controversy and much speculation during the synod.

All too often the media painted a picture that was at least simplistic, certainly all too-easily manipulated and invariably misconstrued. Justice and mercy were, and still are, declared to be in opposition to each other.

The Church, we are being told, is being torn apart—more than a spat; it is confronted with the possibility, if not probability, of schism… And the parties opposing each other are headed by two cardinals, Burke and Kasper. So the media summed it up; such is the spin…

I have wondered whether the thoughts of the thesis begun in 1985 do not have something to say to this situation.  Might they help to cast light on the work — the drama — of this synod and its aftermath, 30 years later?

Could the essentials of the model then applied to the political transformation of South Africa in 1985 help us to understand the challenge facing the Church today?

What are the underlying essentials of the model?  There are, I believe, three very important realities — no, surely four!

More than one side

Firstly, we must avoid what has been described as a “monothematic approach” (don’t be put off by that term; I’ll clarify it).

In the early ‘80s South Africa was so passionately committed to the destruction of injustice that, at least initially, it gave little if any attention to the need for the construction of justice.

For a time, the forces of freedom were torn apart by the opposition of these two tasks. It was only later — certainly by the beginning of the 1990s — that negotiations began that included among other issues the drawing up of a new Constitution.  The Liberator now recognised the need for the Creative Governor.

In the Church today, it seems to me, we are being compelled — forced — into a perception that we have to choose between justice or mercy.  In crude terms we are asked: “Whose side are you on?” Are we for Cardinal Burke or for Cardinal Kasper?

This is to think monothematically and it is wrong; it is radically incomplete.

The 1985 model calls us today to acknowledge both justice and mercy.  Scripture speaks of all things being twofold: All things are twofold, one opposite the other and he has made nothing incomplete” (Ecclesiasticus 42: 24).

The author GK Chesterton is very powerful here. In his book Orthodoxy he writes: “Instead of saying like Greek philosophy that ‘virtue was in a balance’, Christianity ‘declared it was in a conflict: the collision of two passions apparently opposite’.”

There was, in fact, no real inconsistency, only the difficulty of holding both “simultaneously”.

The Prayer of the Church has the psalmist say: “My song is of justice and mercy” (Psalm 101:1).

Things keep changing

Secondly, we must avoid a perception that is static.

The situation in South Africa in the early ‘80s certainly called for a mighty, and indeed heroic, struggle for liberation.  But the situation was fluid and delicate, as is every human situation, perhaps even more so in such dramatic and fast-moving times.

The situation we are faced with is never static; it is always dynamic and the wise participant and observer must be ready to move with the times.  To read the signs of the times is to acknowledge the dynamic nature of the human experience: now needing this, now needing that.

As the Church entered the 2010s it had for some time boasted of its strong sense and system of justice and law. This is in itself good, indeed a great achievement.  But precisely now we would, at our peril, stay rooted (a static fixation?) only in this single perception. We cannot overlook the call for mercy.

The 1985 model calls us today to act dynamically. Now is the time for justice, now for mercy.

Now will it seem we are caught up with law, now we are accused of being merciful — even to the point of lawlessness!

The values and principles we hold are served by both justice and mercy — at the right time. We are at work in a changing world and such a dynamic context requires a keen sense, a holy recognition of what the Kairos is calling for.

The Helmsman

Thirdly, the 1985 model cries out for its third agent: the Totaliser.

His task, as said above, is to see the full picture; he “manages” the application, as it were, of both justice and mercy — attempting to discern the “what”, the “how” and the “when”.

We have had Cardinal Burke rightly calling for respect for justice and the law; with equal justification, we have had Cardinal Kasper calling for mercy and pardon.

And we have the erstwhile Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, as the Totaliser — Peter the Helmsman, steering the ship now in this direction, now in that.

If that direction is to mercy today, we should anticipate in some tomorrow it will again be to justice and then back again. This is not a contradiction; it is a profound respect for both Justice and Mercy in time and across time.

Three plus one

In the thesis I claimed that these three tasks — those of Liberator, Creative Governor and Totaliser — could be aligned with the Prophetic, the Priestly and the Wisdom traditions of the Old Testament. Which one should we exclude? Which one may we exclude?

All three are needed, and it is Wisdom that will lead us to the others, to each at the right time.

Can we, must we, not go further?  Does this all not find its origin in the Trinity? Is it not all held there and does it not return to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?

I like to think of the awe-full Justice of the Father, the infinite Mercy of the Son, and the supremely delicate Wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

This is the fourth reality I referred to. From the thoughts of three decades ago to the Church of today, it seems to me it is only in a dynamic trinitarian perspective that the synod and Amoris Laetitia can best hold together both justice and mercy.  For, need it be said, they are not yet caught up in full eschatological embrace. (Ps 84/85:10)

And “Trinitarian”, as well we know, is so much more than a perspective. It is a divine “Place” and “Energy”— three awesomely real and loving Persons who hold even now true Justice and Mercy with Living Wisdom.

Bishop Rose heads the diocese of Dundee in KwaZulu-Natal. He is a former rector of St John Vianney National Seminary in Pretoria.