What are the planets current religions doing these days for which their future leaders will have to apologize? Seems they could look at what they are doing now, make reforms and adjustments and right the wrongs in their own time and apologize for their own mistakes — to todays victims. Its tiresome hearing leaders apologize for the mistakes of tyrants and their bad leaders long dead. Apologizing now for contemporary crimes and misdeeds might be heard by current victims and families.Recently the Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, Poland, apologized for the actions of Roman Catholic priests who allegedly collaborated with a secret-security agency that was dreaded during the years the communists controlled Poland. I apologize to those who think that they have been hurt by the attitude of some priests, a Polish news agency quoted Dziwisz. He called on Poles to not lose faith in the church for such mistakes. Files had turned up showing that priests had collaborated with security forces that monitored the daily lives of Poles before communism fell in Poland in 1989.
The northern branch of the Moravian Church has publicly apologized for its participation in slavery in America centuries ago. At their recent convention, the 12-state province passed a resolution that called slavery the low point of Moravians in North America. Its southern province adopted a similar resolution in April, according to Associated Press reports. For example, when the Moravian community in Bethlehem, Pa., was founded 250 years ago, it had about a dozen slaves as part of its fellowship. They acknowledged that Moravian members owned and sold slaves. In North Carolina, most black Moravians were restricted to their own congregations. At the convention, some questioned the appropriateness of such an apology, but others said such a public statement was necessary to acknowledge a dark side of the church’s history.
The worlds religions seem to be in such a fierce and determined battle to keep control of what they think they are. Traditions, orthodoxy and timeworn teachings are identified as being under attack, so it calls for extreme measures to counter the “radicals” and reformers and perceived enemies. As a result, leaders take extraordinary steps in “defense” for which they may apologize generations later. When Pope John Paul II apologized in 2000 for the Catholic Churchs treatment of Jews through the centuries, it prompted San Francisco Chronicle columnist Joan Ryan to note, It is quite a remarkable and admirable thing that a church that considers itself holy, that believes its popes are guided by the hand of God, would acknowledge and ask forgiveness for mistakes of the past. But what about the mistakes of the present? Let’s hope acknowledgment of today’s exclusion and rejection of women won’t have to wait for whoever is pope during the next Jubilee.
Will women, gays, minorities, the poor, AIDS victims, refugees, peoples in Sudan and Iraq and so many countries and others be singled out someday for how they have been marginalized and treated, forgotten and exploited?
So much nasty stuff is going one these days by religionists, by misguided leadership, by harmful doctrine and misinterpreted scripture, and people are getting hurt. None of us may live long enough to hear the apologies if and when the come. Holy are those faiths and faith leaders who recognize their transgressions here and now, rectify them and seek forgiveness.
