Good Samaritans No More?

Editorial

(photo: Shutterstock)

After the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq released a video that depicted the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley by a member of the jihadist organization, President Obama held a press conference to describe himself as “heartbroken” and to condemn the perpetrators.

But when the president began a golf game shortly after his comments to reporters, critics chastised him for his poor taste.

Our own world, courtesy of television and the Internet, is awash in disturbing, often horrific, images and reports of orphaned children in refugee camps in Gaza, of jihadist armies wreaking vengeance on innocents in Iraq and mothers calling for justice in Ferguson.

These disturbing images arrive just as many U.S. citizens — including the president, according to his critics — have become hooked on modern distractions that bring us comfort but also compete with the needs of the poor, the marginalized and even our own families.

This is not a new problem. In Mark 10, Jesus Christ speaks of the callous travelers who ignore the victim of a robbery lying in the road. In this parable, there is just one man — a stranger, the Good Samaritan — who stops to aid the victim.

Perhaps this is the time to ask whether this story, which fuses a love of God with a love of neighbor, still carries the power to touch our hearts and spur us to action.

Pope Francis — during his homily at a July 2013 Mass that marked the deaths of African migrants whose ship sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa — said, “Today, no one in our world feels responsible; we have lost a sense of responsibility for our brothers and sisters. We have fallen into the hypocrisy of the priest and the Levite, whom Jesus described in the Parable of the Good Samaritan: We see our brother half-dead on the side of the road, and perhaps we say to ourselves: ‘Poor soul’ … and then go on our way.”

“The culture of comfort, which makes us think only of ourselves, makes us insensitive to the cries of other people, makes us live in soap bubbles, which, however lovely, are insubstantial; they offer a fleeting and empty illusion, which results in indifference to others; indeed, it even leads to the globalization of indifference,” added the Pope.

More recently, Pope Francis has called the world to examine its conscience, as Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq flee from the path of ISIS with nothing but their families, while holding onto faith that we will help them.

Will we respond to their cries with prayer, fasting and material donations? Will we demand that Washington act to provide relief, protection and resettlement help?

In mid-August, after Pope Francis wrote to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, pleading for action from the international body, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s representative to the United Nations in Geneva, warned the world that time was running out and that statements condemning ISIS would not suffice — as we note elsewhere in these pages.

“What seems to be particularly important in the letter of the Holy Father,” said Archbishop Tomasi, during an interview with Vatican Radio, “is the expressions that he uses: … There is a moral imperative, so to (speak), a necessity to act.”

Archbishop Tomasi then recalled the massacres in Rwanda, where an estimated 1 million souls perished in bloodletting between the Tutsi and Hutu peoples.

“There were meetings, political declarations, but very little action. And then, every year, we commemorate the almost 1 million people killed in that genocide,” Archbishop Tomasi noted. “God forbid that this may also be the same situation today in northern Iraq.”

Why do we often change the television channel and never get around to praying for Christians in Iraq, writing a check to a relief agency on their behalf or calling our representatives in Congress?

During his homily in Lampedusa, Pope Francis traced our all-too-human indifference to the sin of Adam.

“I wish to offer some thoughts meant to challenge people’s consciences and lead them to reflection and a concrete change of heart,” said the Pope, as he turned to the story of the Fall.

“‘Adam, where are you?’ This is the first question which God asks man after his sin. ‘Adam, where are you?’ Adam lost his bearings, his place in creation, because he thought he could be powerful, able to control everything — be God. Harmony was lost; man erred, and this error occurs over and over again, also in relationships with others.”

At its core, “globalized indifference” is a spiritual problem, and so it first must be addressed through spiritual warfare, rather than military combat. We are tempted to take potshots at our imperfect leaders, whose own diversions allow for easy target practice. But their example reflects our culture’s increasing preference for entertainment and sports, while family relationships and nation-building often suffer.

The answer, says Pope Francis, is to seek reconciliation with God and then to love our neighbors as ourselves.

This is the path of the Bridegroom and that of his Bride: the one, universal Church. We cannot be separated from our brothers and sisters in faith, and we should not fear their needs as a burden to our consciences, our freedoms or our pocketbooks.