FORGIVENESS IN THE FACE OF THE UNFORGIVABLE

Friday, April 2, 2004 - 7:00 a.m.PST

The following log has been modestly edited to remove technical and procedural distractions and rearrange some discourse in a less random order.

In attendance: Juracy Marques, Noel McInnis

Juracy Margues enters the chat room

Noel McInnis 
Hi, Juracy. What would you like to discuss this morning? 

Juracy Marques 
Today I'll attend the chatting for half an hour, since I have an appointment at 1:00 h. Rio de Janeiro time which is the same of Porto Alegre, where I am. OK? 

Noel McInnis 
O.K. 

Juracy Marques 
I would like to discuss the difficult issue of Holocaust. The Sunflower is such a challanging narrative, that I keep thinking about Wiesenthal and his sufferings in that context. I would like to hear your opinion about. 

Noel McInnis 
What I know to be possible is more important than my opinion - namely, that the Holocaust was forgivable by at least one person who was its victim. 

Juracy Marques 
I am a Christian, so my natural inclination is to forgive, no matter how horrible could be the misbehaving of anyone who shows he/she is suffering, having in mind their sins or mistakes. 

Noel McInnis 
The challenge presented by catastrophes like the Holocaust and other "ethnic cleansings" is that those who have not experienced them have no existential basis on which to discern the difficulty of forgiving in such circumstances. For while Forgiveness is moral in principal, it is existential in practice. 

Juracy Marques 
That is my problem. Fortunately, I don't have any experience that I can possible compare to what the people who suffered the Holocaust had to go through. 

Noel McInnis 
I am similarly fortunate, and therefore have no basis on which to judge the experience of those who have. I can only assume that I would not find such experience to be easily forgivable. 

Juracy Marques 
It is good to enlarge the concept with possibilities of a forgiven attitude, when you say that it is a moral principle and not only existential. 

Noel McInnis 
As a moral principal, forgiveness has no order of difficulty. In practice, forgiveness either is or is not, regardless of the circumstances. Hence Jesus' command to forgive 70 times seven times.. 

Noel McInnis 
From Jesus' perspective, one is to forgive the enormous as well as the petty, just as he did. 

Juracy Marques 
From my view point, Wiesenthal took the best decisions possible according to the circunstances. I liked, particularly, the way he behaved when he visited the mother of the SS official. Someway, I could identify myself with that mother and her feelings to her 'good boy'. 

Noel McInnis 
To me, his attitude toward the mother was a forgiving one, especially in a world where parents are so readily blamed for the shortcomings of their childern. 

Juracy Marques 
Noel, I'm sorry, but now I have to leave. Have a nice weekend. "Stay in grace".
 
Noel McInnis 
I know that you are leaving soon, so I will now share my opinion (ooops! Perhaps too late!): If something is forgivable, where is the virtue of forgiving it? It is in the face of the seemingly unforgivable that forgiveness is most relevant.