Why We Must Say: ‘Father Forgive’

The wars in Palestine and Ukraine drag on, and their brutality and pointlessness seem to show no signs of relenting. Meanwhile, other conflicts continue around the world, gaining less news coverage but still inflicting untold damage — physical and psychological. Can we imagine that there will ever be peace in these places again?

The month of November, as well as being the period when we as Catholics focus on praying for the dead, is also when many countries recall the victims of war. This “remembrance” is triggered by the anniversary of the Armistice that ended “The Great War” at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. That was supposed to be the war to end all wars; and yet, only 21 years later, the same players were again fighting each other in what we now call the Second World War.

But almost 80 years after the end of that conflict, the centuries of fighting between the great European powers has not re-erupted. Though war has broken out in many other parts of the world and even within Europe, this has been one of the most prolonged periods of peace in European history.

That outcome might seem obvious now, but it did not seem so at the time. On November 14, 1940, a massive Blitzkrieg — a night of relentless firebombing — descended on the British industrial city of Coventry, ripping the heart out of its medieval centre.

Subsequently, British and US planes launched similar attacks on German cities, with equal and even greater devastation. Faced with such extreme violence and mass destruction, was it possible to imagine that there could ever be peace and reconciliation between the British and the Germans?

Revelation in ruins

There was one man who dared to imagine this. The morning after the bombing, the Anglican provost of Coventry, Rev Dick Howard, walked through the ruins of the 600-year-old cathedral. The roof and the interior was completely destroyed, with only the bell tower and fragments of the walls still standing.

In the smoke and the ashes, he saw a remarkable sight: two charred roof beams had fallen down and created what looked to him like a cross. And in this he was immediately reminded of the central symbol of our faith — the cross of Christ, which is not a sign of violence and death, but of peace and hope. Rev Howard thought of the words of Jesus from the cross: “Father Forgive.” In saying these words, the provost realised that the only way to rebuild peace with the German people after the war was if each side could say those same words to each other: “Father Forgive.”

It was the bombing of the German city of Dresden in early 1945 that gave Rev Howard the impetus to start reaching out to the other side. After the city’s Frauenkirche was also destroyed, the Anglicans of Coventry began talking to the Lutherans of Dresden and started imagining the possibility of peace and reconciliation. It is significant that this was not only across the national divisions of war but also the religious divisions of denomination.

From these tentative contacts was born the international Community of the Cross of Nails. The symbol is a cross made of three nails, originally from the roof of the medieval Coventry cathedral since these were all that survived the fire-bombs. Bringing together Christians from Germany and the UK, it extended to draw in other countries. From the outset it was ecumenical in intent, and over the years also expanded to bring in other faiths.

From Coventry to Durban

It was thus a huge honour when the Denis Hurley Centre (DHC) was recently invited to join the Community of the Cross of Nails by the current dean of Coventry, Rev John Witcombe, who had visited Durban in 2017. He saw in the DHC a symbol of peace and reconciliation — between Christians of different denominations and people of different faiths.  He also recognised the work that we at the DHC do to bring together South Africans of different backgrounds, people of different economic classes, and locals and foreign nationals — all working together for the good of the community.

In joining the Community of the Cross of Nails, we join a group of cathedrals and churches, military, prison and hospital chaplaincies, NGOs, retreat centres and peace gardens in 45 countries around the world. We are all united in our work for peace and reconciliation and commit to praying regularly a Litany of Reconciliation which repeats those same words “Father Forgive.”

The three tenets of the Community are to heal the wounds of history, to live with difference and celebrate diversity, and to build a culture of justice and peace. Those also sound remarkably like the hopes we would have for our Church and for South Africa.

The DHC’s induction into the Community took on wonderfully international and technological dimensions. It started with a service in Coventry attended by UK supporters of the DHC at which Dean John handed over our “Cross of Nails” to Bernard Longley, the Catholic archbishop of Birmingham and a UK patron of the DHC. This was watched online by a group at St Martin’s Anglican church in Durban North who responded with a multilingual service of readings and music led by Anglican Bishop Nkosinathi  Ndwandwe of Natal and Rev Dr Delysia Timm, the chair of the DHC.

Symbol of reconciliation

The cross was then transported from the UK to South Africa. A few weeks later, the process was completed with a service at Holy Family College in Durban, where Bishop Ndwandwe formally presented the Coventry Cross to Archbishop Mandla Jwara of Durban, a successor of Archbishop Denis Hurley.

Bishop Ndwandwe has a great commitment to ecumenism — he served with Archbishop Longley on the international Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission (and indeed hosted Archbishop Longley in Durban in 2004). Earlier this year Archbishop Jwara accompanied Bishop Ndwandwe to a joint Anglican-Catholic meeting in Rome.

So our symbol of reconciliation was handed from an Anglican dean to a Catholic archbishop to an Anglican bishop to pass on to another Catholic archbishop to honour the name of our late Catholic archbishop!

Though faced each day with examples of great personal devastation and poverty in the centre of Durban, our role at the DHC is to imagine that a newer world is possible. The English and German clerics towards the end of World War II were able to imagine this, despite the destruction around them. Nelson Mandela, Archbishops Tutu and Hurley, and the others who fought for a South Africa free of apartheid were also able to imagine the possibility of a newer world.

As we pray for countries at war today, we need to pray especially for brave individuals who in our time are willing to imagine reconciliation even when — as in Palestine/Israel — it seems impossible.

And our own gift, as Christians, to our towns and cities, and indeed to our nation, is that we must imagine that we can change our society for the better: not by hiding behind high walls or fleeing to presumed safety, but by embracing the charred wood of the cross and being able to say with sincerity: “Father Forgive.”

Published in the November 2024 issue of The Southern Cross magazine