Galway's Baby Burial Grounds

The ancient custom in Ireland was to bury unbaptised children, strangers, suicides and criminals in mass graves. Here is a map of all of the “children’s burial grounds” in Galway, taken from a National Monuments Service interactive map.

Michael Cook

The Catholic Church in Ireland and its ferocious nuns are being pilloried over yet another tranche of decades-old crimes. “Galway Historian Finds 800 Babies in Septic Tank Grave” is the headline in the Boston Globe. As the story snowballs don’t be surprised if you read about “the killing fields of Ireland”.

The remains were found on the site of a home for unmarried mothers and their children run by the Bon Secours Sisters between 1925 and 1961 in Tuam, County Galway. Sketchy accounts which are appearing in the media evoke images of murdered children and secret burials. Guardian columnist Emer O’Toole wrote in an incandescent fury: “Do not say Catholic prayers over these dead children. Don't insult those who were in life despised and abused by you. Instead, tell us where the rest of the bodies are.” A Government Senator from Galway, Fine Gael’s Hildegarde Naughton, has called what happened “manslaughter”.

But the fires of indignation burn hottest and highest when they are uncontaminated by facts. Before politicians and columnists launch into their well-rehearsed litanies denouncing sadistic nuns and misogynist clerics, it might be wise to scout whether there are enough facts to justify the scaremongering.

Read the real story behind Ireland's mass graves here.

The Crisis in South Sudan

Over the past few weeks, crisis has gripped the world’s newest nation, South Sudan, after an internal political conflict spilled into violence which has left thousands dead.

So far, there have been reports of mass graves, as well as one instance where rebel forces killed UN peacekeepers that would not let them get to the frightened civilians behind the gates of a UN compound.

These images are reminiscent of scenes from Hotel Rwanda. The conflict in South Sudan already shows patterns that we have seen in mass atrocities elsewhere: armed militias operating outside traditional military chains of command; forcible recruitment of civilians; and intimidation of the United Nations. It seems that the nation is falling apart, but what is actually behind the violence?

Timeline of events

Violence first broke out at the compound of South Sudanese president Salva Kiir on December 15 last year between soldiers loyal to him and those loyal to his former deputy, Riek Machar, who attempted to overthrow Kiir.

Read it all here.

Balochistan Children Near Starvation

Children huddle in the flood-battered village of Usta Mohammad tehsil where little sustained effort has been made to provide supplies and there is no fresh water. — Photo by Fahim Siddiqi

Read the report here.

Boko Haram to Christians "Convert or Die"

Heather Murdock

ABUJA, Nigeria - The Islamist militant group known as Boko Haram is now claiming responsibility for Sunday’s attack on a funeral that killed scores of people, including two prominent politicians. Through e-mails to journalists, the group is now demanding Christians convert to Islam and denies government claims that peace talks are underway.

Violence in Plateau State
Many parts of Nigeria’s Plateau State are on lockdown after a weekend of violence. Deputy Superintendent of Police Abuh Emmanuel says four local governments have 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. curfews, leaving the people only six hours a day outside their homes.

He blames ethnic Fulani herdsmen, who are mostly Muslim, for raiding villages over the weekend and later attacking a funeral for the victims of the earlier raids. The victims were mostly ethnic Berom Christian farmers and the two groups have been at odds over resources for years. Fulani leaders deny orchestrating the attacks, calling the accusations “propaganda.”

However, as a tense calm returns to the region, the Islamist sect known as Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the funeral attack, saying Christians should convert or they “will not know peace again.”

Abubakar Umar Kari, a senior lecturer at the University of Abuja, says Boko Haram’s involvement was a surprise as the group normally operates far in the north.

“Boko Haram has a very long reach," he said. "It has shown that it is capable of carrying out devastating attacks. It appears to have no bounds.”

Killing in raids, funerals
Death tolls for the weekend's violence range widely, but at least 58 people were killed in raids on Saturday and at least 22 killed at the subsequent funerals on Sunday, including two Plateau state politicians, Senator Gyang Dantong and Gyang Fulani, the majority leader in the state assembly.

