Not only extreme but inhuman

Had things worked out between the People's Republic of North Korea and the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave as fantasized by the happy campers of the Clinton White House back when Maddy met Kim in October of 2000 (above left), her shimmering patronym -- Albright -- as contrasted to his [first/last?] name -- Il [Ill?] -- would have been metaphorical fodder for the blogger's mill. But as it turned out, we're using the PRNKs recent new-Q-lar unpleasantness as an opportunity to tout a new category for this blog, "Take your pick." This is the third time we've asked ourselves that very question. It's starting to look like a meme. In this case, it's Kim Jong-Il vs. Boston's warm and wise and user-friendly Cardinal O'Malley (above right, Cardinal Seán's Fall Trip to Rome photo): Take your pick. Previous take your picks here and here.

Our sis is forever lightly scolding us with the epithet "too soon made glad." No doubt we are, and in that spirit we now confess that Boston's own Cardinal Seán O'Malley makes us smile with our heart. He blogs at Cardinal Seán’s Fall Trip To Rome, where the comments confirm the Capuchin monk chosen by Papa Ratzi to lead the oft beleaguered Archdiocese of Boston out of the desert is really on to something. Here's what we asked His Eminence today via the comments there:

Your blog is truly warm and wonderful and inspiring, and I’m not even catholic. As the late Oriana Fallaci said, “If an atheist and a pope [Papa Ratzi] think the same things, there must be something true.”

My question for you, should you find time and interest to respond in a future post, is what are we to make of the Amish community’s forgiveness of the torturer and murderer of their children? My thinking is that their response is only the other side of the coin of Islamic radicals’ violent response to the slightest offense. In my view, both -- presumably justified by religious arguments -- are not only extreme but inhuman. The Amish response amounts to appeasement of bad behavior, which would seem to encourage rather than restrain future bad acts.

We invite our readers' thoughts.

Comments

[Laura Lee Donoho]

I am not Amish and even though it would seem to be a cheap kind of forgiveness for the families of the five girls to grant to the dead murderer I suspect their forgiveness is of God.

A verse I sometimes refer to whenever it is needed is: Love covers a multitude of sins. That kind of love doesn't come cheap and it cannot be purchased. It has already been given.

[Gayle Miller]

I think the ability to forgive those who have wronged us is essential for the evolution of the soul to a closer communion with God. I also think that for those Amish parents to forgive the man who tortured and murdered those innocent little girls is an act of almost superhuman proportions. I don't know if I could muster up that kind of loving kindness but I also don't think it is in any way an "appeasement" of the act of the man who perpetrated this vile act.

All that being said, forgiveness isn't easy - heaven knows I struggle with it on a daily basis toward people who have been unfair and unkind and just plain nasty to me. But at least I do TRY and I guess that's all that can be asked of any of us.

[enrevanche]

"Forgiving" a child murderer is an act of moral idiocy, in whatever clothing it's dressed up in (basic black, as the Amish favor, or something gaudier.)