Mercy and Killing and Justice

In preparation for the coming Holy Year of Mercy (as I need it!) I am reading Pope Francis' Bull of Indiction. The Holy Father quotes the psalms several times at the beginning (I am quoting a different translation, D-R, but the sense is the same):

...the God who keeps faith for ever, who redresses wrong, and gives food to the hungry. The Lord, who brings release to the prisoner,  the Lord, who gives sight to the blind, the Lord, who comforts the burdened, the Lord, who befriends the innocent!  The Lord, who protects the stranger, who defends orphan and widow, who overturns the counsel of the wicked!  (Ps 146:7-9) (in the Bull, the last portion reads: the ways of the wicked he brings to ruin.)

And

he it is that heals the broken heart, and binds up its wounds.  .... The Lord is the defender of the oppressed, and lays the wicked low in the dust.  (Ps 147:3,6)

Note my emphasis: the Lord's mercy is always accompanied by justice for the oppressor. It is interesting that the Pope Francis included these last lines.

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I am wondering what the substantial difference is between our bombing a hospital in Afghanistan for over an hour and killing 22 innocents and the massacres we are seeing committed by crazy individuals across our country.

 

It seems to me that neither are justified. All the perpetrators give justifications, but I don't buy any of it. (Note, I am not strictly a pacifist.)

 

With our never-ending military interventions and injections of weapons in the Middle East which create refugees and take many innocent lives, we continually set the stage (create twisted justification) for more and more extreme terrorist groups.

 

How many decades is it going to take us to learn our lesson?

 

The President seems at a loss to define any coherent strategy (other than we need to get rid of all the bad guys), and I get the feeling most of the Republican candidates for president just want to escalate-which has brought us to this point to begin with.

 

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Last summer (2014) I reported here about my trip down the very, very low Lynches River, detailing our many portages. That is not the case today. It is flooding over its banks and people are being evacuated.

 

It is nice to have sunshine here-the first in a couple weeks. But many in other areas are still suffering from floods, lack of water, isolation, and destruction-even in the sunshine.

 

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Oremus pro invicem!