Human Rights Watch has said Boko Haram violence can intensify ethnic clashes because economic and ethnic ties also fall squarely along religious divides.

Boko Haram communicates with the public by calling journalists from blocked phone lines or unverifiable e-mails. In the latest e-mail, the group called Nigeria’s new National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki's claims to have initiated peace talks with Boko Haram a “fresh lie.”

Secrecy
Kari says Boko Haram operates in secrecy and even if the security adviser was engaged in dialogue with the group, Boko Haram would most likely publicly deny it.

“They don’t want any kind of publicity associated with any meeting between them and the federal government," said Kari. "So I would not be surprised that even if there have been moves to talk to them - if there have been some rapprochements from the government’s side - they won’t come out too quickly to confirm it.”

Sectarian dispute
Nigeria is divided between a mostly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south. Increasing violence in the “Middle Belt” regions have led some cities like Jos, the capital of Plateau State, to divide themselves in kind, with Muslims and Christians saying they cannot live together.

Human Rights Watch says more than 4,000 people have been killed in sectarian violence over the past 11 years in Plateau State. Boko Haram began violent operations in 2009, and has since been blamed for more than 1,000 deaths including attacks on security forces, government buildings, churches, schools, newspaper offices and the local United Nations headquarters in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

Abdulkareem Olayemi in Maiduguri contributed to this report.


Related Reading:  Boko Haram Killing Nigerian Christians

Tortured Child Bride Rescued

KABUL, May 5: The in-laws of a child bride who became the bruised and bloodied face of women’s rights in Afghanistan were sentenced to 10 years in prison for torture, abuse and human rights violations, a judge said on Saturday.

The plight of 15-year-old Sahar Gul captivated the nation and set off a storm of international condemnation when it came to light in late December.

Officials said her husband’s family kept her in a basement for six months after her arranged marriage, ripping out her fingernails, breaking her fingers and torturing her with hot
iron in an attempt to force her into prostitution.

She was rescued by police in northeastern Baghlan province after an uncle alerted authorities.
The father, mother and sister of Gul’s husband were each sentenced to 10 years in prison by a court in Kabul on Tuesday, presiding judge Sibghatullah Razi said.

Also found guilty were Gul’s husband, a member of the Afghan army, and her brother-in-law.
He said the men would be sentenced when they were captured.

Gul was present for the decision, telling the court that she wanted her in-laws “severely punished” for what they had put her through, Razi said.

She has filed an appeal for a longer sentence with the help of the Women for Afghan Women, a group that works for women’s rights in the country and has been caring for the teenager since her rescue.

“Of course we are not happy with the court’s decision,” said Huma Safi, programme manager for the group.

Gul’s case has prompted calls for more efforts to strengthen women’s rights and end underage marriage.

The legal marriage age in Afghanistan is 16, but the United Nations agency UN Women estimates that half of all girls are forced to marry under age 15.

There has been progress in women’s rights since the 2001 US-led campaign that toppled the Taliban regime, which banned girls’ schools and prevented women from leaving the house unless accompanied by a male relative.

But ending abuse remains a huge challenge in Afghanistan’s patriarchal society, where traditional practices include child marriage, giving girls away to settle debts or pay for their relatives’ crimes and so-called honour killings in which women seen as disgracing their families are murdered by their relatives.

Gul, who had been married for seven months when she was found in late December, was still seeing doctors for some problems with her hands and fingers, but was doing better both physically and emotionally, Safi said.

She said the girl was now very interested in studying, very different from when she first arrived.

Source: Pakistan Dawn

Nigerian Christians Under Severe Attack

JOS, Nigeria, February 26 (CDN) — Two suicide bombers from the Boko Haram Islamist sect drove a car laden with bombs into the worship service of a Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) congregation here this morning, killing at least one Christian and injuring dozens of other church members, sources said.


A man claiming to be a spokesman for Boko Haram reportedly claimed responsibility for the blast. The two suicide bombers broke through a security barrier at the gate of the church building at 7:20 a.m., a church leader said.


