Universal Brotherhood - A Reflection at the Crossroads of Faith, Conscience, and Humanity

 

-Savio Saldanha SJ

DOI – 10.5281/zenodo.18436459

Date – 30/01/2026

 

Introduction: One Human Family before God

            “The One Light is the light in all bodies” (Guru Nanak, Japji Sahib). This Sikh affirmation resonates deeply with the Christian conviction that every human being is created in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:27) and called into communion. Across cultures and religions, humanity has repeatedly intuited that life is interconnected and sacred. From the Catholic perspective, however, universal brotherhood is not merely a moral ideal or poetic metaphor. It is a theological reality grounded in creation and fulfilled in redemption.

            In Christ, God reveals not only who He is, but who we are in relation to one another: brothers and sisters, called into a single human family. Conscience—understood as the “inner sanctuary” where the human person encounters God’s law (CCC §1776)—is the privileged place where this truth is discerned, resisted, or embraced. I reflect on universal brotherhood as both a gift received and a task discerned in a fragmented world.

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The concept of Universal brotherhood and the Indian society today

            As I write this article, I am reminded of an incident from my school days. When I was appearing for my SSC board exams, we did not have an exam center in my village and had to travel by train to the nearby town. The trains were limited and missing one meant waiting for 30 minutes or more for the next one. One day, I was busy doing some last minute revision and had to rush to catch the train, when I arrived on the station I saw my train already leaving. I was caught in a dilemma, should I catch a running train (a big risk) or wait for the next one and reach my exam late (another risk as I was surely to be late and refused an entry). As I stood there, I heard people shouting from the train, those on the door were extending their hands encouraging me to run and get in. And then as if mechanically, I ran to the nearest compartment and grabbed a hand and was pulled inside the train. This incident left a lasting impression on me, these men unknown to me did not ask for my religion or my name. They saw a student; they knew my problem and rose as one to help me out.

            This was the India that I grew up in. We celebrated each other’s festivals, ate together, laughed together and lived together. I would not romanticize the past saying that everything was rosy and comfy. We had our differences - serious ones at that - but these did not make us behave like wild animals in our hatred. There were fundamentalists, they were on the fringe of the society and never part of the mainstream. People kept their distance from them; they were recognized rightly as gangs of ruffians and characterless persons. For a common Indian, career, salary, education of children, medical and infrastructure facilities was more important.

            Today, one cannot post anything on social media without getting hate comments on one’s religion and caste. Even simple statements like ‘Merry Christmas’ are enough to set off strings of vicious diatribes. It is almost normal to hear news about the disruption of prayer services, chanting and dancing on lewd music in front of mosques and churches and religious violence in several parts of India directed against the religious minorities. Christians and Muslims are portrayed as foreigners and invaders and asked repeatedly to prove their patriotism. Among all this violence and hatred, I ask myself where we lost our narrative. If we have become more aware of our religious identities and fundamentals, then shouldn’t we have become more respectful of the others?

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Universal Brotherhood in the Religions

            I am reminded of a Sanskrit shloka from Upanishad, ‘sarve bhavantu sukhinah, sarve santu niramayah, sarve bhadrani pasyantu ma kascid duhkha bhagbhavet’, which means ‘May all people be happy, free from illnesses. May all see what is auspicious, and may no one suffer.’ This prayer is often recited since olden times for the wellbeing of humanity; it has gained a renewed significance especially during these pandemic times. It also resonates with the same universal brotherhood aspect which is preached in the Sikhism. An Upanishadic hymn says ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ - which means that the whole world is one single family, found its resonance on the other side of the world when the Spanish Jesuit Jerónimo Nadal said, ‘El mundo es nuestra casa’ (The whole world is my home). This motto is considered as an integral part of the Hindu Philosophy, hence language and religion should never be a reason for discriminating against people based on any differences.

            The Quran says: "O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female, and have made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another. Indeed the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted" (Quran 49:13). The Quran further says: “whoever kills a human being without any reason manslaughter or corruption on earth, it is though he had killed all mankind” (Quran 5:32). In other verses, the Quran states “Do not kill souls which Allah has made sacred except to the due process of Allah” (Quran 6:151).  We thus see the aspects of Universal Brotherhood and equality of human beings are fundamental philosophy of Islam. Islam has always encouraged its followers to live with tolerance, harmony, love, brotherhood and peace on the earth adding that humanity is more precious than any of the religions. God has granted human dignity to all mankind. Islam also asserts that no nation is created to be above other nations, rather the differences of region, religion, colour, and gender makes no difference of man’s worth in the eyes of Allah, rather his good deeds and obedience to the Will of Allah is what makes the difference.

