Thought for the Week, March 15, 2026

 

On Saturday, February 28, 2026, during the First Week of Lent, Jesus’ teaching on love of enemies was read at Mass in every Roman Catholic Church.  In perhaps the most difficult teaching of Jesus, he said to his disciples and to the crowds: “You have heard how it was said: You must love your neighbour and hate your enemy.  But I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you: in this way you will be sons of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on bad men as well as good, and his rain to fall on honest and dishonest men alike.”

        In a world of intense of enmity, where a loved one has been abducted, tortured, and probably killed by bandits and insurgents; in a world of fraudsters; in a world inhabited by the children of Gaza and the children of Israel; in a world of enmity between America and Iran, Jesus’ teaching on love of enemies has no parallel.  Perhaps the closest one can find to this teaching is in Plato’s dialogue with Crito. 

In that dialogue, Crito, Socrates’ friend, had sneaked into Socrates’ cell while the latter was awaiting execution having been unjustly sentenced to death.  Sophists had accused Socrates of impiety and corrupting the youths.  Crito told Socrates that a way had been found for him to escape.  Crito’s offer was premised on the argument that the city had been unjust in sentencing Socrates to death.

        Rather than accept Crito’s offer, Socrates responded that it would be unjust to evade an unjust punishment inflicted by the city.  The city had been unjust to Socrates.  But, for Socrates, the answer to injustice is not injustice but justice.

        Socrates’ teaching sounds similar to the teaching of Jesus on love of enemies.  But there is a difference.  Socrates was saying: do no injustice to the unjust.  Jesus was saying: do justice to the unjust.  Socrates was saying: do not harm the wicked.  Jesus, for his part, was not simply saying: do not harm the wicked. He was saying: show love to the wicked. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  And he was saying to act this way is to be God-like.  It is to be like God who “causes his sun to rise on bad men as well as good and his rain to fall on honest and dishonest men alike.”

        On the morning of Saturday, February 28, 2026, as this Gospel of a God whose rain falls on good and bad people alike was being read in all Roman Catholic Churches, missiles were raining on Tehran and other Iranian cities through the double agency of the United States of America and Israel. 

History attests that, in 1953, Mohammed Mosaddegh, Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, was overthrown by America and Britain.  He had sinned in 1951 when he nationalized Iran’s oil sector, wresting its control from the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.  Having overthrown and imprisoned democratically elected Prime Minister Mosaddegh, the Americans restored the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to power.  Pahlavi’s American-sustained regime turned out to be authoritarian, repressive and corrupt.  In 1979, Iranian resentment towards that regime crystalized in the Iranian Islamic revolution which overthrew him and swept Ayatollah Khoumeni into power.   Then there was the Iran-Iraq war in which America supported Saddam Hussein who later became an enemy of America.

The arrival of Ayatollah Khoumeni marked the heightening of hostility to America, culminating in the hostage taking of Americans on November 4, 1979.  On that day, Iranian students in support of Ayatollah Khoumeni, invaded the American embassy in Tehran, and abducted 66 Americans working in the embassy.  After releasing 14 hostages, 52 were held in captivity in traumatic and dehumanizing conditions for 444 days.  The Iran hostage crisis largely contributed to the electoral defeat of President Jimmy Carter in 1980.  The American hostages were released in January 1981 as President Ronald Reagan was assuming office.

Iran’s Islamic regime proclaims the “death of America” and the annihilation of Israel, while America and Israel had long sought the opportunity to deal with the enemy regime in Tehran.  The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28, 2026, during a rain of missiles, while Jesus’ teaching of love of enemies was being read in all Catholic Churches points to a lesson: rulers of nations do not subscribe to Jesus’ teaching.  The doctrine of Thrasymachus in Plato’s dialogue on the Republic that justice is the right of might, of Friedrich Nietzche that the powerful legislate morality, and of Nicolo Machiavelli separating politics from morality are by far more influential in world politics than the teaching of Jesus.

        Apart from the teaching of Jesus, bombing Iran while negotiations were still thought to be on, and waging a war without regard for the United Nations Charter clearly forbidding such action point to violation of international order.  At the same time, there was nothing morally edifying in the stance of Iran constantly threatening the state of Israel with extinction, and inflicting cruel punishment on dissenting voices within Iran.  In this tale of two tyrants, lovers of justice and peace are caught between a leader who violates human rights and another who treats international law with disdain. 

On Sunday afternoon, March 1, 2026, the day after the bombing in Iran began, Pope Leo XIV made a plea for peace when he said: “Stability and peace are not achieved through mutual threats, nor through the use of weapons, which sow destruction, suffering, and death, but only through reasonable, sincere, and responsible dialogue.

“Faced with the possibility of a tragedy of immense proportions, I make a heartfelt appeal to all the parties involved to assume the moral responsibility of halting the spiral of violence before it becomes an unbridgeable chasm. May diplomacy regain its proper role, and may the well-being of peoples, who yearn for peaceful existence founded on justice, be upheld. And let us continue to pray for peace.

“In these days, troubling news has also arrived of clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan. I urgently appeal for a return to dialogue. Let us pray together that harmony may prevail in all conflicts throughout the world. Only peace, a gift of God, can heal the wounds between peoples.”

After Venezuela and Iran, the world is waking up to the fact that there is a President who can remove any President.  It is a world where might is right, a world in which the powerful get what they want.  It is a world in which it is highly unlikely that the Pope’s pious plea will be heeded.  Afterall, the Pope has neither missiles, nor drones, nor an army.

Father Anthony Akinwale, OP