“When the bombs went off, I saw the dead body of one girl and four other members of our church who were injured,” said Yakubu Dutse, director of finance at COCIN headquarters, which is located in the same building.


Dutse said one of the bombers was shot dead and one was injured by soldiers posted as security guards before the bombs went off, killing the second assailant as well.


“When they were stopped at the gate of the church, they refused to stop, hence the soldiers posted to the church shot at the car,” he said.


Church member Felix Apollos rushed to the scene of the attack minutes after the bombs went off; he told Compass that he saw the bodies of five people killed in the attack, but the identities of the dead were yet to be confirmed at press time. At least 38 people were reportedly injured in the blast.


“I saw some Red Cross personnel moving both the dead and the injured into ambulances,” Apollos said. “I saw five dead bodies and about seven injured Christians being moved into vehicles. But then the number of the injured may be higher than this, as there were already some injured that were taken to the hospital before I got here.”


Apollos said members of a security force manning the church gate tried to stop the assailants, but soldiers also guarding the church ordered them to allow the bombers onto the premises.


“Just when the bombers got onto the church premises, they crashed into the church building,” Apollos told Compass.


The COCIN church holds two worship services on Sunday mornings, one at 7 and one at 10. The second service was cancelled, as were most church services throughout Jos.


The car used in the attack was blown to pieces, and seven other cars were also destroyed.


Boko Haram, the name given to the Islamic extremist group officially called Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad – “The People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad” – seeks to impose a strict version of sharia (Islamic law) on Nigeria. The name Boko Haram translates loosely as “Western education is forbidden.”


Nigeria’s population of more than 158.2 million is divided between Christians, who make up 51.3 percent of the population and live mainly in the south, and Muslims, who account for 45 percent of the population and live mainly in the north. The percentages may be less, however, as those practicing indigenous religions may be as high as 10 percent of the total population, according to Operation World.


Jos, often described as a religious fault line between the north and the south, has been the site of numerous large-scale and isolated incidents of violence containing a religious component.


COCIN is one of the largest evangelical Christian denominations in Nigeria, with a large concentration in northern Nigeria. COCIN was established in Nigeria in 1904 by the Sudan United Mission by the leadership of Dr. Karl Kunn.


A number of COCIN congregations and other churches have come under attack by Boko Haram recently in northern Nigeria. In Borno state last year, the Rev. David Usman of the COCIN church in Maiduguri was murdered by Boko Haram. The denomination’s church buildings in Geidam, Damaturu, and Potiskum, all in Yobe state, also have been bombed.


COCIN church members have also been attacked in Tafawa Balewa and Bogoro Local Government Areas of Bauchi state. Early morning attacks in Tafawa Balewa, on Jan. 22 left at least seven Christians dead and a church building destroyed. The attack on the Evangelical Church Winning All Church 2, residents of Tafawa Balewa said, was carried out by area Islamic extremists alongside members of the Boko Haram sect, with the church building and surrounding houses bombed.


Suspected Islamic extremists detonated a bomb outside a church building in Suleja, Niger state, on Feb. 19, two months after Boko Haram Islamists killed 44 Christians and blinded seven in a church bombing in nearby Madalla. The Feb. 19 blast injured at five Christians.

Praying in Captivity

Sergeant Luis Alberto Erazo Mayo, the sole survivor of the recent massacre of four hostages by a Colombian rebel group, said he prayed for his kidnappers during his captivity.

“God exists,” Erazo told reporters, adding that the only hope that sustained him during his ordeal was prayer. Among the few items he brought home in the backpack he made in the jungle was a daily missal.

“I prayed even for the rebels,” he said.

Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reported that Erazo had been kidnapped for more than eleven years by the rebel group FARC, who injured him as he escaped on Nov. 26 during an attempted military rescue.

More than eleven years this man was held by FARC in the jungle. This is an amazing story.

Look carefully at the account of what happened in that attempted military rescue. He was shot, but kept running where instincts led him.

“The rebels told me that if there was any combat that we should run alongside of them because they were going to hand us over,” he added. “I forgot that and I ran towards the jungle. My companions went towards them however, and that is when they killed them at point blank.”

