Here, we see what happens when authority is placed in the hands of people who completely lack moral fibre. Pilate gives in to the crowd’s baying for blood and hands over Jesus, whom he had just found innocent of any capital crime, and releases a murderer. Pilate has Jesus flogged – already a cruel form of torture. He then washes his hands of anything else to do with Jesus’s fate – as though he
is not responsible for what is going to happen or what the bloodthirsty crowd will do.
Nowadays, countries have leaders whose morality is nothing short of evil incarnate. They oversee genocide in Gaza and mass murder in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, as though one genocide justifies another. They wage war against civilians in Sudan, slaughter in Ukraine, settler invasion of the West Bank of Palestine, and “re-education” of
Uyghur Muslims. They actively encourage the killing of women and children who are non-combatants and the starvation of entire populations. Some of them pretend to distance themselves from the crimes against humanity being committed by their foot soldiers. Others openly declare their intent to ethnically cleanse populations in their entirety. No hand-washing here. Some bask in the approval of the most morally bankrupt politicians in the world – a veritable Herod-Pilate friendship – aiming to turn
stolen homelands into a playground for the rich.
Whether it is the killing of one Palestinian Jewish prophet two thousand years ago or the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children in our time, the leaders who commit these atrocities are all equally reprehensible. No amount of hand-washing can sanitise them from the murders committed on their watch. The blood of the innocent victims cries to heaven for justice, and
God does not turn a blind eye to the suffering of any person. It is time for the international community to ensure that this happens “never again.” The guilty should be made to answer for their crimes.
Why do I stand by, watching, and saying nothing? Am I indifferent to the sufferings of millions of people? How do I show my compassion for the innocent victims?
Reflections by Peter Knox SJ