            The Holy Bible clearly mentions the tenet of Universal Brotherhood several times. In the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus clearly tells his followers that, ‘Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’ (Mark 3:35). He thus implies that everyone is a child of God irrespective of race, gender and other differences, if only he/she does what is right in the eyes of God. In the very first book of the Holy Bible, Genesis (Gen.1:27), it is mentioned ‘So God created humankind in His image’, further in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 17:26) it is mentioned that ‘From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole world’, thus the Holy Bible underlines the union of all humanity as originating from one ancestor, and created by the same Creator and in His sacred image. To further strengthen the bond, Saint Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians (1Cor.6:19) asks ‘Do you not know your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.’, thus confirming that humanity is not only bound by a physical bond of shared ancestry but also by a strong spiritual bond. The same Holy Spirit of God dwells in every human being, irrespective of his/her religion, race, caste or gender.

            The three major religions in the world; Christianity, Islam and Hinduism preach Universal Brotherhood and bring out the fact that the entire humanity is bound together through God who is the Creator of all things seen and unseen as well as a deep spiritual bond of the dwelling of the Spirit of God in everyone which connects it together. Then there have been saints in all religions like St. Francis of Assisi in Christianity, the Sufi saints in Islam, Sai baba of Shirdi, and many others who have raised the bar on Universal Brotherhood to include also the nature, and planetary bodies like the sun and the moon.

            In the tribal cultures around the world, be it in the several tribes of India as well as the Native American tribes, the feeling of a Universal Brotherhood was ingrained deeply. They worshipped the Nature as The Great Spirit to whom all the spirits of the world moved. Their reference to the earth as the Mother, and the fruits and vegetables which grow in the nature as her gifts to humanity proves a sophisticated and deep entrenched philosophy albeit an unwritten and unorganised existed, passed in the form of oral traditions, generation to generation. (Saldanha. S., 2023)

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Conscience, Imago Dei, and the Roots of Brotherhood

            Catholic theology understands conscience as a judgment of reason by which the human person recognizes the moral quality of concrete acts (CCC §1778). Its dignity rests on the fact that it participates in God’s wisdom and law. Gaudium et Spes famously describes conscience as “the most secret core and sanctuary of a man” where one is alone with God (GS §16).

            Because every human being bears the imago Dei, conscience is universal in scope. No one stands outside the horizon of moral responsibility or divine concern. Universal brotherhood, therefore, flows naturally from the doctrine of creation: if all are created by the same God and ordered toward the same ultimate good, then no form of discrimination — based on race, caste, gender, religion, or nationality — can be theologically justified. The Church also recognizes that the Spirit’s action is not confined to visible ecclesial boundaries. Vatican II speaks of “rays of truth” present in other religions (Nostra Aetate §2) and of “seeds of the Word” sown in cultures and traditions (Ad Gentes §11). These seeds often take the form of ethical intuitions about compassion, justice, and fraternity.

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Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Theology of Universal Brotherhood

            Saint Thomas Aquinas provides a profound metaphysical foundation for universal brotherhood. For Aquinas, all beings participate in esse, the act of being, which flows from God as the first cause. Because every human person shares in this divine gift of existence, each possesses intrinsic dignity.

            Charity (caritas), the highest theological virtue, extends to all because it is rooted in God’s love, not human preference. Aquinas insists that we love others not merely for what they are socially or morally, but for what they are in relation to God—creatures ordered toward beatitude (ST II–II, q. 25). Universal brotherhood, therefore, is not sentimental universalism but a demand of theological realism: to love what God loves, as God loves.

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Ignatian Discernment and the Practice of Brotherhood

            Ignatian spirituality offers a concrete method for embodying universal brotherhood in daily life. Discernment of spirits teaches attentiveness to interior movements—those that lead toward greater faith, hope, love, and justice, and those that foster fear, exclusion, or indifference.

            The daily examen becomes a school of fraternity, revealing subtle prejudices and resistances within the heart. Ignatius’ “Contemplation to Attain Love” trains the believer to see God laboring in all things and all people. Discernment thus guards against two distortions: relativism, which empties truth of content, and rigidity, which weaponizes truth against others.

            Pope Francis’ call for a “culture of encounter” draws deeply from this Ignatian heritage. Universal brotherhood must be discerned, chosen, and enacted—in personal relationships, social structures, and political commitments. The Catholic Magisterium has consistently articulated universal brotherhood as a social and moral imperative flowing from faith. From Rerum Novarum to Fratelli Tutti, the Church insists that fraternity is not optional charity but a demand of justice.

            Pope Francis writes: “We are all brothers and sisters, born of the same Creator” (Fratelli Tutti §5), and extends this fraternity to creation itself (Laudato Si’ §92). Vatican II condemns “every type of discrimination” as contrary to God’s intent (GS §29). The Catechism grounds social ethics in the universal destination of goods (CCC §2402), affirming that the earth is meant for all, not a privileged few. In a world fractured by nationalism, caste, racism, and religious fundamentalism, the Church’s insistence on universal fraternity stands as a counter-cultural witness rooted not in ideology but in revelation.

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Conclusion: Working Together for the Common Good

            Universal brotherhood is not a romantic memory from a “better” India or a soft add‑on to Christian doctrine. It is the Gospel’s own way of naming what happens when the God of Jesus Christ is taken seriously in history. The same Lord who created each person in the divine image and likeness now chooses to dwell among us as our brother and sister, placing every human being — Hindu neighbour, Muslim stranger, Dalit labourer, Jesuit student — under the same light of a love that refuses both contempt and indifference. In this light, the hands once stretched out to pull a nervous schoolboy into a moving train become more than a touching anecdote; they become a sacrament of what God desires society to look like when grace quietly overcomes fear, caste, and suspicion.

            Yet the present climate of polarization, digital hatred, and resurgent communalism reveals how fragile this vocation remains. Universal brotherhood cannot survive on nostalgia or pious slogans; it requires formed consciences, capable of naming injustice, resisting ideological manipulation, and choosing costly solidarity when it is easier to withdraw into our enclaves. Here the Catholic tradition, from Aquinas’ metaphysics of shared esse to Vatican II’s denunciation of all discrimination, and from the daily examen of Ignatius to Pope Francis’ call for a “culture of encounter,” offer not a ready‑made program but a demanding pedagogy for learning how to see every face as entrusted to us by God.

            Writing from the threshold between Ashram and Church, India and Europe, classroom and parish, the invitation feels personal. Universal brotherhood is not an abstract theme to analyze for academic purposes; it is a question addressed to my own life: Will my theological studies widen or narrow the circle around the crib? Will my choices — online and offline, liturgical and political — confirm the lie that some lives are expendable or less valuable before God, or witness to the truth that all are siblings before the One Father?

            To live as if universal brotherhood were real is to allow Christ to reorder loyalties, unsettle prejudices, and send us, again and again, toward those whom society teaches us to fear or ignore. If even a small number of us allow our consciences to be converted in this way, then the “One Light in all bodies” will not remain a beautiful line in a Sikh hymn or a Christian creed, but will slowly become a recognizable pattern in the wounded yet hopeful history we share. Perhaps on that day, we shall be able to stand together and pray, ‘Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah..’ as a small earthly echo of the great gathering God desires in Christ, meaning each and every word as it is and not merely as a formality or a habit.

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References

Aquinas, T. (1981). Summa Theologiae (Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Trans.). Christian Classics.

Augustine. (1998). The City of God (H. Bettenson, Trans.). Penguin Classics.

Catechism of the Catholic Church. (1997). Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Francis. (2015). Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home. Vatican Publishing House.

Francis. (2020). Fratelli Tutti: On Fraternity and Social Friendship. Vatican Publishing House.

John Paul II. (1993). Veritatis Splendor: The Splendor of Truth. Vatican Publishing House.

Second Vatican Council. (1964). Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church).

Second Vatican Council. (1965). Nostra Aetate (Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non‑Christian Religions).

Second Vatican Council. (1965). Ad Gentes (Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church).

Saldanha, S. (2022). Universal Brotherhood of Mankind. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7732610

Smith, H. (1991). The World’s Religions.

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Patriotism at the Crossroads: When the love of Country stands before the altar of Conscience.

 

            -Savio Saldanha SJ

DOI – 10.5281/zenodo.18349011

23-01-2026

           

            Growing up in India, patriotism entered our heart long before it reached the intellect. We learnt it standing — straight-backed, silent and attentive — as the national anthem played. We absorbed it through school assemblies, textbooks, parades, and films that repeated a simple truth: the nation is sacred, the flag untouchable, the motherland beyond question. Loving the country felt as natural as breathing, and obedience to authority quietly blended with devotion. Patriotism was not something we thought of, it was a sentiment, an emotion. For many of us, this formation was not cynical. It carried genuine warmth: pride in diversity, sacrifice, freedom from colonial rule, and the dream of a nation based on the ideas of freedom, equality and justice for everyone irrespective of caste, religion and social standing.

