Overview
This a study of good versus evil. It uses two factual examples of evil, one of
which was historical, and the other one contemporary, as real-life symbols of
depravity. The historical example comes from Nazism, and focuses on the Nazi
death camp that was set up by the Nazis near the Polish village of
Auschwitz. The contemporary example is
ISIS, (abbreviating "The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria"), also
called ISIL ("The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant"). We will portray the nature and character of
evil in these two factual examples. We will then consider the role that
goodness played in opposing the historical example of Nazi evil, and argue that
the power of goodness displayed in history against this evil should be used
against our contemporary example of radical evil, or ISIS. Wit respect to Auschwitz. we find that the
essence of goodness was defined and displayed most powerfully in the life of a
canonized saint, Father Maximilian Kolbe, as we will discuss in more detail
toward the end of this article.
Defining Evil
If we are looking for a working
definition of evil, we can conclude from Scripture that evil is that which
opposes life and light, and is bound up with death and darkness, as depicted in
John's Gospel:.
"[T]he light came into the world, but people
preferred
darkness to light, because
their works were evil. For
everyone
who does wicked things hates the light...But
whoever
lives the truth comes to the light so that his
works may
be clearly seen as done in God."
(Jn.
3:19-21).
Evil has to do with killing, but not
just with killing the body. Evil is also
that which kills spirit. Thus evil is
that force residing within human beings that seeks to kill life or
liveliness. And goodness is its
opposite:
"I have set before you life and death, the
blessing and
the
curse. Choose life, then, that you and
your descendants may live." (Dt. 30:19 (b).
Jesus preached that light and life are
inseparable:
"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will
not walk
in darkness, but will have the light of life."
(Jn. 8:12
(b).
The apostle Paul, when he was converted by Jesus on his way
to Damascus experienced this light of life as so bright that it impaired his
vision:
"[A]s I drew near Damascus, about noon, a
great light
from the
sky suddenly shone around me...I could see
nothing
because of the brightness of that light...I saw
a light
from the sky brighter than the sun shining around
me."
(Acts 22:6,11; 26:13).
Thus, while "light" refers
to a spiritual reality, in certain cases it is not simply a metaphor for a
"spiritual" light, as Paul learned, but an actual heavenly light that
is perceptible by those who are given the grace to perceive it.
Goodness is further that which
promotes life and liveliness. Jesus
said, "I have come that they may have life, and that they might have it
abundantly (or to the fullest)." (John 10:10). Yet Jesus, freely giving up
his life at an early age, was not so much concerned with the length of life as
with its vitality. He focused his
preaching and actions on the spirit of life and of liveliness. And of Satan, the very spirit of evil, Jesus
said, "He was a murderer from the beginning." (John 8:44).
We would expect that many theologians
have written on the subject of evil. In recent times, behavioral scientists have
also laid a foundation that makes the development of a psychology of evil
possible. Freud's discovery of the unconscious and Jung's concept of the Shadow
are both basic to this effort. In other words, evil is now regarded both as a
spiritual reality and a scientific reality. The Jewish psychoanalyst, Erich
Fromm, fled Hitler's Germany and spent the rest of his life studying the evil
of Nazism. He was the first and only
scientist to clearly identify an evil personality type, to attempt to examine
evil people in depth, and to suggest that they be studied still further. Fromm
gave a place in psychology to evil that made it a serious disorder, such as
schizophrenia, for example.
In addition to Fromm's scientific
approach to defining evil, the Jewish theologian, Martin Buber, distinguished
between two types of evil. One type
concerns people in the process of "sliding" into evil. The other concerns those who have already
slid, "fallen victim" to and been taken over by "radical
evil." For Buber, sliding into evil is similar to sin, whereas being taken
over by radical evil is so totally powerful that it permanently locks evil into
place -- as happened for example in the lives historically evil people such as
Hitler and Stalin.
Evil and Sin
We should draw a distinction between
evil and sin. It is not their sins per
se that characterize evil people.
Rather it is the subtlety, persistence and consistency of their sins,
and most of all, their refusal to acknowledge this sinfulness to
themselves that characterizes evil people.
