Strength Made Perfect in Weakness
When, in 1975, the journalist Vladimir Herzog (who had been smuggled to Brazil from Croatia as a child by his family in order to escape Nazi persecution on account of his Jewish heritage) was reported to have committed suicide, his Rabbi smelled a rat. Herzog had been living a double life as both the editor-in-chief of the São Paulo state television station and also as a leader of the civil resistance movement against the regime. The secret police had discovered Herzog’s clandestine links to the opposition in October 1975 and, on the 24th of that month, summoned him for interrogation. On 25th October, the military announced that he had hanged himself with a belt in his cell.
In fact, the journalist had died while being brutally tortured by the secret police. A false autopsy report was produced and, hoping that this would silence any further questions, they allowed Herzog to be buried in São Paulo’s Jewish cemetery. However, they had reckoned without two factors; firstly, Herzog’s reputation as a journalist meant that questions were already being asked in the United States and Europe about the dubious circumstances surrounding his death and, secondly, the burial was to be conducted by a markedly unconventional Rabbi.
With flowing coiffed hair and a penchant for embroidered yarmulkes, Rabbi Henry Sobel had differences of both religious belief and personality with Cardinal Arns, the leader of the Brazilian Roman Catholic Church, but they both shared a fierce opposition to the regime and an eye for the impact of the dramatic act (although Sobel would later take this a little too far when he was arrested for shoplifting hundreds of dollars’ worth of cravats from a store in Palm Beach, Florida). Against the express orders of the military, Sobel arranged for Herzog’s body to be inspected and, having found marks of torture on the corpse, refused to inter Herzog in the corner of the Jewish burial ground reserved for suicides, instead laying him to rest slap bang in the middle of the plot so that all would know his death had been no accident.
In light of what he had discovered, Sobel contacted Cardinal Arns, suggesting that a show of unity by the nation’s religious leaders might just generate the publicity needed to expose Herzog’s murder for what it was. Arns agreed and offered São Paulo’s Roman Catholic cathedral for a joint service to mark what had occurred. The government got wind of what was happening and sent battalions of soldiers and a detachment of tanks to surround the cathedral in order to discourage attendance. It didn’t work. With nearly eight thousand people crammed into and spilling out of the church, Cardinal Arns seized his moment. Normally known for his humility (preferring a shabby cardigan and stained slippers to the flowing robes one might expect from a prince of the Church), Arns was perfectly capable of utilising the mystique of his office when required; with all eyes on his wiry frame, he made his way slowly into the pulpit, drew himself up to his full height and announced, quietly and clearly to the world, that Vladimir Herzog had not killed himself but had been tortured to death by the secret police. His address contained a direct shot at the regime, one which was to be reported all over the world: ‘Those who stain their hands with blood are damned!’ he cried. ‘Thou shalt not kill!’
The government was incandescent and made sure that a series of death threats arrived at the little monastic cell occupied by Arns over the next few weeks. Their message was clear: if we can murder a prominent journalist, an Archbishop could be next. Arns ignored the threats and, summoning his fellow bishops, put together a statement, to be read out in churches across the country, in response to the murder of Herzog and the continued use of torture and oppression by the dictatorship. It outlined, with the crisp, pointed prose for which Arns was to become known, that despite torture being utterly contrary to the laws of God and of Man, it was happening every day in Brazil. The moment was considered a turning point; neither the international community nor the majority of Brazilians could ignore the reality of military dictatorship in Brazil any longer.
Fascist Europe was the world of eighty years ago, segregated America that of sixty years ago, dictatorship-dominated Brazil forty years ago. In the late twentieth century, we told ourselves the comforting lie that they would remain there, in the past, and yet as we career towards the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century all those tropes look set to reappear. Fundamentally, this ought to be of no surprise. They are, after all, manifestations of human nature. At the root of the faith that the figures in this volume shared is a belief that such a nature is flawed and fallen – and yet capable of redemption. What tied Fascists together was a belief that human nature (at least, that of people who looked or spoke like them) was not flawed. They believed that people could attain purity here on earth, that they could become supermen, a master race.
What, conversely, these men and women of resistance show is the frailty of humanity. For some that was by their own manifest ridiculousness – the Pooh-like gourmandising of Canon Kir or the stubborn-as-a-mule character of Fred Shuttlesworth. For others it was embracing their own mortality, giving up their lives like Jane Haining or Maximilian Kolbe. Yet we would be mistaken to view these as figures of the past: across the world, from Brasilia to Budapest, men (whether they call themselves presidents or princes, generalissimos or General Secretaries) are echoing the age-old tropes once more; and others might do well to look to the lives described here for guidance on how to respond. If these examples reveal anything universal, perhaps it is a counter-intuitive truth that might is not right, that true strength is achieved in embracing our weaknesses.
Such is the vision of the Kingdom of God set out in the Sermon on the Mount. The earth, Christ teaches, will be inherited not by the strong but by ‘the meek’, the Kingdom of Heaven belongs not to the manifestly successful but to ‘those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake’. With this vision of humanity at the centre of the worldview of the people described in this volume, it is little surprise that they opposed those who were trying to build a world of strength, cruelty and arrogance.
Theology, however, is never that simple. For every tale of bravery related above, there were tales of abject cowardice and collaboration. For every figure who discerned the true direction of oppressive regimes, there were those who continued to tell themselves that such excesses were overstated. For every man and woman of faith who identified political totalitarianism as against the will of God, there were plenty who saw it ushering in God’s own Kingdom, on the left and the right. As the old Russian joke goes, ‘What is the difference between Fascism and Communism? Fascism is the oppression of man by man; in Communism it is the other way round.’
Either the Kingdom is a vision that belongs to neither left nor right, either it is a vision around which everyone, from a Serene Princess of Battenberg to an unwashed French former scout leader with a persistent chesty cough, can coalesce, or it is nothing. Of course, at no point has anyone suggested such a path would be easy – indeed, a great deal of the Bible, the history of the Church and the lot of people across the world today suggests quite the opposite. The lives – and deaths – of men like Pietro Pappagallo and women like Sara Salkaházi were not ones of ease, but they were ones of integrity, of commitment to something that they believed to be higher than even those earthly powers that seemed unstoppable.
In his second letter to the Corinthians, St Paul writes of a vision he had in the midst of personal doubt in which God tells him that ‘my strength is made perfect in weakness’. None of these stories is without its moments of doubt, failure and weakness. Even Canon Kir must have had a flash of doubt as he looked up from where he lay wounded at the unfinished snack on the kitchen table. Yet the moments of utmost weakness, even the ultimate act of vulnerability – giving oneself up to death – were often the moments when these individuals’ principles and faith proved most strong. Strength made perfect in weakness indeed.
When I was being selected for the priesthood, one of the questions I was asked was, ‘What would you go to the stake for?’ In a draughty house in the middle of Staffordshire, with the unmistakable smell of bulk-bought air freshener in my nostrils and perched on a chair that was doubtless the height of mass-produced conference centre-style circa 1988 (for it is in such glamorous surroundings that our state Church chooses its future priests and prophets), the question seemed almost a ridiculous one. Yet at its root was a profound truth, namely that by working out what we are prepared to die for, we might discern what it is we want to live for. None of us wants to make the choices that these men and women were forced to make, but, as the tropes get recycled and the anger swells, it may well be that this and future generations will be asked to stand in similar shoes to the figures in this book. It can only be hoped that they have the faith to act in the same way.