Ruth Krall, "Bearing Witness: The First Step in Reconciliation"

Vincent van Gogh, "The Good Samaritan," original in the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, The Netherlands, uploaded to Wikimedia Commons for online sharing.

As my previous posting stated, I'm privileged to offer another set of essays by Ruth Krall, entitled "Compassionate Peacemaking: Healing the World's Wounds One at a Time." Part one of the series, which has the series title "Bearing Witness," consists of four essays. The essay you'll find below is the first part of Ruth's second essay in the "Bearing Witness" series, entitled "Bearing Witness: The First Step in Reconciliation." The second half of the essay will appear in a day or so after this.

As Ruth's footnote appended to the title of this essay states, she first presented this essay as an invited faculty presentation at the annual faculty retreat of her alma mater Goshen College in 2001. Please note that the footnotes to this essay begin with the number vi because the number sequence begins where notes in the previous essay ended. The first part of Ruth's essay "Bearing Witness: The First Step in Reconciliation" follows. Ruth has dedicated this essay series to her friend and mentor Nelle Morton.

Ruth Krall, "The Good Samaritan: Pious Parable or Subversive Instruction?"

Vincent van Gogh, "The Good Samaritan," original in the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, The Netherlands, uploaded to Wikimedia Commons for online sharing.

I'm privileged to be able to offer readers another set of essays by Ruth Krall, entitled "Compassionate Peacemaking: Healing the World's Wounds One at a Time." Part one of this series, which has the series title "Bearing Witness," consists of four essays. The essay I'm publishing today is the first in the "Bearing Witness" series. It's entitled "The Good Samaritan: Pious Parable or Subversive Instruction?"

Ruth's essays bear witness to the struggle to repair the world at a time in which that struggle seems overwhelming to many of us — and, for this reason, the essays strike me as timely and important. For those who observe Christian liturgical seasons, they seem especially appropriate during this Advent time, when people of Christian faith meditate about darkness and light, in hope that light will prevail and darkness cannot overcome it. 

Footnote to My Eulogy of Carmel McEnroy: "As so Many Others Have Experienced in This Life, Her Complete Redemption Had to Wait Till the Next Life"

Mercy Sister, Carmel McEnroy, author who captured women's role in #VaticanII, dies https://t.co/UxKj64GdVU via @ncronline @SistersofMercy @GerardRMoloney @FlanneryTony @MiriamTDuignan @vofwomen

— Sarah R Mac Donald (@SarahRMacDonald) December 3, 2019

A response David Jackson made to my remembrance of my graduate school colleague Sister Carmel McEnroy, RSM, prompts me to add a footnote to that posting. David writes,

Recommending "The List" — Commentary on Catholic Diocese of Charlotte and Its Yet to Be Fulfilled Promise to Release List of Abusive Priests

As I have noted in previous postings (a bibliography is appended at the end of this posting, covering the past several years), the diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, is one of the last dioceses in the nation to release a list of priests credibly accused of abusing minors, though its sister diocese in Raleigh long since published its list. As I've also noted (again, please see the bibliography below), Charlotte Bishop Peter Jugis promised this year that he would release a list of credibly accused priests prior to the end of the year.

Remembering Carmel McEnroy, RSM, a Distinguished Theologian Whose Career Was Cut Short by St. Meinrad Theology School

Mercy Sister, Carmel McEnroy, author who captured women's role in #VaticanII, dies https://t.co/UxKj64GdVU via @ncronline @SistersofMercy @GerardRMoloney @FlanneryTony @MiriamTDuignan @vofwomen

— Sarah R Mac Donald (@SarahRMacDonald) December 3, 2019

I've learned today from the tweet of Sarah R. MacDonald above  that my graduate school classmate Carmel McEnroy has left us. Carmel was a few years ahead of me in the graduate theology program at University of St. Michael's College of the Toronto School of Theology. I'm saddened to hear of her death. Carmel was a person of great integrity, who suffered much when St. Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology School fired her, a tenured professor, after she signed a statement calling for keeping discussion of women's ordination open.

As GOP Channels Putin: Commentary on Republican Long Game in Cozying Up to Russia's Strongman Autocrat

Heather Cox Richardson, "Letters from an American, 7 December 2019":

In June 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that democracy is obsolete. He believes that a few oligarchs should run the world while the rest of us do as we are told, and he is doing his best to destroy both American democracy and the international structures, like NATO, that hold it in place. The interests of reactionary American leaders and Russian president Putin run parallel. Astonishingly, that affinity has recently come out into the open. Some of our leaders are publicly echoing Putin’s propaganda, apparently willing to work with him to undermine the principles on which our nation rests so long as it means they can stay in power. 

Will we permit the destruction of American democracy on our watch?

What We Are Now Living Through Creates a Serious Crisis of Religious Faith

In the video above, discussing the death of 16-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez in a detention center for immigrants this past May, Mika Brzezinski states that Nancy Pelosi is filling a leadership void and a moral void in this country. Joe Scarborough then states that evangelicals used to fill this moral void and no longer do so: