One of my friends sent me a note saying he hoped I was not becoming a prophet of doom. That is why I call this week’s reflection “The Tenacity of Hope.” I am not a prophet of doom, and my faith and my knowledge of history give me hope and encouragement. Big problems confront us today. But, if people work together in pursuit of Truth and Moral integrity, these problems can be resolved. For some problems, however, like contemporary authoritarianism, I fear it will take some time. Authoritarianism is a dangerous socio-political virus. It restricts civil liberties, undermines democratic institutions, and uses political repression to maintain control.

Thinking about the tenacity of hope, one’s life perspective is important. My first lessons about the tenacity of hope came from my father’s life events. His father, Alonzo William Dick, was a schoolteacher in Indiana. But he died in 1919 during the great influenza epidemic of 1918-1920. Three of his five sons were too sick to attend his funeral. After his death, the local town authorities in Montpelier, Indiana, wanted to put the five boys in foster-care homes. My grandmother, Mary Ellen Dick, said absolutely not. She had a big challenge in front of her, but she said they were her sons and she would care for them. Fortunately, there were neighbors and family members who encouraged and helped her. It was not always easy, but, on her own, she raised the five boys. They all became wonderfully mature, successful, wise, and kind adults. Their mother had often reminded them – and often reminded me as I was growing up – that “bad things do happen, but we cannot allow them to destroy us.”

Yes, my perspective and optimistic vision are historically based. I look at what happened in the past, what is happening today, and what can happen tomorrow. These days, I also find my current Belgian environment and its history helpful when reflecting about tragedies and the tenacity of hope. Although I was born and grew up in SW Michigan, I now live in Leuven, Belgium. Many years ago, I came here to complete a doctorate, at the Catholic University of Leuven. Two days after my doctoral defense, I was offered a job and have been here ever since. But I am still very much a U.S. American.

Historical reminders are all around us. Our house is close to the Norbertine Park Abbey in Leuven, begun in 1129. In the early sixteenth century, Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) lived there for a while, working on his translation of New Testament texts. In the later sixteenth century, however, Park Abbey was occupied by soldiers of the brutal Spanish Duke of Alba (1507-1582). Alba, known as the “Iron Duke” was fiercely anti-protestant and strongly supported by Pope Pius V (1566-1572). Alba was governor of the Spanish Netherlands, which included our part of today’s Belgium, from 1567 to 1573. During those six years, Alba executed more than a thousand people. Not far from our house, Alba’s soldiers had what was called their hanging tree. They used it to frighten citizens of Leuven by executing prominent people suspected of Calvinist sympathies. Nevertheless, Leuven not only survived Alba’s terrorism but flourished, because enough people maintained courage and hope. The area of the long-gone hanging tree – unknown to most contemporary people – is a peaceful area today. Life is stronger than death.

Close to 350 years after the terrorism of the “Iron Duke,” Leuven suffered again in World War I. Starting on August 25, 1914, and over the course of five days, enemy troops burned and looted much of the city and executed hundreds of civilians. Our world-renowned university library with its magnificent collection of ancient manuscripts was burned. This provoked great national and international outrage. Nevertheless, people did not give up, and Leuven was rebuilt. And, starting in 1921, thanks to countless American fundraisers and the personal efforts of Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), chairperson of the Commission for Relief of Belgium, a new library could be built. Then, just about 30 years later, the city was bombed in World War II. Great devastation. Again, people picked up, rebuilt, and moved forward. The tenacity of hope.

Hopeful people pick up and move forward. I am a critic, not a prophet of doom, but I must also acknowledge that I do find it very easy to just point my fingers at and write articles about problematic and negative people. I get annoyed and frustrated. But I know we need to work against polarization, and I do try to reach out to the problematic and negative. It is not easy. I have lost a lot of Facebook friends in the process. From the Apostle Paul, I know that “Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful” (1 Cor. 13:4–5). And I know as well that, in my dealings with negative and often obnoxious people, I do need to be humbly alert to the exhortation of Jesus in Matthew 7 and Luke 6: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

Thinking about strengthening our own tenacity of hope, we greatly need to learn from the example of hope-filled men and women. My old friend Archbishop Jadot, the subject of my previous book Jean Jadot, Paul’s Man in Washington, was for me a supportive teacher. I remember complaining to him about problems in the church and my frustrations with one prominent U.S. archbishop who had tried very hard, but without success, to get me fired from the Catholic University of Leuven. Jadot looked at me, put his hand on my shoulder, and said: “Yes, it is winter now. But spring will return.” We all need people like Jean Jadot in our lives, and we are all called to be prophets of hope and hopeful change. We need to critically examine our own perspectives, however, because they can make us either open or closed.

Right now, I am collecting materials for one of my adult discussion groups that will meet again in the autumn. We will read and discuss articles written by the the 91 years old English anthropologist Jane Goodall. She is a wonderfully prophetic and inspiring person.

In her 1999 book written with Phillip Berman, Reason for Hope, she details her spiritual epiphany and her belief that everyone can find a reason for hope. “Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference,” Goodall writes. “It is these undeniable qualities of human love and compassion and self-sacrifice that give me hope for the future. We are, indeed, often cruel and evil. Nobody can deny this. We gang up on each one another, we torture each other, with words as well as deeds, we fight, we kill. But we are also capable of the most noble, generous, and heroic behavior.”

The tenacity of hope. With constructive criticism and collaborative efforts, we can indeed be noble, generous, and heroic in pursuit of truth and moral integrity in church and in civil society.

• Jack