By Dr. Dencio Acop
‘Too many saviors on my cross’, Jesus Christ would most probably say to us all today. The great actor Richard Harris wrote this poem some 50 years ago to condemn the war that was killing Irish Protestants and Catholics. Irish by birth and a man of varied talents, Harris passionately lent his voice and values to address the killing that was tearing apart his homeland. ‘Who gave you the right to play savior?’, he asked. In this commentary, I extrapolate on the article by Jeff Minick and the June 25th reflection of Pope Francis. When the Harris poem was written, the Irish Republican Army waged attacks in Northern Ireland and England fighting for an all-island Irish Republic that eventually killed some 1,700 people before hostilities ended in 1998.
Today, the spirit behind that powerful poem is kept alive by the god-like status we have given to governments, organizations, and individuals who dictate and mandate how we should live our lives but whose policies are not founded on Jesus Christ. Thus, the painful answer to Christ’s question of ‘who gave you the right to play my part?’ is: us. We the secular people did it to ourselves. We elected, empowered, and or elevated to god-like status our government officials, organizational leaders, and cult leaders to lord it over us as if they were the Lord. The problem with this arrangement is that if these leaders and authorities are not OF CHRIST, then we really have a problem. Like it or not, our politics and faith are closely intertwined. While the Peace of Westphalia signed in 1648 ‘brought into being our present international order of divided sovereignty and balance of power’, and brought to a close the Thirty Years’ War between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire, it also removed Christ from the center of our lives. The war, fought mainly in central Europe, killed some eight million people. It allowed secular and non-secular forces, both detached from Christ, to gradually take over. Incidentally, one of the two Westphalia treaties was inked in Munster, a city in Ireland. Today, there is almost no room in our lives that is not regulated by government law. To the point that fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, children, .. entire families (the very bulwark of societies) cannot live their lives without being governed by these gods or more appropriately ‘idols’. In short, our public servants have become our masters. Again, the problem is that we are supposed to have only one Master: Jesus Christ. As is written in the Bible, the oldest and most credible of books. So, unless governance is based on Christ, it is bound to fail.
Taking it further, the problem with playing god or savior is credibility. And it is a real problem. For playing savior demands witnessing. As Pope Francis points out, modern man today listens more to ‘witnesses’ than anything else. He recognizes evangelizers, teachers, parents, government officials, etc. But people today listen not to them if they are not witnesses. Real, discerning people listen to other people who portray themselves as their ‘saviors’ only if such ‘saviors’ are witnesses to what they preach. Witnesses are people who walk their talk. Who are Christ-like. The real tragedy though to the modern fantasy described earlier is that it is all based on us with all our sham and drudgery. We put in place to rule over us people who are NOT WITNESSES. Who have never been on the cross. We ourselves (many or most of us) are not witnesses. Refusing to carry our cross. Today’s world is full of the blind leading the blind, who put them there. So, I echo Christ’s question to us all today from the Harris poem: ‘Who gave you the right to replace me on my cross?’