            Yet for some, due to the events of the past decade, a deep dissonance set in. The language of patriotism grew harsher. Suddenly it was not about equality, but, some were more equal than the others. Differences began to be spoken about openly, there were some who were Indians and then there were others who became mere residents. Critics and intellectuals were branded as “anti-nationals, jihadis, Khalistanis and Vatican agents.” Students, journalists, activists, and intellectuals were imprisoned under sweeping security laws and draconian acts – vestiges of colonial laws. Meanwhile, those aligned with power — sometimes accused of rape, lynching, or corruption — found protection or silence.

            So, the question is who is an Indian today? Political theorist Roger Griffin calls this as ‘Palingenetic ultranationalism’ referring to the belief that a nation must be reborn by purging those labelled as ‘inpure’ and only certain people count as the real nation. We have seen similar condition in the 1930’s Nazi Germany where people were branded as enemies, traitors and national threats. The precursor to the horrific violence that followed was enabled by this language of ‘othering’. Bertolt Brecht, a German playwright and poet, who himself had to flee from the Nazi persecution, said, ‘the womb is still fertile from which the beast emerged’. He was warning that even though Nazism had been defeated, the social, political, and psychological conditions that produced it were still present. That it can emerge from another part of the world with another name, but with same destructive intentions. Thus, when everybody is an enemy, nobody is safe. This is an organised fear portrayed as national strength. I am not saying that India has become a fascist state, but we are well on the way.

            This is the place I call the crossroads of conscience. It is the uneasy space between what we were taught to love and what we now see with painful clarity, between the national anthem in our bones and a quiet resistance stirring in the heart. The question is no longer whether we love our country, but what kind of love is being demanded of us — and by whom — and is it ethical?

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Patriotism - A mask for the powerful.

                        Emma Goldman described patriotism as “a menace to liberty,” arguing that it assumes the globe is chopped into “little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate,” whose inhabitants are taught to think themselves better than all others and to kill or die to impose this imagined superiority. For her, patriotism is not a spontaneous affection for home, but a manufactured passion serving the state and the wealthy; it is “not for those who represent wealth and power… it is good enough for the people.” When officials insist that “the nation” is in danger, it usually means that their interests, profits, or prestige are in danger; the common people are then summoned to prove their loyalty with their bodies and their children.

​            This logic is visible when criticism of government policy is denounced as “anti‑national.” The target is not the nation’s well‑being but the regime’s legitimacy. Goldman notes that schools, places of worship, courts, and the press glorify the flag and romanticize war while branding resisters as traitors; the result is a “thinking being turned into a loyal machine.” In India, students raising questions about caste, militarism, or majoritarianism are charged under national security laws; activists defending Adivasi land or minority rights are confined as “urban Naxals,” while those accused of lynching, rapes or communal violence may be garlanded. This inversion, where those who care for the vulnerable are treated as criminals and those who inflame hatred are being paraded as patriots, mirrors Goldman’s diagnosis that patriotism demands “allegiance to the flag, which means obedience and readiness to kill father, mother, brother, sister.” It is not love but obedience that is being enforced.

            What Goldman exposes is a form of devotion rooted in fear rather than care. This patriotism needs enemies—foreigners, minorities, internal dissenters—to sustain itself. It promises belonging and protection, but only on condition of silence. Violence committed “for the nation” is sanctified, while those who question it are cast as traitors. In such a system, institutions become catechists of false devotion. Goldman’s insight rings painfully true today: patriotism often functions not as love of people, but as loyalty to power, and as the cultivated ‘hatred of the other’. Patriotism is less about protecting the vulnerable than about shielding the authority from accountability.

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 The Cheapest Sort of Pride

            Arthur Schopenhauer, from a very different philosophical starting point, reaches a congruent verdict. In The Wisdom of Life he calls national pride “the cheapest sort of pride,” because it belongs to those who “have no qualities of [their] own of which [they] can be proud” and thus grasp at something they share “with so many millions.” The person truly endowed with character and talent, he suggests, is keenly aware of the faults of their own nation, precisely because those faults are constantly before their eyes; by contrast, “every miserable fool” clings to the nation’s supposed greatness and is “ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail.”

            This insight helps explain why thoughtful critique provokes rage in nationalist environments. If a person’s self‑worth is built not on integrity, compassion, or work, but on belonging to a supposedly glorious nation, then any mention of injustice—say, the imprisonment of dissenters or the release of violent offenders—feels like a personal attack. Patriotism, in this degraded sense, is not about responsibility for one’s country but about shielding one’s fragile ego from the shame of its crimes. Schopenhauer’s point is not that one cannot cherish a cultural home, but that when nation becomes the main object of pride, it betrays an inner emptiness and a refusal to see reality clearly.

