Fr Dermid McDermott - The Raiders Footballer and the forces of good and evil

33 Sun Yr C 09-10

Fr Dermid McDermott - The Raiders Footballer and the forces of good and evil

There is a story told of Winston Churchill; a lady once said to him, ‘Winston you’re drunk!’ To which he replied, ‘And you madam are ugly, but I shall be sober in the morning.’

The brouhaha concerning, the footballer, the dog and the web site is very troubling and brought this Winston story to mind. The footballer is sober now, but a person, or persons, unknown, continue to be very ugly indeed.

The whole episode brings to light the ugliness just below the surface in our society and to our shame in the Church as well. The person or persons unknown are there, just below the surface. As reported in the press;

The Raiders supremo said there would not be a witch hunt to find those responsible for taking the photo and facilitating its publication on line.[1]

What a pity, as this sorry tale is only half told, a life long punishment for one, an ugly secret for a person or persons unknown.

All this raises the question of evil alive and well in the hearts of so many today. Evil cannot be thought of by itself. Evil is the opposite of the good, just as the devil or Satan is the opposite of God.

From the gospels we can learn that the words devil and Satan are not quite the same. Devil gets its meaning from diabolus, meaning to divide or tear apart. Satan comes from satanus, meaning a frenzied, sick groupthink that accuses somebody or something.[2]

Writing of the forces of hell, Fr Ronald Rolheiser puts it like this:

Satan and the devil work in two ways: sometimes they work as the devil by dividing us from God, each other and from what is best within us.

Sometimes they work in just the opposite way as Satan. Here they unite us to each other but through the grip of mob-hysteria, envy induced hype, and the kind of sick unity that makes for gang rapes and crucifixions. And the root of both lies in the same thing: envy.

From this explanation we can begin to understand the full horror of that mad Monday in Canberra. The webster divided off the footballer, left abandoned and guilt ridden. The webster created a sick unity, the self righteous public, a yet again horrified, overly protective NRL and an outraged RSPCA.

The web is a wonderful twentieth century invention, given to us through the God given talents of others. Alas it is an invention that can be used for bad purposes just as it can for good. The devil and Satan can put it to use just as effectively as can heroes and saints.

Through its inappropriate, indeed sinful use,

… the devil causes us to be distant and distrustful of each other, whereas Satan causes us to be caught up in a sick unity that comes of scapegoating, vicious gossip and the kind of group hysteria that leads to blood-letting.[3]   

And what a hell has been created, particularly for the footballer, but not only for him. Many have been ensnared into this hell by the net. God did not create this hell but people, one drunkenly and someone or ones quite deliberately.

The whole affair gives us an insight into what hell and judgment is, and right here in out midst.

Hell is the absence of something. It is the result of choices we make freely. If we choose life, we ultimately choose heaven. If we reject life we end up living outside of life and that is ultimately hell.

The life that we can accept or reject is the life God sends into the world, specifically seen in the life of Jesus the Christ, the anointed one of God. Jesus is the one human being in which all the goodness of God is seen. As the scriptures tell us, God is love.

This love is seen in the creating love of God, the self-sacrificing love of the Son, the transforming love of the Holy Spirit. This love comes together in our three in one God; three images, creator, redeemer and sanctifier, adding up to and sharing one thing; love, and this is no puppy love either!

Human life is meant to be shared life, shared existence, participation inside of a community of life with others, one which includes the live and love of our three in one God.

Nothing on the web site about mad Monday shares God’s life or love. In fact, it shares the opposite.

Hell is the pain and bitterness, the fire, we experience when we culpably put ourselves outside of the community of life. And it is always self-inflicted. It is never imposed by God… God... neither creates hell nor sends anyone to it. We do both.[4]  

That mad Monday was turned into a hell on earth. And that should be a sobering thought: how easily we can make ourselves ugly.

[1] SMH, 10 November 2010, 26.

[2] Ronald Rolheiser, Satan and the devil: the reality, London: The Catholic Herald, 15 Oct 1999.

[3] Ronald Rolheiser, op. cit.

[4] Roland Rolheiser, God judges no one, London: The Catholic Herald, 25 Sept 2009.