Although Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church could not amass a countervailing military force, he could use his pulpit to excoriate the world’s military aggressors in moral terms. Gone are the days when popes wielded military forces and whose threats of excommunication and damnation could be used with effect; modern-day popes speaking to a global audience, which includes non-Christians (not to mention non-Catholics), must typically resort to moral suasion. So it is ironic that as unprovoked military attacks on civilians have become more massive and increasingly against the norm expected of governments, the influence of popes has decreased, both militarily and theologically, in international affairs. Even so, Pope Francis went beyond citing ethical principles to appeal to a theological belief and value in Christianity during his Christmas Day, 2024 Urbi et Orbi (i.e., to the city and the world) address at the Vatican. Although not in itself enough to thwart the invasions and related crimes against humanity in Gaza especially, but also in Ukraine, the main impact may be said to be in throwing some light on just how antipodal Russia’s President Putin and Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu were from the distinctively Christian kingdom of God, both as a concept in the Gospels and a spiritual reality fundamentally at odds with the instinctual ways of our species as worldly. In other words, there is value in terms of international relations from people being able to grasp that two degrees of separation exist between military invaders intent on harming and killing innocent civilians and the kingdom of God as described in the Gospels by Jesus. Celebrating Christmas can be a means of bringing to mind what the Jesus in the Gospel narratives stands for and represents, which in turn stands as an alternative, which Gandhi realized, for how international relations can be done even by very human, all too human, and thus flawed, political leaders desirious of God's mercy.
On Christmas Day in 2024, “Russia launched a massive missile and drone barrage . . . , striking a thermal power plant and prompting Ukrainians to take shelter in metro stations on Christmas morning.”[1] Specifically, over “70 rockets, including ballistic missiles, and over 100 attack drones were ued to strike Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.”[2] In short, Putin’s strategic objective was to leave Ukrainians without electricity. Because he chose to do so on Christmas, which many Americans strangely call “happy holidays” or just “this holiday,” prompted Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy to write, “Putin deliberately chose Christmas for an attack. What could be more inhumane.”[3] Maxim Timchenko, CEO of DTEK, described the inhumanity as “(d)enying light and warmth to millions of peace-loving people as they celebrate Christmas.”[4] That many urban Ukrainians had to spend Christmas morning in underground subway stations rather than at home celebrating Santa’s bounty and enjoying fellowship for its own sake is indicative of just how little respect Putin had for Christianity; his utter lack of respect for Ukrainians was by then well known.
On the same day, Pope Francis “urged
‘all people of all nations’ to find the courage . . . ‘to silence the sounds of
arms and overcome divisions’ plaguing the world, from the Middle East to
Ukraine, Africa to Asia.”[5]
This language in itself is rather lame, or vague—a statement to be expected
from any pope. That he “called for an end to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle
East, . . . ‘particularly in Gaza where the humanitarian situation is extremely
grave.’”[6]
This statement could be expected to be received by the people the world over like
a repeating recording, which is to say, as more of the same impotent normative
language to which both Putin and Netanyahu had been so terribly unresponsive.
Fortunately, the Pope added a
line seemingly too utopian to matter, but with arguably huge effect in terms of
changing perspectives around the world. The pope “called for reconciliation ‘even
(with) our enemies.’”[7]
Such compassion is two degrees of separation from the ruthless killing of
civilians in Ukraine and Gaza—in the latter, 1,200 Israeli deaths and a few hundred
hostages do not ethically justify killing over 44,000 residents of Gaza, as
if they had all been culpable in the attack by Hamas. I suspect that
both Putin and Netanyahu easily dismissed the pope’s distinctly Christian valuing
of compassion extended even to—and I would argue especially to—one’s
detractors and enemies. In doing so, Putin in particular, who claimed to be
Christian and enjoyed the political alliance of the Russian Orthodox Church
hierarchy, could be seen from around the world as a hypocrite.
That the pope was not just
extoling compassion, which is a moral virtue, but also invoking Jesus’s preaching
on loving one’s enemies—which both as being based in love, which is deeper than ethical conduct, and being specifically oriented to one’s enemies—renders
the invocation theological in nature. One thing about theology is that
it can be applied in ways that moral principles are typically not.
For example, Timchenko wrote that the attack on Christmas was “a depraved and evil act that must be answered.”[8] What is binding on Putin and Netanyahu theologically is also binding on “the good guys.” Timchenko’s claim that the attack must be answered in retributive vengeance flies in the face of having and showing compassion for one’s enemies. Timchenko cuts off even the possibility of this by claiming that vengeance must take place as the response. At least Putin and even Netanyahu might have admitted that reconciliation by showing compassion to the respective enemies was possible. Unlike in ethics, where Timhenko can be distinguished normatively from Putin and Netanyahu because only the latter two are responsible for having harmed and killing innocent people, the spiritual value of the Jesus preachment in the Gospels to love thy enemies (and detractors more generally) by being compassionate rather than aggressive towards them applies to everyone. Why? Jesus's claim that loving one's enemies applies to anyone who seeks to enter the kingdom of God, the experience of which is possible at any time, reflects the religious belief that the spirit of God's mercy applies to every one of us, as what we all deserve in terms of divine justice is worse than what we actually get from God, which, as God is existential love, is life. It is no accident that God's mercy was a lietmotif of the pope's homily on hope in the Midnight Mass that Christmas.
Although by the end of 2024,
the Israeli government had certainly blown any good-will that Gaza residents
would show in kind to a sudden two-degrees-of-freedom switch by Israel to
showing compassion to that enemy, had over 44,000 Gaza residents not been
killed and over 2 million left homeless (and even bombed at least once while
staying in tents), a cycle of reconciliation could have been initiated by the
Israeli akin to how Gandhi treated even the British who had imprisoned him.
Such a cycle, wherein serving the residents would naturally have resulted
in good overtures by the residents to even Israeli troops, is that which Jesus
preaches in the Gospels for how the kingdom of God can be at hand already and
spread like a mustard seed grows.
To contrast the way to world peace through individuals reconciling by being compassionate with detractors with Putin’s attack on Christmas is to see Putin (and Russia’s government) as two steps removed, and thus especially sordid. That Putin regarded himself as a Christian, especially considering that Paul had written that faith without works is for naught, only adds hypocrisy to the two degrees of separation between inhumane treatment of others and being compassionate to one’s enemies. The pope’s Christmas Day speech thus helped the world to situate not only Putin, but every other militarily aggressive head of government in the world. We, the species that has been described as killer angels, are indeed capable of holding both poles in mind simultaneously.
