Archbishop Capalla on reconciliation

On Monday, Dec. 1, 2003, Archbishop Fernando R. Capalla, Archbishop of Davao, became the new President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, succeeding Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, the Archbishop of Cotabato. He will be President of the CBCP for the next two years, with the possibility of being re-elected for a second term.

He was invited to give a talk on Reconciliation to the Cabinet of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. He has a quiet genius for peace making. He has received the San Lorenzo Ruiz Award for Peace and Unity, and the Aurora Aragon Quezon Peace Award. Antonio L. Ledesma, Executive Director of CENDHRRA, wrote this report on Archbishop Capalla’s address to the cabinet.

"Reconciliation calls for a long process and involves interrelated factors: political, legal and pastoral. He made it clear that his perspective on this thorny topic was confined to the pastoral, as befits his vocation as a spiritual shepherd. Contrary to the reports that he accepted to be the administrator’s negotiator on reconciliation, the Archbishop clarified that he considered himself to be only a bridge for promoting ‘friendly, humble, compassionate, and respectful dialogue’ for anyone who seeks his help in healing broken relationships.

"Capalla’s definition of reconciliation is multifaceted and can discomfit politicians and even some clergy and religious. This is due to his redefining of justice by linking it with forgiveness. In this he follows the thinking of John Paul II, who asserts that the shattered moral and social order ‘cannot be fully restored except by a response that combines justice with forgiveness.’

"For emphasis, the Archbishop quotes not only the Bible, citing Matthew 6,12: ‘Father, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’, but also from the Holy Qur’an in Sarah 42,40: ‘Whoever forgives and makes reconciliation, his reward is with Allah’. In talking this way, Capalla is often confronted with the sharp retort: ‘Do you mean to forgive and forget the horrendous violations of human rights, and the gross greed that has oppressed the poor?’

"But it is not a cheap forgiveness that Capalla is advocating. In redefining justice in terms of forgiveness, justice does not become less than justice. Instead, it is enriched and redirected towards a more perfect kind of society than justice alone provides – a society that is transformed into a community of brothers and sisters. In this view, the preservation of society is the result of justice transformed by charity, where the policy of vindicating the rights of others does not degenerate into hatred but produces solidarity and social harmony.

"The introduction of forgiveness into our political and social discourse introduces a new scenario of freedom. It unfreezes the political process by freeing it of those resentments and bitter hatreds that have imprisoned us to the divisive events of the past.

"It frees relationships previously locked in irreversible and irreconcilable positions of what the Pope calls: ‘sterile situations of mutual condemnation, without appeal’, and which he explains this way: ‘All human beings cherish the hope of being able to start again and not remain forever shut up in their own mistakes and guilt.’ John Paul II concludes: ‘The ability to forgive lies at the very basis of a future society marked by justice and solidarity’.

Capalla gave outstanding examples of acts of forgiveness by public figures. Kept in solitary confinement for 27 years, Nelson Mandela, at his inauguration as the first black President of South Africa, invited as his guest of honor his white jailer. Sentenced to death by the military, Kim Dae Jung took his oath of office as President of South Korea and seated in the front row was the former President, General Chun Doo Hwan, who had ordered his execution.

"Reconciliation needs a framework within which its activities can be systematically designed and tested. Archbishop Capalla noted that for many nations who had suffered gross violations of human rights – such as tortures, disappearances, detentions without trial under dictatorships – the setting up of Truth Commissions answered this need. There are already more than 20 Truth Commissions that have been set up, mostly in Africa and in South America. Truth Commissions have an advantage over court trials since they look at the big picture by exposing patterns of human rights abuses over time, rather than single events. But Truth Commissions not only heal but also generate pain and even conflict, since they open up for public inspection many sensitive experiences.

"When asked what constrained so many among the black Africans to forgive rather than to demand retribution, and to be so magnanimous rather than wreak revenge, Archbishop Desmond Butu, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and wrote the classic book on South Africa ‘No Future Without Forgiveness’, pointed to the presence of UBUNTO in the people’s culture. UBUNTO says we belong to one humanity, we are inextricably bound up in one bundle of life. I am diminished when you are diminished. I am humiliated when you are humiliated. What dehumanizes you dehumanizes me. And Archbishop Capalla wonders if in our Filipino culture we also have ingrained a similar sense of oneness, a hospitable culture for the practice of forgiveness.

"The three most influential positions in the Philippine Church: the Presidency of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, and the seats of the three primal metropolitan Archdioceses in the country, are now occupied by three outstanding ecclesiastical leaders – Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales of Manila, Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal of Cebu, and Archbishop Fernando R. Capalla of Davao.

"Beneath their common traits of soft spokenness and gentility there reside great courage and determination. They are architects of a moral order founded on truth, built on justice, and animated by love. Their pastoral stewardship holds promise of a new springtime of joy and hope for Filipinos."

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Archbishop Capalla gave excellent examples of forgiveness in South Africa, and in Korea. But forgiveness was also the characteristic trait of one of the finest Statesmen that the United States has ever had: Abraham Lincoln.

After four years of a bloody civil war, when finally the North had won, Lincoln wanted to grant amnesty to all the leaders of the revolution in the South. His councilors opposed this, vehemently.

They said to him: "It is a prime principle in conflict: DESTROY YOUR ENEMIES!"

Lincoln thought about this, for some time. And then he said, quietly: "If I can made my enemies my friends – I have destroyed my enemies."

The great diplomats of the world, right now, realize that this is true. The most modern book on diplomacy, and the most popular, is based on the principle: "The only solution to the evils of this world is… forgiveness."

Archbishop Capalla is in good company. And his address to the Presidential Cabinet of the Philippines was wise with the wisdom of God.