Genocide and the Churches
Ever since the Holocaust, a shadow has fallen onto the positions taken by the churches, both Protestant and Catholic, vis-à-vis the destruction of European Jewry. Many discomfiting questions have been raised, but all too few have been satisfactorily answered, much to the detriment of present day church behavior in response to genocidal events.
Whatever criticism may be raised against the contemporary decisions (or lack of) taken by the churches in response to the Nazi regime's policies of anti-semitism and its program of extermination, at least one overriding explanation/excuse/ rationalization can be made: none was prepared psychologically and institutionally to deal with the historically unprecedented emergency and, let us not forget, with this direct moral challenge to Christian values and threat to Christian faith. Indeed it was a dual challenge and threat; for the Final Solution was not the making of the churches, but of a self-proclaimed anti-Christian, Nazi state. Events moved so rapidly that a case can be made that the entire Christian establishment was caught off guard when in need to forge appropriate responses - both moral and tactical - in the face of genocidal racism instigated by a militant, atheistic state.
This is not said in lieu of an apologia for serious instances of collaboration and cooperation on the part of some institutional elements in both Protestant and Catholic churches. It is highlighted by virtue of the need to stress that the lack of warning made the churches' leaderships vulnerable, a vulnerability that led to morally flawed choices and seriously shortsighted political decisions whose repercussions continue to haunt Christian leaders to this day, a long shadow that stretches to a distant horizon well into the next century. Worse, lack of thorough introspection after the closing of Auschwitz and the defeat of Nazism - for which the churches can, regretfully, take no credit - has, for the most, left the churches today almost as vulnerable (unprepared) in the face of genocide in their midst as they were half a century ago.
A case in point is the recent and still unresolved ethno-killings in Rwanda, beginning with the Hutu-initiated slaughter of Tutsis and now continuing in the form of Tutsi-provoked revenge killings of Hutus. At the physical epicenter of these genocidal killings was the Catholic Church - its parish churches, its institutions (orphanages, hospitals, schools, etc.) - and its local, regional and international hierarchy. In theory, the Church in Rwanda was supra-ethnic or ethnic "blind." Ideologically, the Christian community of the faithful is non- or meta-ethnic, freed from concerns of ethnic distinctions and opposed to ethnic strife of whatever stripe. A priest, ideally, whether Hutu or Tutsi, is a priest to all his congregation, regardless of their ethnic identity. In fact, though, priests bring with them their ethnic prejudices and animosities. Ideally, these personal attitudes are diluted and tempered by the teachings and seminarian training of the Church; in actuality, the effectiveness of this indoctrination and training is rarely enough to overcome life-long habits and traditions. And so it was, tragically, in Rwanda.
When the slaughter began, the individual parishes were totally unprepared. Hence their vulnerability in the absence of a well-honed policy that might have been, had the lessons of Auschwitz been thoroughly integrated, had there been immediately after 1945 a concerted effort to plan in the event of a similar challenge, if not in Europe then, perhaps, in Africa. But no one took up the challenge, insisting on this approach for the future. There was no cry of "Never Again!" to make up for past deficiencies. Instead, a policy of Christianity as usual, of status quo ante, prevailed for almost two decades until Vatican II. But by then the habit of ingrained, ostrich-like denial had taken root.
When the first Hutu-Tutsi massacral confrontation took place in Burundi in the early 1970s, a generation after the Final Solution, the impotence of the Church as a result of the absence of any preparation was and remains glaringly self-evident. As in 1933-1945, the Church found itself in a reactive mode rather than in one of foresight, of having anticipated interethnic strife as a result of intellectual and institutional awareness. And this legacy of non-action - this time in the heart of Africa - laid the foundation for its lack of positive influence in Rwanda two decades later in the early 1990s.
Not insignificantly, it was the report of two Catholic nuns about mass-killings that alerted the world to the start of the slaughter of Tutsis. This act, however, did nothing to stop the genocide; church authorities had no contingency plans to fall back on because nothing had been learned from 1970.
The details, a parish-by-parish study of the role (or the lack of) on the part of the Rwandan clergy, individually and/or collectively, still need to be gathered. Anecdotal reports are not encouraging; they tend to confirm the historic pattern of utter vulnerability due to a total lack of preparedness. Rumors (and supposedly eye-witness accounts) that still need confirmation suggest that, in some (hopefully isolated) cases, Hutu parish priests denied fleeing Tutsis asylum in their churches. If true, these disturbing facts need to be studied and thoroughly analyzed for what they represent. The legacy of unwillingness to learn from past behavior only deepens the tragedy of the churches in the face of genocide, since it is all too obvious that the unarmed cannot stop the armed, especially if the unarmed are unschooled of what to do, other than bravely confront mortal danger, itself a useless gesture.
This is not a call for martyrdom. Martyrdom may be a post-genocide source of consolation and self-righteousness, but it is of no use to the victims who might have been saved. If anything, martyrdom can be interpreted as a last ditch effort, improvised, but ineffective. Politically, it is a symptom of weakness due to a lack of an alternative. It is an abject proof of no planning, leading one to ask: "Is this lack of preparation willful? Is it by design? Or is it due to a chronic myopia that needs instant correcting to prevent further error in the context of ethno-genocide?" What does it take to persuade that further postponement of the problem is to encourage even greater moral (spiritual) compromise and, thereby, institutional obsolescence? Let us not forget that Hitler was never excommunicated. Is that not warning enough? In an age of genocide, inactivity is tantamount to joining the murderers (the devil?).
Henry R. Huttenbach