Bl. JPII and the Lesson of the Mammertine Prison.

Not too far from my house there is an ancient Roman spring which bubbles up in a cave underneath the Capitoline Hill, which I can see across Piazza Venezia from my bedroom windows as I write this. That cave became the Mamertine prison, in which Rome held all of its most notorious prisoners and enemies of the state before their often grisly and always public executions. Vercingetorix, chief of the Gauls, Jugurtha, the King of Numidia, and the Catilinarian conspirators, who tried to overthrow the Republic, were held there.  This was where the Romans held captured enemies of the state before paraded them through the streets and strangled them publicly. 

One of the Cells of the Prison. 

       The spectacle likely made people feel better, or made them feel safer, or made them feel like Roma was in charge, and that no one dare defy or run from its might. The truth is, though, that for every enemy leader they killed and every conspirator that was executed, the barbarians were still at the gate and the people of Rome were still afraid. They had forged the peace of Rome by the sword.  The problem is that the sword always demanded the use of the sword again and again, until the wars were too costly to fight and the land to large to govern. Of course the empire collapsed and today from my bedroom window I can see its ruins.

      For a day the spectacle of victory over a sworn enemy made the Romans feel good, because their fears were relieved. The question has to be asked, though; Why did they feel the need to be afraid in the first place? 

The Entrance to the maximum security cell. 

One of the constant themes of this weekend here in Rome was a phrase continually echoed by Bl. John Paul II, "Do not be afraid." In light of the events of the past week, both the beatification and the death of Osama Bin Laden, maybe we need to keep asking ourselves, why are we afraid, and what do we have to fear? Maybe we've lost the imagination that the world could be other than it is, that it could be better than it is. Maybe we've lost our sense that an educated person is much less likely to fall for the ideology of a mad man. Maybe we've forgotten that the ability to provide for one's family brings a dignity that stops someone from following the perversion of a religion. Maybe we've forgotten that fortitude is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and that if we really lived in the light of God's love, we'd have nothing to be afraid of. 

If the billions that were spent on war were spent building schools, ideologies would become almost irrelevant. If the millions that we spent on a bomber went to irrigating fields or teaching people how to grow crops in a way that would allow them to provide sustenance for their families, maybe fewer people would feel the need to produce drugs. Maybe if we built bulldozers instead of tanks to help build levees, the poorest parts  of our own cities in the US wouldn't flood.  
I am not suggesting that we stop fighting the reign of terror and fear. I am suggesting that we beat it in the one way that it can never return, by making it irrelevant. The good feelings that so many felt on Monday at the death of our own Vercingetorix were reported almost immediately with a sense of foreboding, we asked the question.. who's next?

The irony of the Mamertine Prison is that it is said that eventually the man to whom Jesus once said "those who live by the sword die by it," spent his last days there. This is where  St. Peter, first pope and bishop of Rome was held prisoner.  His successor, some 2000 years later, constantly reminded us not to be afraid. He was a man who used the power of faith in Christ, of love and brotherhood, not bombs, guns, or special forces, to help to take down not just one man, but an entire oppressive ideology in Eastern Europe. Today, and in the days ahead, maybe we can ask the intercession of Bl. JPII that we too can have that kind of courage.