Despite his wounds, Erazo kept running as fast as he could and eventually hid in a tree trunk where he stayed for almost eight hours—until he was convinced that the voices he heard were those of Colombian soldiers.

“In a large field I saw some men in uniforms riding motorbikes. When I saw one guy with a helmet and night-vision goggles, I knew they were soldiers and I walked out. They hugged me and wouldn’t let go, they welcomed me back,” Erazo said in tears.

You can feel the human triumph of the moment, for everyone.

A joyful Erazo

Erazo has been able to see his two daughters in his hometown of Narino and learned that he is now a grandfather. His mother told him the parrot and geese he left behind are still alive and are waiting for him.

What a perfect ending. And a sweet beginning.

When I saw the headline of this story I instantly recalled the rescue of another group of hostages, and the faith and prayer of Ingrid Betancourt.

Tribute to the Life of John Lee Tae-Sok

Catholic priests have been banned from North Korea for 60 years and John Lee Tae-Sok was a Catholic priest, a Salesian, and a medical doctor. Perhaps the DVD – “Don’t Cry For Me Sudan” -- will help the North Koreans to see the Church and the work of its priests in a different way. The Sudanese he helped christened Fr John “Father Jolly” because of his winning smile and gentle humour.

The story of his life has certainly had a phenomenal impact in South Korea, where newspapers reported that audiences have been leaving the cinemas in tears, having been so affected by Father John’s outpouring of love. Three hundred thousand people have now seen the film.

Father John was born into a poor Catholic family in 1962, the ninth of ten children – another of whom has also been ordained. John’s father died when he was aged nine and John would also die at too early an age – succumbing to cancer of the colon in 2010.

After his father’s death John’s mother brought up the family by herself, counting the pennies earned from her work as a seamstress. They lived in the St Joseph Parish of Song Do in Pusan: a parish built for the poor and needy of Pusan, after the Korean War, which had left many Koreans destitute and unemployed.

John was helped through his studies by his mother who encouraged him to read medicine. On qualifying, he practised as a surgeon in the Korean army but repeatedly he felt the call to be a priest. His mother felt she had already given one son to the Church – his brother is a Capuchin friar – and initially she tried to deter John from entering the priesthood but ultimately gave her blessing. He was ordained in 2001.

It was while he was training for the priesthood that John visited the Salesian mission in southern Sudan. It was the first time he had been in a colony of lepers – men and women with Hansen’s disease. He was so disturbed by the rotting limbs and squalor that in a state of shock he went off into the bush to get the disturbing encounter out of his sight and mind. The Salesians working there did not expect to see the young army doctor again.

They were wrong.

On his return to Seoul the memory of the lepers never left him and in 2001 he announced that he would “be a better missionary among the lepers than anywhere else.” Alarmed that he should want to go to Southern Sudan – where two million people had lost their lives during the civil war waged by Khartoum’s despotic government, his mother and family were deeply distressed but once again they finally accepted and endorsed his decision.

Arriving at a place called Tonj, Father John began the arduous task of erecting a medical clinic. Using the same hands that would treat 300 patients daily, he personally constructed the building to which desperate Sudanese would bring their illnesses. In his jeep he went out searching for the lepers.

A memo written by Lee Jae-hyeon, a policy director for South Korea’s Environment Ministry, who visited Tonj while working for the United Nations, and who was one of Father John’s sponsors, graphically described the working conditions in the village:

“The heat wave was deadly. It was 55 degrees Celsius. I didn’t realize thermometers had more than 50-degree markings until the priest showed me. I felt like my clothes were burning. The river in Tonj was a muddy puddle. Children splashed in the water, and instead of dabbling in it, they gulped up the water.”

After the clinic came classrooms for a school and other facilities. In the absence of anyone else to do it he would teach the children maths and music. A gifted musician, Father John persuaded Korean friends to send a crate-load of instruments and uniforms and he founded and trained the Don Bosco Brass Band.

News of his work spread and a South Korean film maker came out to make a documentary. Following Father John on his rounds they recorded the social developments and the health programmes which he had initiated.

