Afterwards, a fellow religious sister, in answer to the question “why do you remain in Somalia if you cannot even wear a crucifix over your clothes”, replied: “Maybe, even in 20-years time, not a single Muslim near us will have read the Gospel. But they are ‘our’ brothers and sisters and we want them to know that.” She was wrong: those Muslims have been reading the Gospel from the very moment the sisters set their foot in that place… they themselves with their life of self-giving are the living Gospel! Leonella, like many of her religious sisters, had clearly understood that love and forgiveness of and reconciliation with the “other,” (the “really other” - not simply the one that eventually becomes “like us”) is the heart of “mission through witness.” The proclamation of the “shalom-kingdom,” the kingdom where peace “is” justice, requires a life- long “crossing over” from a culture and praxis of violence and death to a spirituality and praxis of nonviolence and life. Leonella was a martyr (witness) of life long before her death.

A couple of months earlier, another Consolata missionary religious wrote a letter to The Tablet as a contribution to a dialogue over the issue of Trident replacement in the UK. His main point: unless “you pacifists” come up with a better idea, there is no alternative to the ultimate violence of nuclear weapons - in fact, it would unethical to be “caught” unprepared by the potential enemy. It sounded like a statement of faith in the “nuclear god” as our ultimate rock of salvation!

Sr Leonella and our “nuclear” religious brother: two faces of the same religious coin. As a member of the same religious congregation and as national coordinator of the Justice and Peace Commission of Missionary Institutes in Italy, I find myself confronted daily with this Janus-like two-faced attitude of missionaries and religious in general vis-à-vis issues of peace, justice and nonviolence. A profound ambivalence is revealed in the often sharp discordance between the truly marvellous witness of some, sustained by equally marvellous official statements contained in nearly all recently revised constitutions and rules of life, and the practical refusal on the part of others to accept that “In our missionary service we hear the cry of creation and of many people who are submitted to violence, corruption, oppression, war and injustice. This cry reaches us and calls us to a commitment to justice, peace and integrity of creation, as a constitutive part of the preaching of the Gospel and of our charism.” (Consolata Missionaries, XI General Chapter, no.29). One can easily find similar wording in documents of many other congregations.

The challenge for us religious is clear, and it is exactly the same for every Christian: how do we “cross over”, like Sr Leonella, from the culturally-induced assumption that the “other” is my enemy to embracing a brother or a sister. This requires a real conversion that, in my case at least, will be slow in coming, but, I am now sure, is possible… Certainly, having understood and clearly stated that the commitment to peace and justice making is an essential element of our religious witness is a great step forward.

Other steps have been taken and occasionally a lot of resources have been invested in creating structures meant to facilitate this conversion: justice and peace commissions, renewal and formation courses, stressing the importance of networking, lobbying and, rarely, civil disobedience, etc… However, many of us religious still fail to realize the crucial role that the laity can and must play in our conversion. My own religious training and theological studies did very little to help me understand that the gospel of peace and nonviolence constitutes the core of mission. In fact, it was totally absent. This I discovered mostly thanks to the inspiring commitment of lay women and men who practiced what I preached. And it is still true today.