            Schopenhauer’s insight helps us understand why patriotism can feel intoxicating. It offers belonging without responsibility, pride without self-examination. But it comes at a cost: the loss of interior freedom. A person who cannot bear to hear the truth about their country is no longer free; they are captive to an image they must defend at all costs.

            Such intoxication works on the vulnerable youth of a nation. The supposed historical greatness of the nation – facts mixed with myths and legends, to create an alternate mythologized history – is fed to such targets daily through media channels and social media. The lack of culture of questioning information and regarding every video, text message, or a speech by political and religious leaders as the ultimate truth can be a bane of any nation and culture. These targets are fed fake information creating a cheap pride in the historical greatness of their nation. When the pride is threatened, it is directed towards a perceived ‘enemy’—a neighbouring country or religious/racial minorities at home.

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The Working Men Have No Country

            Karl Marx adds a further structural dimension by tying patriotism to class power. In The Communist Manifesto he famously writes: “The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got.” His claim is not that workers have no memories or attachments, but that the modern nation‑state belongs, in effect, to the bourgeoisie that owns its property and directs its policies. Under capitalism, the flag and the rhetoric of national greatness conceal the fact that the state primarily protects the interests of those who control land, capital, and media.

            For Marx, when workers are exhorted to defend “the fatherland,” they are usually being asked to defend the profits and power of their own ruling class against rival capitalists abroad, and against other workers who wear a different uniform. Patriotism in this sense becomes a sophisticated ideology: it persuades the poor to risk their lives for decisions made without them, and to hate ‘the others’ instead of recognizing a common exploitation. Applied to the Indian context, one can see how nationalism can be deployed to crush labour unions, delegitimize farmers’ protests, or marginalize minorities by framing their grievances as threats to national unity, while crony capitalists flourish under the same tricolour. The inequality deepens, and accountability recedes behind the rhetoric of development and security. Patriotism redirects anger away from structures of exploitation and toward imagined enemies.​

            Some decisions, whose burdens fall most heavily on the poor and working classes, are often portrayed as ‘for the national good’. The ‘demonetization’ and the ‘national lockdown’ during the COVID-19 are some examples of these decisions.

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 Joan of Arc and the Logic of Sacrifice

            The story of Saint Joan of Arc reveals the sacrificial logic beneath nationalism. I visited Rouen, the place where she was martyred, it led me to read about her history and reflect on her life. According to me St. Joan was without a doubt a woman of incredible courage and faith. The story of Joan of Arc dramatizes how nations and institutions alike instrumentalize individuals for political ends. Joan, a peasant girl, devoted herself to what she believed was God’s call to save France; she led armies, raised sieges, and saw Charles VII crowned at Reims. Yet once her utility waned and her presence became a diplomatic embarrassment, she was abandoned, tried as a heretic and witch under clerical auspices, and burned alive—only to be rehabilitated decades later and, centuries after, canonised as a saint.

            From a political‑theological angle, this sequence is revealing. At the time of her trial, Joan’s condemnation served the interests of both the English occupiers and French elites eager to distance themselves from an uncontrollable, poor visionary. Her later rehabilitation and canonisation, while no doubt influenced by genuine devotion, also served royal and national image: the king could not be remembered as being crowned by a witch, but coronation by a saint added sacral legitimacy to the monarchy and, later, to French national identity. The same institutional structures that branded her dangerous were again used as the instrument to incorporate her story into an edifying narrative of nation and faith.​ In her story I find the dangers of fusing nationalism with religion.

            Here the logic of Goldman, Schopenhauer, and Marx converges with the narrative of Joan and with contemporary martyrs of Indian democracy. Joan’s burning, like the imprisonment and demise of figures such as Stan Swamy, reveals that institutions that appeal to God or the nation can sacrifice inconvenient individuals, erase them, and later selectively rehabilitate them when it suits the dominant story. Patriotism functions as the story that makes such sacrifices appear necessary or even noble.​ Their suffering is later absorbed into the national myth as “necessary” or “tragic,” while the structures that killed them remain intact.

            The deaths of Stan Swamy, Gauri Lankesh, Narendra Dabholkar, and the silencing of countless students and activists follow the same logic. They are labelled threats to order, purity, or security. Later, history may soften their image — but too late for justice.

