Hungarian Church Press, 1968 (20. évfolyam, 2. szám)

1968-06-01 / 2. szám

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iiGP-¥oj_X'. SqücÚx-J Dumber - Jj-Q - ilößcLIIö-^'-fclan/iry~Toov«mftjrt:q -whi r»Vi j rye r-an -i i-tftT changes* We-shall cry to formulate three basio^tűa&se^-of ffo-H s tinn^ethins^abocrtr ^eáá'má^ debated issue,

1) Christians.^witii their' lave inspired by faith towards their neighbours and with their sense of social responsibility, have not only the right but also the -cons cience-oound duty to fight against all existing farms af social sin and injustice and for a mere just order in all realms of secular life, The revolutionry struggle for these objectives has some peaceful, non-violent, forms® The number of these forms Í3 try no means small! For the Christian conscience, these peaceful forms are the ones that are dirsotly at hand» Hence Christians in the revolutionary struggles arc to seek, to the utmost limit of their possibilities, these peaceful forms of involvement and - as the Sofia Document also points out - "all means and lawful criticism and lawful action must fijrst be courageously and persistently explored" 0

2) ' But to what length can the conscientious Christian go if, in his political action, all attempts at peaceful solutions, owing to the stubborn resistance of his opponent, have obviously and definitely failed? May he then only, resort to the weapons of non-violent resistance and struggle in the manner advocated by the late Martin Luther King? Or, at the sight af unmerited suffering and the dying af people in masses, car. he, under the inner compulsion af his conscience go to such length as to follow the example, in our days, of Oamil3-0 Torres, the young Homan Catholic priest and professor of sociology in Columbia, who, having shed his cassock,, joined the armed uprising of his famished and suffering people, fighting far freedom and a just order worthy of man, and so offered at the end the supreme sacrifice of his life? Can the Christian go to the laigth of considering the inactive contemplation of the unjust suffering af millions a greater moral failure than the risk of is own life for justice while facing the arms of the unjust power?

There are grave and painful problems for a man who faces such decisions in the thick of the realities of life» And these questions, alas, cannot be solved by a simple reference to the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount, As to his own person, the way of the Christian is to take upon himself sufferings that are undeserved, according to the example of Jesus Christ who gave up his life as a sacrifice of his love» But does genuine love — the agape — exclude the eventual obligation to join "those fighting with weapons in their hands when it is the matter af saving the threatened life of others, of saving others from mass suffering and death, ard the situation is such that this is the only way out? The question when to assert, in our own case or in the case of others, the ethics of forgiveness cut of love and the ethics of non-violence, and when to resort to force in the face af the evil-doers, as the ultima ratio, in the defence of the life of others? this is a decision whuch must be mode by believing conscience in the sight of God» There is no convenient casuistry of ethical rules to guide us in such cases»