The Catholic Church has known this fact for two millenia. One of the
greatest goods that the Church has provided to humanity is the Sacrament of
Reconciliation, a sacrament in opposition to evil, most powerfully, a haven for
sinners to acknowledge their sins and to be absolved from them.
When we acknowledge our sins in the
confessional the Church is not suggesting that we are evil people, but just the
opposite, as people who are seeking to keep evil, as Buber put it, from being
"locked into place." Sinning
is defined in the Old Testament as "missing the mark," suggesting
that sin is nothing less than being continually imperfect. Because none of us are continually perfect,
we are all sinners. It was us sinners
whom Jesus came to call to salvation (Mt. 9:13).
Jesus called attention to the fact
that human sinfulness is not evil when he said, "Blessed are the poor in
spirit." (Matthew 5:3). By that he
meant, in its later and fuller expression, "Blessed are you for having the
sense of your personal sin and for acknowledging it to yourself and to God, and
seeking God's forgiveness through the Church." After his resurrection he connected this
universal human sinfulness and its forgiveness to the ministry of the Church,
when he told his disciples, "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and
whose sins you retain are retained,." (John 20:23).
In Jesus' day, those who lived evil
lives -- such as many of the Pharisees -- did not feel poor in spirit. They felt they had it all together, hated
Jesus and killed him because he exposed their refusal to acknowledge their
sinfulness. Unpleasant though it may be, acknowledging our sin is precisely
that which keeps our sin from getting out of hand and sliding into evil. Saint Therese of Lisieux put it succinctly
when she said, "If you are willing to serenly bear the trial of being
displeasing to yourself, then you will be for Jesus a pleasant place of
shelter."
Today's Pharisees
In our criminal justice system we have
set up a recurring legal defense for evil people to avail themselves of, by
allowing them through their lawyers to argue that, because of a "mental
disorder," they are not guilty of a crime. President Obama takes the same
position when he refuses even to use the phrase "radically evil
Islamists" to describe ISIS murderers, incredibly blaming their evil deeds
on the fact that they are engaged in vaguely innocent mischief because they are
without work and are looking for "job training." Yet he has no difficulty painting Christians
with a brush dripping with evil. As he
put it in a press conference, Christians should get off "their high
horse" for criticizing the actions of Moslem murderers and instead focus
on the supposed evil that somehow percolates down to 21st-Century Christians
from the eleventh-century Crusades.
His misrepresentation of the history
underlying the Crusades as the start of an evil epoch by Christians is
abysmal. European Christians undertook
the Crusades because Moslems first took over Jerusalem and the Holy Land,
killing and otherwise persecuting both the Jews and Christians inhabiting
Palestine. The Moslem murderers then
moved to conquer the Greek-Orthodox Christian capital of Constantinople. European Christians were urged on to stop the
Moslem invasions of Christian centers of life not by a warlord, but by that
era's most famous and peaceful contemplative saint, St. Bernard of Clairvaux
(1090-1153). St. Bernard was a monk and
abbot of the Cistercian Order, and vigorously preached the need for a Crusade
against Moslem evil.
Let us turn now to the historical
example of evil, which is best symbolized by the Nazi concentration camp of
Auschwitz. Then we can regard how the
goodness growing from this horrible site of evil can be said to apply by
analogy to undermining the evil caused by ISIS.
Auschwitz
The
death camp Auschwitz became the killing center during World War II where the
largest numbers of European Jews were murdered by the Nazis. One Christian man who died there became a
martyr to Nazism's evil. Maximilian
Kolbe was a Polish priest who died as prisoner number 16770. On August 14,
1941, when a prisoner attempted escape from the camp the Nazis selected ten
others to be killed by starvation. (In
actuality, the prisoner's escape attempt failed, as the would be escapist
drowned in the camp's latrine.) One of
the ten men selected to die was Franciszek Gajowniczek, who began to cry out,
"My wife! My children! I will never see them again!" At this Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward and
asked to die in his place. His request
was granted.
Kolbe was born as Raymond Kolbe on
January 8, 1894, the son of a poor weaver near Lodtz in Poland. In his youth he
had prayed to the Virgin Mary and asked her what was to become of him. As he wrote later: "She came to me holding two crowns, one
white, the other red. She asked if I was
willing to accept either of these crowns.
The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that
I should become a martyr. I said that I
would accept them both."
In 1910 Kolbe became a Franciscan,
taking the name Maximilian. He studied
at Rome and was ordained in 1919. He built a friary just west of Warsaw, which
eventually housed 762 Franciscans. When Germany invaded Poland, he and the
other friars organized a shelter for Polish refugees, among whom were 2,000
Jews. The Friars shared everything with
the refugees. Inevitably the community came under suspicion and was watched
closely by the Nazis. In May, 1941, the
friary was closed down and Maximilian and four companions were taken to the
death camp Auschwitz, where they worked with the other prisoners.
Prisoners at Auschwitz were slowly and
systematically starved. When food was
brought, everyone struggled to get his place and be sure of a portion. Father Maximilian, however, stood aside in
spite of the ravages of starvation, and frequently there would be none left for
him. At night, in the bunker where four
men had to sleep together in wooden bunks, Maximilian moved from bunk to bunk,
saying, "I am a Catholic priest.
Can I do anything for you?"
When Maximilian stood in the group
observing the Nazis' selection of men to be killed because another prisoner
tried to escape, he asked the commandant, "I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place. I am old.
He has a wife and children."
The commandant stood silently for a moment, but then accepted
Maximilian's request. Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man Maximilian saved, later
wrote: "I could only thank him with
my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly
grasp what was going on. The immensity
of it. I, the condemned, am to live and
someone else willingly and voluntarily offers his life for me -- a
stranger. Is this some dream? The news spread quickly all around the
camp."
Father Kolbe was thrown down the
stairs of Building 13 along with the other victims and simply left there to
starve. The building was totally dark,
with no places to sit or lie down other than the concrete floor. No food or water was ever brought in. Some men tried licking the walls to gain
moisture from the humidity. Kolbe encouraged the others with prayers, psalms
and meditations on the passion of Christ. A personal testimony was given by the
Polish prisoner who was assigned to take care of the starvation bunker:
"The ten condemned to death went through terrible days. At every
inspection, when almost all the others were lying down on the floor, Father
Kolbe was seen kneeling or standing the the center as he looked cheerfully into
the face of the SS guards. One of the
guards remarked, "This priest is really a great man. We have never seen anyone like him."
Father Kolbe outlived the others
starving in the bunker. Eventually, however, the SS decided that they needed to
kill Maximilian in order to put more men in the starvation bunker. Father Kolbe was given an injection of
carbolic acid, a poisonous solution that produced terrible pain through the
body's cramping and being forced to curl arouind itself into a ball as death ensued. When his body was taken to the crematorium
the Nazis had to exert great effort to make his balled-upbody straight enough
to insert into the oven.
He died on August 14, 1941, at the age
of 47. The heroism of Father Kolbe
spread throughout the death camp. One
survivor wrote that Father Kolbe's death was a "shock filled with hope,
bringing new life and strength. It was
like a powerful shaft of light in the darkness of the camp." The cell where Father Kolbe died is now a
shrine. He was beatified as Confessor by
Pope Paul VI, and canonized as martyr by Pope John Paul II in 1981.
As for Franciszek Gajowniczek, whom
St. Maximilian Kolbe saved from execution, he was evetually released from
Auschwitz by victorious troops. His wife
had survived, but his two sons were killed in the war. He died in 1995 at the
age of 95, 53 years after St. Maximilian
saved him from certain death. Every year
on August 14 he returned to Auschwitz to pay homage to St. Maximilian, honoring
the man who died on his behalf.
We can conclude from our study of St.
Maximilian Kolbe in his imprisonment at Auschwitz that his saintly goodness
played a role in weakening the evil of Auschwitz. No, his sacrifice did not bring an immediate
end to Auschwitz. But his goodness
affected everyone in the camp, from the SS guards to the other inmates, and
from that influence on the camp St. Maximilian brought the spiritual force of
holiness to bear on the existence and operation of the camp. His life and light
blunted the evil and darkness of the camp.
