A place of horror called Haiti

The TV pictures speak for themselves. Every picture is worth one thousand tears. Destruction, pain, despair and suffering mix with the courage and generosity of those who are now doing their best - against all odds - to salvage what could be salvaged. The disaster makes you wonder who the real victims are. Are they those who died or are they those who are still alive?

A few times we saw smiling faces e.g. when a relative or a friend is rescued, when medical care reaches one's loved ones or when food is offered. Then the tears that come to our eyes are of a different type as they are happy tears.

However, the question, which keeps coming back, is why. A short three lettered word, which communicates a flood of unanswered thoughts and emotions. Every time I utter it, at best I am answered by silence, at worst by an echo of a frightening crescendo of whys. Why was one of the poorest country's in the world yet again afflicted so savagely? Why was God absent? Why didn't He, in Superman fashion, stop the subterranean gigantic plates from moving? Why was there no miracle to prevent the pain?

Robertson's blasphemy

Pat Robertson, the infamous American televangelist of The 700 Club fame, answered with a blasphemy. He said that the Haitians had made a pact with the devil to get rid of the French. They got rid of the French all right but they got cursed by God in the process. It takes a blasphemer, and a stupid one at that, to say something like this. However, Robertson said it with a straight face on TV. He said it with the usual pomposity of his and, I guess, in the name of Christ! How awful and disgusting! How can people believe such rubbish?

The complete tale that Robertson referred to says that the pact was for two hundred years. By the way, these expired in 1991. Was the lease renewed or what?

Quite frankly Robertson's blasphemy for me is no answer.

A place of horror called Auschwitz

On May 28, 2006, Pope Benedict visited another "place of horror": Auschwitz-Birkenau. His words can provide more guidance - and some comfort - than those of Robertson.

"In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence - a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? In silence, then, we bow our heads before the endless line of those who suffered and were put to death here; yet our silence becomes in turn a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation, a plea to the living God never to let this happen again."

The son of the nation which committed the massacre is clearly moved while he speaks in the place where the massacre was at its worse. Pain and suffering cloak every word of his.

"We cannot peer into God's mysterious plan - we see only piecemeal, and we would be wrong to set ourselves up as judges of God and history. Then we would not be defending man, but only contributing to his downfall. No - when all is said and done, we must continue to cry out humbly yet insistently to God: Rouse yourself! Do not forget mankind, your creature! And our cry to God must also be a cry that pierces our very heart, a cry that awakens within us God's hidden presence - so that his power, the power he has planted in our hearts, will not be buried or choked within us by the mire of selfishness, pusillanimity, indifference or opportunism. Let us cry out to God, with all our hearts, at the present hour, when new misfortunes befall us, when all the forces of darkness seem to issue anew from human hearts: whether it is the abuse of God's name as a means of justifying senseless violence against innocent persons, or the cynicism which refuses to acknowledge God and ridicules faith in him."

A different kind of horror

The Haitian horror is of a different kind than that of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The latter was the product of humans; the former was caused by the vengeance of nature. The concentration camps were the result of carefully planned hatred and cruelty. They are enveloped in evil, pure evil. Earthquakes are not. However, the suffering is similarly enormous.

I know all the intellectual arguments that one can bring to explain such horrors and, I can understand that people find the arguments explaining natural disasters easier to explain than those caused by the sheer evil of fellow human beings. One can come to terms with the "irrationality" of a developing creation but not with the sheer cruelty of humans.

The suffering that results from the savagery of nature or that of humans puts a question mark on our human existence. It has challenged and continues to challenge believers as well as unbelievers.

The glimmering hope

Victor Frankl in his fantastic book "Man's Search for Meaning" looks for an answer from within the Nazi created hell made of concentration camps. His fellow inmates used to say: "If the allies will not come to save us there is no meaning in this suffering of ours." He used to say something different: "If there is no meaning in the suffering we endure, it does not make sense for the allies to save us."

We all grapple with this darkest of demons in our lives and we all search for meaning when faced by our suffering and that of our loved ones.

The only glimmer of hope, for me is Christ Crucified. Looking around Him, He saw His utter "failure" crowned with immense physical pain and the excruciating torment of the "absence" of His Father. He managed to utter the shortest but greatest prayer of them all: In your hand I commit my spirit. This pure act of faith was answered within three days by the scoring of the ultimate victory: the Resurrection.

Sometimes, though, it takes much more than three days to experience the Resurrection. It takes much, much more.

Pope Benedict's words at Auschwitz-Birkenau, after all, are wise indeed.

"We cannot peer into God's mysterious plan - we see only piecemeal, and we would be wrong to set ourselves up as judges of God and history."