Counter-Terrorism

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - August 18, 2006

August 16, 2005 was supposed to be Al Qaeda's bloody sequel to September 11, 2001. Thanks be to God, and to the vigilance and hard work of anti-terrorist units in several countries, this plot to use liquid explosives to blow up several airliners bound to the United States from London's Heathrow Airport was uncovered and thwarted before the plans or the planes had gotten off the ground.

But it brought the issue of the threat of terrorism back to center stage. Catholics, on the burgeoning assortment of popular Catholic blogs, websites and radio programs, began to debate once again the properly Catholic response to the terrorist menace.

Pope Benedict XVI, with his characteristic candor and clarity, has spoken often about the nature and causes of terrorism and the authentically Christian responsibility and witness in answer to it. He charts a path that is both realistic and hopeful.

In various addresses, homilies and documents, he has not minced words in calling terrorism a "moral perversion… that "can never be justified," "a perverse and cruel decision which shows contempt for the sacred right to life and undermines the very foundations of all civil society," and a "cruel fanaticism that endangers the lives of so many people and hinders progress toward world peace." He admits that although there may be "objective situations of violations of law and justice" that fuel the type of anger and enmity that propel terrorist desperation, they provide no excuse for the "ruthless enmity" that drives malcontents to seek to kill innocent people as a means to terrify whole populaces.

He has also been very clear that the contemporary fundamentalist terrorist impulse is not based solely on these historical occasions of violations of law and justice. They are also based, as he said in an address to diplomats in January, on "aberrant religious ideas" which pervert religion and disfigure the true face of God. Terrorism, Benedict says, "hides behind religion, thereby bringing the pure truth of God down to the level of the terrorist's own blindness and moral perversion." Belief in God is manipulated to do violence to those made in God's image. He wrote in his message for this year's World Day of Peace, that fanatical fundamentalism "disfigures [God's] loving and merciful countenance, replacing him with idols made in its own image." It demonstrates a "dangerous contempt for human beings and human life, and ultimately for God himself."

Once one recognizes the etiology of terrorism, the proper multivalent response to it becomes clearer. Almost a year ago to the day, Benedict met with Muslim religious leaders in Cologne, Germany and, in a challenging address that raised eyebrows across the globe, reminded them of their indispensable duty to join all other religious leaders in opposing terrorism. "Those who instigate and plan these attacks evidently wish to poison our relations, making use of all means, including religion, to oppose every attempt to build a peaceful, fair and serene life together," Benedict said. "If together we can succeed in eliminating from hearts any trace of rancor, in resisting every form of intolerance and in opposing every manifestation of violence, we will turn back the wave of cruel fanaticism that endangers the lives of so many people and hinders progress towards world peace. The task is difficult but not impossible. The believer knows that, despite his weakness, he can count on the spiritual power of prayer."

But Benedict also knows that others besides Muslims must act. Catholics, he says, have a particular responsibility. Since fundamentalist terrorism thrives on a distorted understanding of God and the human person, members of the Catholic Church, blessed with the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, have a special duty to give witness to the true face of God. As Benedict stated somewhat diplomatically in his general Wednesday audience last week, the revelation that "God is love and he who lives in love lives in God and God in him" (1John4:16) is something that is "difficult to find in other religions." For that reason, Christians have a crucial mission to proclaim it.

"In view of the risks which humanity is facing in our time," he wrote in his message for the 2006 World Day of Peace, "all Catholics in every part of the world have a duty to proclaim and embody ever more fully the 'Gospel of Peace' and to show that acknowledgment of the full truth of God is the first, indispensable condition for consolidating the truth of peace. God is Love which saves, a loving Father who wants to see his children look upon one another as brothers and sisters, working responsibly to place their various talents at the service of the common good of the human family. This realization must impel believers in Christ to become convincing witnesses of the God who is inseparably truth and love, placing themselves at the service of peace in broad cooperation with other Christians, the followers of other religions and with all men and women of good will."

To defeat terrorism, Benedict says we need more than Homeland Security Departments, Patriot Acts, and intelligence agencies. We need real disciples. This is the true counter-terrorism agency for which Benedict is seeking to recruit us and others for Christ.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.