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Ignatian Discernment: Reading the Spirits at Work

            At this crossroads, Ignatian spirituality offers not slogans but tools. Discernment does not begin with ideology; it begins with attention — to the movements of the heart, to freedom and unfreedom, to truth and illusion. Ignatius teaches that not all that feels good leads to God, and not all discomfort is a sign of error. Patriotism often produces a powerful emotional rush: pride, belonging, certainty, moral superiority. Discernment asks: Does this movement expand my capacity for compassion and truth, or does it narrow it? We must remember that an authentic consolation leads toward humility, mercy, courage, and solidarity with the suffering. Desolation breeds fear, rigidity, contempt, and a need to silence others. When patriotic rhetoric produces hatred of minorities, suspicion of critics, and indifference to injustice, Ignatius would recognise the marks of desolation.

            St. Ignatius would have warned us that even good things — nation, religion, tradition — can become obstacles when absolutised. When being “Indian” or “patriotic” becomes more important than being truthful, merciful, or just, attachment has become disordered. Freedom is lost, and conscience is compromised. In the Meditation on the Two Standards, Ignatius contrasts two banners. One offers honour, power, and security; the other offers humility, service, and truth. Toxic patriotism clearly marches under the first. Those jailed for conscience, those who stand with the poor and silenced, stand under the second.

            Ignatian discernment insists that sin is not only personal. Systems can lie. Institutions can deceive. Patriotism, when fused with state power and religious sanction, can become a structural sin that demands human sacrifice in exchange for belonging. At the foot of the Cross, Ignatius asks us to look honestly: Who is being crucified today? And just as importantly: Who calls this necessary?

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 Beyond the Altar of the Nation

            To stand at the crossroads of conscience is to accept risk. It is to love one’s country enough to refuse lies told in its name. It is to recognise that our deepest loyalty is not to a flag, but to the truth, to the poor, and to the God who identifies with the oppressed and the rejected. This does not mean abandoning our nation, but it means refusing to worship it in everything. It means questioning the authorities and decisions which go against the greater good of its citizens. It means protesting peacefully against the authorities when forests are destroyed; livelihood and homes of millions are destroyed. It means speaking for those who are voiceless and marginalised, for those who have no one to speak for them. It means demanding clean air, water and infrastructure facilities, demanding schools and medical facilities, demanding equality and dignity to everyone irrespective of their religion, caste, gender or race or any other division that divides one human from the other.

            To see through this illusion is not to become cynical about all bonds, but to re‑order allegiance. Goldman invites a solidarity that refuses to kill in the name of others’ interests. Schopenhauer urges people to abandon national vanity and cultivate personal virtues that can bear the truth about one’s own society. Marx summons workers to recognize that their true “country” under capitalism is not the state that exploits them but the global class of the oppressed, and that any lasting liberation will be international or it will not be.​

            From this standpoint, the deaths of honest journalists, activists, and students are not unfortunate excesses of a fundamentally noble patriotism; they are structurally logical outcomes of a system that requires periodic human offerings to sustain an imagined unity. Patriotism, in its dominant form, is indeed a scandal: a pious language used to sanctify the suffering of the many for the comfort of the few. The task, then, is not to refine this drug but to wean ourselves from it, learning instead a love of people more than flags, of justice more than reputation, and of a world where no one is burned, caged, or silenced in the name of the nation.

            Bertolt Brecht, correctly warns us that if these conditions persist, the same catastrophe as with the Nazi Germany can happen again. Evil is not a monster that appears from nowhere — it grows from human societies. The defeat of a dictator does not mean the defeat of dictatorship. The social conditions that produced fascism still exist — and therefore the danger of its return remains. Eternal vigilance and active resistance are necessary. Every society must remain vigilant, because the “womb” always exists.

            A patriotism that silences conscience is a sham. A patriotism that demands victims is a scandal. Ignatian discernment does not ask us to choose between God and the nation in abstraction — it asks us to notice, concretely, which one is asking for blood of the innocents. At this crossroads, the Spirit does not shout. It invites. Quietly, insistently, it asks: Under which standard do you stand? And somewhere you can hear Jesus saying, ‘Give to the Caesar, what belongs to the Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.’ (Mt. 22:21).

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References

• Emma Goldman, “Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty,” in Anarchism and Other Essays (1910).​
• Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life and Parerga and Paralipomena, sections on national pride.​
• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Chapter 2.
• Roman Rosdolsky, “The Workers and the Fatherland,” on Marx’s statement that workers “have no country.”
• Bertolt Brecht, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941)
• Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (1991)

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A Pastoral Afterword

            If these reflections leave you unsettled, uneasy, or even defensive, pause before judging that reaction. Discomfort is not always a sign of error; often it is the first movement of conscience waking up. Many of us were taught to love our country with our whole heart long before we learned how to question it with integrity. When that love is challenged, it can feel like a personal wound.

