THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE

 

THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE

During his second missionary journey Saint Paul found himself in Athens after fleeing persecution from a city in the north.  In the town square he took the opportunity to share the gospel with any who would listen.  Some became curious and invited him to join them in the Areopagus, a famous gathering site of philosophers of different persuasions on a northern hillside of Athens.  According to Luke, “Now all the Athenians as well as the foreigners residing there used their time for nothing else but telling or hearing something new” (Acts 17:21).  They wanted to hear the new thing about a certain Jesus, and the resurrection of the dead, of which Paul spoke.

Paul was exasperated from seeing so many altars erected to idols.  But he was intrigued by one altar which was dedicated “To an Unknown God.”  He intended to make Him known.  “What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.  The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, nor is He served by human hands because He needs anything.  Rather it is He who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.  He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for Him and find Him, though indeed He is not far from any one of us.”  Here Paul establishes the Christian belief in the unity of origin and the equality of nature of all humanity.

Pope Pius XII, distraught at the outbreak of World War II, promulgated his first encyclical on October 20, 1939 with the Latin title Summi Pontificatus.  The subtitle is “On the Unity of Human Society.”  In his message to the Church and the world Pius XII insisted on the God-given unity of the human race, an awareness which had been lost by many due to their turn from God.  “O wondrous vision, which makes us contemplate the human race in the unity of its origin in God. . . in the unity of its nature, composed equally in all men of a material body and a spiritual soul; in the unity of its immediate end and its mission in the world; in the unity of its dwelling, the earth, whose benefits all men, by right of nature, may use to sustain and develop life; in the unity of its supernatural end: God Himself, to whom all ought to tend; in the unity of the means for attaining this end. . . in the unity of the redemption wrought by Christ for all.”  Men must see themselves as natural brothers and sisters.  If not, there can be no lasting peace.   

Pope Pius XII notes that “With the weakening of faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and the darkening in men's minds of the light of moral principles, there disappeared the indispensable foundation of the stability and quiet of that internal and external, private and public order, which alone can support and safeguard the prosperity of States…Before all else, it is certain that the radical and ultimate cause of the evils which we deplore in modern society is the denial and rejection of a universal moral norm of morality, as well for individual and social life as for international relations; we mean the disregard, so common nowadays, and the forgetfulness of the natural law itself, which has its foundations in God.  When God is hated, every basis of morality is undermined.”

Terrorism and the outbreak of war have caused a latent anti-Semitism to burst to the surface and parade in the streets, on university campuses, and on social media.  All need to hear again the Church’s message of the divinely founded unity and equality of all persons.  “He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in darkness still” (1 John 2:9).  When people lose sight of God they enter darkness and see themselves and others as shadows.  “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him” (1 John 3:15).  All will be held accountable.  We who walk in the light of faith must repent of any hatred of Jews or of persons of any race, color, or religion that may linger in our heart.  For the sake of peace in our world we must defend the unity of the human race and lead our fellow human beings to rediscover God.