This phenomenal outpouring of energetic love and commitment inevitably took its toll and it was during a short break in 2009 that cancer was discovered. In Seoul he underwent chemotherapy but on January 14, 2010, aged 47, his life came to an end.

This, however, was not the end of the story.

The film-maker, Koo Soo-Hwan, returned to Sudan and interviewed many of the families of the Dinka warriors whose lives had been so profoundly touched by Father John’s humanitarian work. The film that emerged was “Don’t Cry For Me Sudan” – taking its title from the Dinka boys who weep as they carry a picture of “Father Jolly” through the village of Tonj as they hold their own funeral in his memory. They are members of Father John’s brass band. Not much given to public displays of emotion these young people and their families are tearful as they describe the acute loss they experienced in learning that their priest and doctor would not be returning to them.

A copy of the Korean movie has now been made with English subtitles and extracts may be seen on You Tube.  The film’s director recently came to see me in London. He had been intrigued to learn that I had given a copy of his movie to the visiting North Korean delegation. What had I hoped to come out of this? “An appreciation that one man’s life can change a world, and that all Koreans should be inspired by and celebrate the life of a remarkable and truly wonderful man.”


David Alton is an Independent Crossbench Life Peer in the House of Lords in the UK. This review was republished from his blog at MercatorNet.

US Violation of Human Dignity and Ethics

US researchers violated ethical boundaries when they deliberately infected Guatemalan prisoners, mental health patients and prostitutes with sexually transmitted diseases in a 1940s research project, a presidential commission concluded on Tuesday.

When the awful experiments came to light in October 2010, President Barack Obama entrusted the President's Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues with investigating the matter. Amy Gutmann, chairwoman of the commission and president of the University of Pennsylvania, says it was no accident that the research was performed in Guatemala. "Some of the people who were involved in this experiment explicitly said, 'We could not do this in our own country'," she said. "It was a foreign population that was seen as ethnically, racially, nationally different."

The work clearly opposed ethical standards of the time, according to Nelson Michael, director of the US Military HIV Research Program. "I'm not aware of any standards that would have said, 'it's ok to go offshore to do this kind of research'," he said. "They did it because they found a doorway that they found darkened and they went through it." STDs, including gonorrhea and syphilis, were among the biggest public health threats at the time. It was estimated that 20% of people living in psychiatric institutions were there because of the neurological effects of late-stage syphilis. The researchers in the Guatemalan study were looking for a way to prevent such diseases from spreading.

The commission has concluded that despite that sense of urgency, the Guatemala studies were poorly designed, poorly executed and entirely unethical. John Arras of the University of Virginia said he initially struggled with the decision over whether the researchers should be blamed for the ethical offenses. However, Arras said the details of the experiments dispelled doubts.

In one case, a patient named Berta in a psychiatric ward was injected with syphilis and not treated until 3 months after her infection. Soon after, lead researcher John Cutler, said she was about to die. The same day, he put gonorrhoeal pus from another patient into both of her eyes, her urethra and her rectum, and reinfected her with syphilis. Days later, her eyes were filled with pus from gonorrhea and she was bleeding from her urethra. She died six months later. "I would submit that this kind of case cannot be waved away by even the most acute awareness of fluctuation in medical ethics standards of the time," Arras said.

The commission discovered evidence of 83 deaths, but could not determine the extent to which the deaths were likely to be related to the experiments. It is still writing up its conclusions, and plans to issue a report on the historical study to Obama in September. Following an inquiry into the adequacy of current policies to protect human research subjects, it will also write a second report by the end of the year. ~ Nature News, Aug 30
 

Syria Seeks to Crush Reports of Brutality

17 August 2011 - Reporters Without Borders continues to register cases of violence and arbitrary arrests in which the victims are anyone trying to provide information about what is happening in Syria. It also condemns journalist Eyad Shorbaji's trial, which is due to begin today in Damascus. The reason for his arrest and the charges are still unknown.

