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2017 Christmas Letter
The Very Good; the Very Bad and the Very Ugly: A 2017 Report Card.
1. The Very Good
Setsuko Thurlow (nee Nakamura) was 13 years old when the US dropped the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Unlike thousands of other,s including 351 of her school mates, Setuko survived!
She recounted her experience:
"On August 6, 1945, I was a 13-year-old grade 8 student at Hiroshima Jogakuin and a member of The Student Mobilization Program. I was one of a group of 30 students assigned to help at the army headquarters. We were on the second floor of the wooden building about a mile from the hypocentre, about to start our first day of work. At 8:15 a. m., I saw a bluish-white flash like a magnesium flare outside the window. I remember the sensation of floating in the air. As I regained consciousness in the total silence and darkness, I realized I was pinned in the ruins of the collapsed building. I could not move. I knew I was faced with death. By the time I got out, the ruins were on fire. This meant that most of my classmates who were with me in the same room were burned alive. A solider ordered me and a few surviving girls to escape to the nearby hills."
Other students from her school, (351 in total), were much closer to ground Zero where the temperature at the moment of ignition was above 4000 degrees C. Most of these students, along with so many others, were vapourised- not just burnt, not just blackened beyond recognition, not just incinerated but vapourised- they totally disappeared, as if they never existed; not even an ash to bury.
[Back story]: in his book "Flickers of History" my father recounts that after filming the signing of the peace Treaty on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, he, with three other journalists, travelled to Hiroshima- it was some four weeks after the bomb was dropped. They were unaware of the danger of residual radiation which was still claiming lives- (by the end of the year an estimated 140,000 deaths).
Their driver took them to the three remaining steps of what had been a bank- a shadowy outline was visible- it was all that remained of a person who was sitting on the steps at the time of the blast. Vapourised. Perhaps he was waiting for the bank to open.
Setsuko Thurlow has for seven decades campaigned against nuclear weapons, often feeling like a voice "crying in the wilderness".
The very Good news is that:
The Nobel Peace Prize 2017 was awarded to International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) "for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons".
Setsuko Thurlow (now 85) has been a leading figure in ICAN since its launch in Australia in 2007.
"She played a pivotal role in the United Nations negotiations that led to the adoption of the landmark treaty outlawing nuclear weapons in July."
Timely and very good indeed.
2. The Very Bad-
The possibility of nuclear war while never far removed has quickened once again as North Korea threatens and President Trump: warned: North Korea "will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen" echoing President Truman's words after the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima:
'If they (Japan) do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.'
In her speech announcing the Nobel Peace Prize in October, the leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said the risk that nuclear weapons might be used was now "greater than it has been for a long time."
3. The Very Good- Wilai
The wonderful support for Wilai- Wilai the 9 year old girl, who is stateless and orphaned, (legally, a "non-person"), raised an amazing amount of money and equally importantly, raised awareness about what being stateless means. (Try moving outside Australia without a passport or any ID. Or try coming to Australia without one.)
4.The very bad and very ugly- the persecution of the Rohingya
Over six hundred thousand- survivors of one of the most brutal and terrifying "ethnic cleansing" episodes in recent history (and the field is crowded). This term terrifying though it is, is a convenient legal phrase to avoid the more appropriate terms "crimes against humanity" or "genocide", because action is demanded both by the UN and the International Court of The Hague.
The conditions in the huge squalid, pestilential camp just inside the boarder of Bangladesh are the worst Tim Costello has ever seen in his many years of experience working with World Vision. It seems that Bangladesh wants to encourage them to return to Myanmar- not unlike what Australia is doing to those refugees on Manus and Nauru.
Problem: the Rohingya are stateless having been stripped of any ID- so like Wilai where do they go?
Sadly, another recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize appears to be missing in action.
5. The very Good- The Royal Commission on Institutional Child sexual abuse
On 15 December 2017 the Royal Commission presented a final report to the Governor-General, detailing the culmination of a five year inquiry into institutional responses to child sexual abuse and related matters.
The commission carried out its terms of reference forensically, thoroughly, professionally and with admirable sensitivity to the many victims/survivors of Sexual abuse.
The Commission's contribution to the understanding of this scourge, and its recommendations, will be of timeless value and demand a total response by Governments, and institutions.
6. The very Bad and the very Ugly
The Commission did for the Catholic Church, if left to itself, what it was incapable of doing. We should be forever grateful. As Francis Sullivan said to the Commission in March of this year:
"The data along with what we have heard over the past four years can only be interpreted for what it is: a massive failure on the part of the Catholic Church in Australia to protect children from abusers. As Catholics we hang our heads in shame."
Some time ago I made a promise to speak out at every opportunity, publicly acknowledging to survivors, that what has happened in the Church,
(to which I belong), is the most reprehensible failure of its bedrock mandate from Jesus Christ. Here in part is what I have said:
"As a member of the Marist Fathers for 59 years and a priest for 54 I am profoundly ashamed, horrified and grief stricken with the reality and extent of the criminal abuse by clergy and religious of children in Church institutions. Sadly, I speak with the experience as Provincial having listened to the gut wrenching stories of some survivors. I am ashamed of those who consciously or unconsciously enabled it to happen and especially I condemn the cover up by bishops and religious leaders, which exacerbated the crimes, causing not only life-long devastation to the victims/survivors but untold collateral damage to families and beyond. As Francis Sullivan said to the commission on the first day, "the Catholic Church has trashed its credibility and trust"; and failed Christ's absolute directive in regard to the care and protection of children.
Recall the words of Christ
"And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believes in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea."
"It is indeed a sad and reprehensible chapter in the history of the Church. The long-term impact is yet to be fully known- what we do know is that large numbers (in disgust and righteous anger) have left the Institutional Church. One thing we do know is that until the Church becomes the Church that Christ founded, a poor and humble Church, and strips away the barnacles of power entrenched in the hierarchical and clerical culture and includes women and indeed the laity, as equals and becomes the servant of Christ's followers, it will never fully recover.
My Christmas and New Year Wish is that the Church authorities (Bishops and Leaders) will study all the recommendations and be held accountable in the court of the sensus fidelium.
If you have read this far you may well ask? Why at this time? We are supposed to be upbeat and joyous- but the human condition is never unalloyed joy or total sadness- so here is a mix.
And a thought for the coming year:
Work of Christmas Begins
"When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with the flocks,
then the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal those broken in spirit,
to feed the hungry,
to release the oppressed,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among all peoples,
to make a little music with the heart…
And to radiate the Light of Christ,
every day, in every way, in all that we do and in all that we say.
Then the work of Christmas begins.'
(Howard Thurman)
A road map for 2018
- comments
Nancy Buggy Thank you Jim for your thought provoking words.
Paul O’Brien Hi Father Jim, I connected to your blog via the Marist newsletter. You may remember me from my years teaching at Woodlawn when you were Provincial. My wife and I walked the Chemin du Puy to Figeac in 2016, and are returning this April to continue through to St Jean Pied de Port. We walked the Spanish Camino in 2014 and have also walked the Way of St Francis in Italy. Your blog is wonderful, and your walking is inspirational to one ten years younger......we have a few years left to walk!! Your writing is both thought provoking and challenging.
Noelene Dear Jim, oh how I love your writings... thank you dear Jim for your insights and your fairness and your compassion and your love of all humankind...and your ability to clearly see the wrongs we constantly do to those who are oppressed. Love Noelene