So good may overcome evil

During its 42nd plenary session, the United Nations General Assembly, by means of Resolution 60/7, chose January 27 as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Holocaust recalls the horrendous and brutal genocide of some six million European Jews, two million gypsies, 15,000 homosexual people and millions of others by the Nazi regime.

When faced with such a heinous annihilation of innocent people the obvious question that comes to mind is: Where was God in all this horror? Why did He remain silent? And how could He tolerate all this raging violence?

In his visit to the Auschwitz Camp on May 28, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI appealed to humanity to turn to God’s loving and merciful heart. It is only by deeply encountering such a caring God that humanity will be spared from other horrendous destruction!

“Let us cry out to God, that he may draw men and women to conversion and help them to see that violence does not bring peace but only generates more violence – a morass of devastation in which everyone is ultimately the loser. The God in whom we believe is a God of reason – a reason, to be sure, which is not a kind of cold mathematics of the universe, but is one with love and with goodness. We make our prayer to God and we appeal to humanity, that this reason, the logic of love and the recognition of the power of reconciliation and peace, may prevail over the threats arising from irrationalism or from a spurious and godless reason”.

Thus, St Paul’s advice is all the more timely: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12, 21)!