"We fear that Bashar Al-Assad's regime is locked into a repressive frenzy that has reached a point of no return," Reporters Without Borders said. "Isolated internationally, especially since the withdrawal of many Arab ambassadors and the increase in international community pressure, the authorities persist in censoring any discourse different from their own, jailing netizens and journalists who have witnessed violence against protesters."

"We would still like to convince the authorities that truth cannot be suppressed and that the policies they have chosen will only lead down a blind alley. Respect for free expression and media freedom is the only possible way forward."

In one of the latest cases, members of the security forces attacked London-based journalist Moussa Al-Omar's family home in Damascus on 11 August. Omar has interviewed various Syrian opposition figures for the programme he hosts for UK-based Al-Hiwar TV. The attack is typical of the intimidatory methods that Syria's diplomats and security services use with government opponents living abroad.

Reporters Without Borders has also learned that Myriam Haddad, a woman reporter for the magazine Mouqarabat, was kidnapped from Havana Café, in the centre of the capital, on 11 August. Intelligence officials arrested the journalist Sami Al-Halabi on 11 August in the southern city of Suwayda after giving him a severe beating. And Jehad Jamal, a blogger also known by the pen-name of Milan who has had several spells in prison, was jailed again for unknown reasons on 4 August.

Reporters Without Borders is also extremely concerned about four journalists who were abducted by security agents on the morning of 4 August from a café in the southern Damascus suburb of Jaramana. They are Ebaa Monzer, a business reporter for the newspaper Baladna, Omar Al-Assad, who works for Al-Jazeera and the newspapers As-Safir and Al-Hayat and who was already arrested at the start of the protests, and bloggers Rudy Othman and Asim Hamsho.

Monzer, a woman, may have been released but Reporters Without Borders has had no news of the other three except that Hamsho was reportedly tortured at intelligence headquarters in the northern district of Maysat after his arrest. There is also still no news of Hanadi Zahlout, a freelance journalist who has been missing since 25 July.

Reporters Without Borders notes that Omar Koush, a writer and journalist who had been held since 2 May, was finally released on 6 August. But seven other journalists and bloggers are still detained, in addition to those named above.

With authorities cracking down so hard on journalists, new technologies offer the only way of providing an alternative to the regime's propaganda. But netizens are also a priority target for the intelligence services.

Abd Qabani, for example, was arrested in the capital on 8 August, and Ahmed Samir Naji went missing as he was driving to work the same day. The blogger and activist Fadi Zeidan was arrested for covering a demonstration in the central Damascus district of Sha'laan on 4 August and was held for two days.

The netizen Ammar Sa'ib was arrested in Qasaa, a district east of the capital, on 1 August in still unknown circumstances.

For more information:

Reporters Without Borders
47, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
France

rsf (@) rsf.org 

Phone: +33 1 44 83 84 84
Fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51
http://www.rsf.org/

Sequel to Spain's Stolen Children

A painful chapter of Spain's 1936-39 Civil War - the removal of children from mothers who were political opponents to be adopted out or even sold - has an even more painful sequel. As many as 30,000 children may have been removed from women identified with the politics of the losing side under the regime of Francisco Franco.

The surprise for Spaniards has been that the practice of removing and even selling babies continued into the mid 1990s. "A great many Spaniards" had been affected by the scandal, which took place "over a prolonged period of time," Attorney-general Candido Conde-Pumpido told the media. Activists claim that of the 2 million adoptions in Spain between 1940 and 1980, 10%, or 200,000 involved false documentation. In June Conde-Pumpido announced that prosecutors are investigating 849 cases of stolen children; 162 cases have been referred for trial and only 38 have been dropped for lack of evidence.

Anadir, a lobby group for people searching for lost children or parents, says that baby-snatching began as a punishment for Republican women but became an underground money-spinner even after Spain became a democracy in 1978. The founder, 41-year-old Antonio Barroso, discovered only three years ago that he had been purchased for 200,000 pesetas (the Spanish currency that preceded the euro). Other tragic stories have emerged from recent investigations. Mothers who brought flowers to their baby's grave for 30 years discovered empty coffins when the child was exhumed. Hospital paperwork about "deceased" twins has turned out to be fraudulent. The investigations are just beginning. ~ AP, June 17
 
 

20th Century of Christian Martyrdom

Of Gods and Men, one of the most compelling religious films of the past 30 years, tells the story of the Trappists of Tibhirine, seven brave men who were murdered by Islamist extremists in 1996. Though it is not widely known, the 20th century produced more Christian martyrs than all of the preceding 19 centuries combined. The monks who are the subjects of this film were among the last to die for the faith in that terrible 100-year period.