            This essay is not an accusation against love of country, nor a denial of the beauty, sacrifice, and hope that shape our shared history. It also does not demean the sacrifices of those who died protecting what they felt were highest morals of freedom, equality and brotherhood. It is an invitation to love more truthfully and more freely. Ignatian spirituality reminds us that God often speaks not in certainty or applause, but in the quiet stirring that asks us to look again—especially where suffering is hidden or justified.

            You are not asked here to choose sides, abandon your roots, or surrender hope. You are not even asked to give up on patriotism or your national identity. You are invited only to listen: to the cries of those who pay the highest price for our collective pride, and to the gentle voice of the Spirit asking what kind of love makes us more human, more merciful, and more just.

            Remain with the unease. Pray with it. Let it teach you. At the crossroads of conscience, God does not coerce; God accompanies. And that accompaniment is itself a sign that love — when rooted in truth — has not failed, but is being purified.

Conscience at the Crossroads: Womb, Mercy and Creation

 

-Savio Saldanha SJ

DOI- 10.5281/zenodo.18279916

17-01-2026

Mercy from the Womb

            I did not intentionally set out to study the etymology of ‘Mercy’. The question came to me quietly, during a reading group conversation where we were speaking about mercy. A Syrian Jesuit, Mike Kassis, mentioned that in Arabic the word raḥma (رحمة) means mercy, and that it comes from raḥim (رحم), the womb. A Croatian Jesuit, Robert Matečić, agreed and added that in Hebrew we observe the same roots reḥem (רֶחֶם), womb and raḥamîm (רַחֲמִים), meaning mercy or compassion and also in Aramaic – the spoken language of Jesus – we notice the same root r-ḥ-m, with similar meanings: womb, tender mercy. For me this etymology seemed more than a coincidence, mercy and womb coming from the same word family.

            That short exchange stayed with me, unsettling something within me. I began to sense that this conversation had opened a new perspective for me, and yet it was also something that brought me to this crossroads of conscience. One path led to the way I had often heard mercy explained in Western theology while the other led back to the languages Jesus himself spoke and prayed and most importantly thought. This essay traces the path of my reflections.

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Mercy in the Semitic languages

            As stated earlier, in Hebrew the word reḥem means womb. From this word comes raḥamîm, mercy or compassion. Hence, we see that mercy is not just an idea, it is an actual place. This is a sacred place where life begins, where the weak are held and where growth happens in darkness and trust. It is a sacred place because in this place humans become co-creators with God. The Psalmist says in Ps.139:13-14, “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made”. It will be interesting to note that Aramaic, the daily language of Jesus, shares the same root and so does Syriac, the language of early Eastern Christianity. Mercy is again linked to the womb which gives life before judging it.

            The Arabic language preserves this link with great clarity, Raḥim is womb, Raḥma is mercy. Even the most common names of God in Islam, al-Raḥmān and al-Raḥīm, speak of a mercy that shelters and brings forth life. Mercy here is not a response to failure but the very source of existence! Across these languages mercy is creative because it generates and sustains. Interestingly, it does not begin with guilt but with life.

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The Latin turn

            When Christianity moved into the Latin world the meaning shifted. Latin did not have the same root. Mercy became misericordia. The word joins miser, meaning wretched, and cor, meaning heart. Mercy now means a heart moved by another’s misery. Simply explained, I see someone in pain, and feel sympathy or empathy with that person.

            The image is no longer the womb, but the heart. Mercy becomes a reaction. Mercy responds to misery. It does not give birth. It forgives after the fact. Over time, this shaped theology. In practice, sin often came first and mercy followed. Law often stood before life. Suddenly, mercy was no longer ‘life-giving’, but became ‘life-saving’. In all this change the human conscience learned to ask, “Am I guilty?” more often than, “Am I alive?”

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The early Church

            In biblical theology, mercy (raḥamîm) is not merely pardon but, re-creation, restoration of life and even covenantal rebirth. Ezekiel 36 (very close to John 3!) speaks of water, new heart and a new spirit. All of this is the language of ‘creative mercy’ and not merely an emotion or reaction.

            The early Church Fathers still stood close to this biblical world. Greek and Syriac writers spoke of salvation as rebirth. Baptism was new creation, not only cleansing. God’s mercy was seen as a power that brings forth a new person. Especially in the Syriac tradition, the Spirit gives life like a mother; hence the Church is a place of birth. Mercy is not simply a weak kindness but a strong and patient love that forms Christ in us. Even in the Greek Fathers, mercy was linked to participation in divine life. God does not only overlook sin but shares life. As theology developed in the Latin West, moral order and legal clarity became more central. Much good came from this, but something quieter was lost. Mercy slowly became thinner, less of creative, and more of law.

