Given the nature of his political stances, it is understandable that many will conclude that his death was far from natural.
Recently, the World Anti-Doping Agency published its report on the scale of doping in Russia.
Corruption is the dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power. Its purpose of corruption is mainly two-fold: power and/or wealth and involves bribery or threat to ‘encourage’ compliance. It probably happens at all levels of human activity, but is still neither normal nor or acceptable. Some professions (medicine, nursing, law…) recognize the risk and therefore put in place codes of conduct and regulation than must be adhered to by the professionals to ensure the safety of the public. But this is not the case for politicians and business people.
Although the majority of business people are decent and honest, the public lacks that level of protection against undue pressure and dishonest conduct from a minority. In politics, the situation is even more worrying. It is true that politicians are at the mercy of the electorate, but only those who put their name forward can be elected and there is great pressure for new party members to ‘conform’ to the explicit, but very often implicit, rules of their party, meaning that dissent within a party is often unacceptable. Those who dissent are often either not selected for or deselected from office. So within democracies, it is often and very paradoxically that the autocracy of the party prevails.
Yet politicians are entrusted by people to do what is right for the people of their community and so ought to be above reproach. Where politicians deviate from that noble calling, tragedy follows as shown by history. The results are appalling the world over. The potential of use of religion and fanaticism as weapons of control and destruction make the potential risk of intolerance very worrying.
Then, now and again, some extremely courageous people turn up and denounce unacceptable behaviours and practices. They are few and far between because raising one’s head above the parapet is dangerous. These people disturb as they point the finger to disreputable practices and this has the power to distort the image the guilty have of themselves; but they have power and so can exercise it maliciously, irrespective of the cost to others. We may never know definitely if Fr Bismarque’s death was natural or not. If he was murdered, a lot of people of integrity will have to raise their voices to ensure that those who would like to silence them do not succeed. If he was murdered, he follows in the steps of some other giants who fought against dishonesty and greed, for justice, the poor and the vulnerable (Jesus, Gandhi, Bonhoeffer, Romero…) and paid the ultimate prize the world over. They are the ones who are ultimately remembered for the good of their actions while the others fall into insignificance.
We can only hope that here, as in every other situation, justice and good will ultimately prevail.