These Trappists were transplanted Frenchmen, who had established themselves in a very simple monastery nestled in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria. They worked almost exclusively among the Muslims who inhabited the tiny towns and villages nearby. One of...READ MORE

Ethical Reflections on Suffering in the Bible

Alice C. Linsley

All the heroes of the Bible suffered greatly. It appears that suffering was part of their divinely-appointed destinies as rulers among their people and as men through whom God brought deliverance to their people. Job, Joseph and Moses are but a few whose suffering led to good for many.

Their suffering raises ethical questions about God’s dealing with those He has destined to His purposes. Job, Joseph and Moses are suffering servants. Suffering Job demands that God make sense of his suffering, but God never gives Job an answer. The meaning of suffering isn't important. What matters is one's response to suffering. Each of these heroes responds differently, yet in each case he becomes a mediator between his kinsmen and God, or the means of divine rescue for their people.

Like his father Jacob, Joseph is a dreamer. His dreams foretell his future as a leader and ruler over his brothers. His skill in dream interpretation later secures him a place in Pharaoh’s court. Joseph suffers betrayal, slavery and prison before he is raised to a position of authority which he uses to rescue the very brothers that abused him.

Moses suffered when he had to flee his home and later when all his siblings turned on him for marrying a Kushite and for asserting his leadership. Moses uses his authority to deliver the same siblings who trouble him, except for Korah, who it appears died in the wilderness. Still, Moses sees that Korah's sons receive sacred duties at the tabernacle.

Job loses his family, lands, wealth, social standing and his health before God restores him and appoints him as a mediator for his kinsmen who troubled him.

After suffering, all three men gain new families as a result of their hardships.  Both Joseph and Moses marry the daughters of priests, high-ranking and chaste women.

The suffering of these men's lives  has so much in common that we must ask what God is trying to teach us about suffering and divine destiny. What conclusions are we to draw about the nature of God’s dealing with those He has called according to His purpose?

The destiny motif in these stories raises significant ethical questions, and by focusing these questions, we will be able to draw some conclusions. Here are some questions we should ask:

How can we regard Job as righteous when he himself recognizes that he crossed the line in his questioning of God?

How can we regard Moses as a righteous leader when he murdered a man and fled from justice?

Likewise, shouldn’t Joseph, the spoiled tattle-tale who rubbed his brothers’ faces in his grandiosity share some responsibility for what happened to him?

Do Moses’ years of toil in the wilderness atone for the murder he committed?

Aren’t enslavement and imprisonment of a young boy a stiff price to pay for youthful self-obsession?

Is Joseph playing God in hiding the diving cup and so terrorizing his brothers that they are speechless at the prospect of returning to Egypt? Does God play “cat and mouse” with us to terrorize us into repentance?

Moses was very reluctant to step up to his destiny. He begged God to send another. Where does human freedom come into play?

Was Joseph justified to excuse God’s treatment of him on the grounds that everything turned out for the good in the end? Are we to excuse God when things don’t turn out well?

Focusing these questions doesn’t help us to answer them, but it does help us to draw conclusions about God’s dealing with those He has destined to lead.

It appears that God overlooks grievous sins and youthful faults if He has designs on our lives.

It also appears that God is not willing to accept a “No” from those He has destined to lead.

It appears that years of toil, exile, and suffering are necessary to bring us to our destiny.

It appears that God terrorizes us into surrendering to, or complying with, His purposes.

And finally, regardless of how things turn out, God is to be excused for treating us this way.

The final ethical question is this: Does such a God as this deserve our worship?

The answer to that question is present in the stories of Job, Joseph and Moses.  It is also found in the individual's heart... a matter worth pondering.