            St. Augustine thought in Latin categories, when he wrote that, Grace heals the will, Mercy forgives guilt and thus, God’s love is paternal, judicial and sovereign. The maternal imagery never fully disappeared, but it was no longer structural. Thus, in Augustine, we see a careful articulation of guilt, grace, and healing, framed in a juridical vocabulary. Saint Augustine’s Latin articulation of grace and guilt remains a profound and necessary contribution, even if it speaks more readily in juridical and paternal language than in maternal metaphor. Later Western developments sometimes leaned heavily on this juridical line and muted the more maternal, creative metaphors. The juridical tradition that followed served a real pastoral need in its time, offering moral clarity and protection, even as it sometimes left less room for the older language of creative and generative mercy.

            What is striking is how Pope Francis and contemporary theology are retrieving the Syriac intuition. In Amoris Laetitia, we see multiple times that Pope Francis states, Mercy as source, not exception. He refers to the Church as mother, while stressing on discernment rather than legalism and accompaniment rather than judgment. When he speaks of mercy as: “God’s way of touching the human heart”, he is, actually moving back toward raḥmē, away from pure misericordia.

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Conscience at a crossroads

            This is where my conscience stands today. Many of us experience conscience as pressure, as a fear of failure and a list of rules to measure up to. Mercy is then reduced to an escape clause, something applied when we fall short. The Semitic vision challenges this, if mercy is womb-like, then conscience is not first a judge, but a place where life is being formed, slowly, sometimes painfully but always with care. This does not remove responsibility, but it changes its tone. Growth matters more than perfection. Direction matters more than control.

            I found that reading the Gospel with this lens changed how I heard Jesus. His Call was not first about moral sorting, but about new life and being drawn into the life of God. It becomes about mercy as the ground we stand on, not the exception we beg for. Mercy, understood in this way, does not cancel truth or human responsibility; rather, it creates the space in which truth can be faced and responsibility can be assumed without fear.

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Mercy as new creation

            To speak of mercy as a creative force is to return to the heart of Christian faith. In Christ, God does not only repair what is broken, but creates again. The womb-like images of mercy found in the biblical and Semitic tradition do not replace other images of God, but stand alongside them, enriching our faith by reminding us that God’s justice is always life-giving. This reshapes my perspective on mercy. I see the Sacraments become places of formation, and not reward. Moral life becomes response to life received, not a ladder to earn love. Conscience becomes a listening space, not only an alarm. At the crossroads where many believers stand, this matters. A conscience shaped only by law risks forgetting why it exists. St. Paul speaks of this when he says, ‘They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, as their own conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them’. (Rm.2 :15) A single conversation led me here. It helped me see that words carry worlds and that by listening to the roots of mercy, I came closer to the Gospel itself.

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References

 Biblical Texts

• The Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version. Psalm 139:13–14; Ezekiel 36:25–27; Romans 2:15.

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Magisterial and Contemporary Church Teaching

• Francis. Amoris Laetitia. Apostolic Exhortation on Love in the Family. Vatican City, 2016.
  See especially §§6–9, 56–59, 296–312.
• Francis. Misericordiae Vultus. Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. Vatican City, 2015.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church. Vatican City, 1992. §§1996–2005 (grace), §§1422–1424 (sacraments of healing).

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Saint Augustine and the Latin Tradition

• Augustine of Hippo. Confessions. Translated by Henry Chadwick. Oxford University Press, 1991.
• Augustine of Hippo. On Nature and Grace. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 5. Edited by Philip Schaff. Hendrickson, 1994.
• Augustine of Hippo. Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love. Translated by J.F. Shaw. Regnery, 1955.

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Greek and Syriac Fathers

• Ephrem the Syrian. Hymns on Paradise. Translated by Sebastian Brock. St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990.
• Ephrem the Syrian. Hymns on the Nativity. Translated by Kathleen McVey. Paulist Press, 1989.
• Aphrahat. Demonstrations. Translated by K. Valavanolickal. St Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 2005.
• Gregory of Nyssa. On the Making of Man. Translated by H.A. Wilson. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5.
• Basil of Caesarea. On the Holy Spirit. Translated by Stephen Hildebrand. St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011.

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Studies on Semitic Mercy and Syriac Theology

• Brock, Sebastian P. The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem. Cistercian Publications, 1992.
• Schmemann, Alexander. Of Water and the Spirit. St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974.
• Rahner, Karl. Foundations of Christian Faith. Crossroad, 1978.