I sympathize a lot with victim’s groups. Each and every one of us has someone that has hurt us badly sometime in our life. That is, sadly, part of the human condition since the Fall. And, when we are hurt, we want the other person to hurt every bit as badly as we do. Actually, if we are honest, we all too often want the other person to hurt worse than we hurt. Since the Fall, revenge is a sin that besets us, bedevils us, and distorts our judgment. Revenge drove Cain to murder Abel, even though Abel had apparently not wronged him in any way that deserved capital punishment.
But, let’s look at how God dealt with the situation, because it is quite instructive concerning His view of both perpetrators and victims. As in any good “court proceeding,” He asks the “accused” questions to give Cain the opportunity to state his side of the story. Then He presents His evidence and rebuttal arguments and passes sentence.
Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?”
He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”
And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.”
But, after sentencing, Cain presents his fear that the relatives of the victim will commit a revenge murder out of dissatisfaction with the Judge’s sentence. Here is the important part for you to notice. God agrees with Cain and grants him protection from the victims of the crime.
Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.”
And the LORD said to him, “Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him.
So, here is a man who has committed what apparently was a second degree murder. God sentences him with some pretty stiff punishment, but does not give him a death sentence. The relatives of the victim apparently are quite ready to believe that God made a mistake and that they need to carry out justice. So, in order to ensure justice, God not only grants protection but, uhm, passes a law that anyone who takes revenge on the perpetrator will receive no mercy from God, because any justice that is not proportionate is not really justice. It is injustice. And, God does not tolerate injustice, even from victims. Read again what God said, “vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” Cain was essentially charged with second degree murder, but any who one murders him will essentially be charged with first-degree murder.
Let’s fast-forward to today. There is little doubt that too many bishops in too many countries did not deal with pædophiliacs in they way they should have both by Church canon and secular law. But, having said that, it is increasingly obvious that too many victim groups are in the position of having fallen into the same injustice from which Cain had to be protected. There are real criminals who need to be prosecuted, but the measures that some victim groups are demanding, under threat of extortionate lawsuits, would perpetrate injustice upon people who might very well be innocent, and would force both the Church and the secular courts to impose punishment without hearing or trial.
Because people, or the relatives of people, have been victimized, and because of our quite understandable sympathy for and empathy with victims, it is difficult to criticize victim’s groups without being accused of insensitivity and being a defender of despicable criminals. Just recently Cheney’s daughters made major headlines when she nicknamed some lawyers the Al Quaeda 9 because they had defended terrorists. This was wrong, unjust, unethical, and fully immoral. She got as far as she did because of the tendency for all of us to sympathize with victims.
But, we are called to have the type of balance that God shows in Genesis 4. We are called to correctly identify the crime and not to “overcharge” the crime. We are called to execute appropriate and proportionate sentences on those who are found guilty. We are called to resist and refuse victims who try to get us to violate those principles, even if we have feelings of empathy for the victims. We are called to protect perpetrators from inappropriate revenge by victims, even at the risk of angering the victims, because justice is called to be impartial, and a crime committed by a victim or a relative of a victim is still a crime; it is not justice.
We need to get these concepts clear, and state them without fear.
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