Michael Commane
The first few times you watch it, it has novelty value and it does give you a different take on the story.
Over the last few weeks RT - Russian Television - has given wall-to-wall coverage of the ‘terrible atrocities’ being meted out to Russian speakers in Ukraine.
We are told that 97 per cent of the people of Crimea voted to return to Mother Russia.
But after a week or so one realises that the station is spewing out propaganda. It may well be that the people in Crimea feel more Russian than Ukrainian, but it can’t be as black and white as RT portrays.
It is accurate to say that the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych was illegal and there is the view that the vote in Crimea on Sunday March 16, 2014, was somehow legal, though I’m sceptical about that. But wrong doing has been done by all sides. And I have spoken to Russians who are are delighted to see Crimea return to Russia. However, it is expected that nations adhere to international agreements.
Watching and listening to RT one gets the impression that the magic word ‘legal’ is being used to justify everything that is being done. Once a person says something is legal it seems to give it great authority. And so too when one uses the word ‘illegal’ or the term ‘against the law’, there is an immediate sense or feeling that someone has done something unacceptable.
Indeed, legality is a term that many try to hide behind. And it is always a great threat to hold over someone. To tell someone that they are breaking the law can be most intimidating. Most of us don’t like to have a brush with the law.
In modern democracies there is always a healthy tension between the legislature and the judiciary. In tyrannies ‘the law’ is used as a blunt and brutal instrument.
On the first anniversary of the election of Jorge Bergoglio as pope much has been written about changes made in the first 12 months of his papacy.
In an article in The Guardian newspaper, columnist Andrew Brown wrote: “The temptation for observers is to look at the policies of the church and ask which of these he will change. But policy in the long run matters less than culture; written rules matter less than unwritten ones.”
In tomorrow’s Gospel (John 9: 1- 41), Jesus restores a man’s sight. Someone moves from darkness to light. When the Pharisees realise what has happened they are confused and look for every reason to lessen the extraordinary event that has happened.
They cannot accept that Jesus could do something like this: “This man cannot be from from God: he does not keep the Sabbath”. (John 9: 16). They throw the law at him. They show him the rulebook to clarify that this is simply not acceptable.
Of course for the efficient day-to-day running of any society laws and regulations are required. But laws have never made a society. Indeed, far too often despots and tyrants have made laws and hidden behind laws in an attempt to legitimise their behaviour.
Maybe in the church there has been an over-emphasis on rules and regulations. It’s worth noting that St Thomas Aquinas puts prudence as the most important of all the virtues. And prudence is part of no legal codex.
Surely it is the underlying atmosphere or culture that pervades a society that matters most. That’s the building block, that’s the foundation on which we place our trust. Law is used to support that culture or atmosphere.
For Christians that means our genuine love for God and one another. Our love for God and our fellow human being can never be something that comes about as a result of a command. Guns at the ready, dark balaclavas and jackboots might impress for a while. But in the long run they are destined for failure.
Rulebooks on their own are vacuous. Love lasts. A pope who helps deepen our power to love will have done a great job.
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