ISIS
Today's equivalent to Auschwitz is
ISIS. ISIS (or ISIL) follows an extreme
interpretation of Islam, promotes religious violence, and regards those who do
not agree with its interpretations as infidels or apostates. ISIS aims to return to the early days of
Islam, rejecting all innovations in the religion, which it believes corrupts
its original spirit. All of the most
influential jihadist theorists are criticizing ISIS, calling its
self-proclaimed caliphate null and void. They have denounced it for its
barbaric crimes, such as beheading of journalists and captured military
opponents. In addition, ISIS combatants have crucified and otherwise murdered
Christians, carried out sex crimes against women, including selling them as sex
slaves, buried children alive and burned prisoners to death within cages,
routinely videotaping all of their crimes because they seek publicity for their
evil. The United Nations, European
Union, United Kingdom, United States and dozens of other states have declared
ISIS a terrorist organization that is committing war crimes and genocide.
Christians living in areas under ISIS
control who want to remain in the "caliphate" face three options:
converting to Islam, paying a religious levy ("jizya") or death. Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights warned of war crimes and genocide being committed in the Iraqi war zone. ISIS has implemented a school curriculum
based on sharia, or Islamic law, which bans the teaching of art, music,
national history, literature and Christianity.
After capturing cities in Iraq, ISIS issued guidelines on how to wear
clothes and veils. ISIS also engages in
public and mass executions, sometimes forcing prisoners to dig their own graves
before shooting lines of prisoners and pushing them in. ISIS' ongoing crimes and destruction of
cultures and religions in the areas of their prominence are not a means to an
end, but an end in themselves.
Needless to say, ISIS is the basis and
foundation -- the very core of evil.
There is nothing the Nazis did during their period of criminality that
exceeds what ISIS is now doing. What can be done to end the ISIS evil, outside
of a massive military invasion of their inhabited territories and the
destruction of their entire system by force of arms? Such a solution would seem to be called for,
in accordance with the same spirit that animated the Crusades of the Middle
Ages. However, in this article we have seen how St. Maximillian numbed the evil
of his SS guards simply by doing great goodness, not by stirring up an attack
on the guards by his fellow inmates, or otherwise pursuing violence to blunt
the camp's evil. If evil can insinuate
itself into a system that is essentially good, then by the same token good can
insinuate itself into a system that is essentially evil.
There is no quantifiable measurement
that we can make of "how much" evil a good and holy person can strip
from an evil system like Nazism or ISIS.
Suffice it to say that the effect of St. Maximilian on Auschwitz spread
into the concentration camp's evil core through the saint's life and light.
There were no angels singing. Nor did the camp's commandant convert to
Christianity. If it is easier to see
evil than good, it is because the effect of good on evil is often subtle and
unsubstantial. But consider how the man
whose life St. Maximilian saved responded to the holy goodness spread into
Auschwitz by St. Maximilian. For fifty-three years, on the precise date
of Maximilian's death, August 14th, Franciszek Gajowniczek made a pilgrimage to
the very place that he hated intensely in order to honor the effect that the
saint's holiness and goodness had on him. No doubt Maximilian's holiness
affected everybody at Auschwitz -- both prisoners and guards -- to some
extent.
Such goodness is desperately needed to
bring down the evil of ISIS. It is
likely that there are saints, or potential saints, among the victims of ISIS'
evil. As with Auschwitz, if there are
such saints, we can't expect them to overthrow ISIS by force. But, as with St. Maximilian's good and holy
deed at Auschwitz, which stayed hidden from the outside world for years, the
power of human suffering inflicted on innocent people by ISIS would be a
butress against ISIS' success in spreading its satanic evil crimes throughout
the world. This would be so if such
suffering was accepted similarly to St. Maximilian's reliance on divine
providence at Auschwitz, where he submitted to his suffering and death as God's
will.
Absent the United States' leading the
world's armed forces in a military campaign against ISIS, which will not occur
because of the acceptance of ISIS as a normative Islamic-religious movement by
this country's Moslem president, sainthood seems to be the only force left to
bring the life and light of goodness into the hellish pit of barbarism and
radical evil upheld by ISIS.
--Tony Gilles
