c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

UNDATED _ In case you haven’t noticed, today’s fastest growing industry is no longer high technology. Instead, it’s the rapidly expanding business of producing public forgiveness and apologies _ actions that can be beneficial but are sometimes harmful.

ITEM: Following the recent brutal schoolhouse murders in Jonesboro, Ark., some of the local clergy immediately rushed forward to”forgive”the young killers. While the ministers’ call for forgiveness was clearly heartfelt, I found it deeply troubling.

The offer of forgiveness came even as the two suspects were formally charged with homicide and before a shocked American public had adequate time to digest the horrible spectacle of youngsters using automatic weapons to kill their classmates.

I strongly believe the clergy’s sole responsibility in the immediate aftermath of the Arkansas bloodbath was not to supply instant forgiveness, but rather to provide spiritual consolation to the victims’ shattered families. Innocent children are surely one of God’s greatest creations, and when they are murdered, especially by other children, it is the role of ministers, rabbis, and priests to offer grieving families every bit of religious wisdom and comfort they possess.

Sadly, in the long months ahead, there will be plenty of time for us to”understand”the murderers, plenty of time to offer the young killers the gift of Divine forgiveness, and plenty of time for the psychological experts to”explain”why the two young boys did what they did.

Authentic forgiveness, however, is not a quick fix that is easily dispensed. Instead, it is a highly complicated process that comes, if ever, only after profound analysis and painful prayers. All religions have well-defined paths of forgiveness that involve everyone touched by a tragedy: those who were wronged, those who committed the wrong, and, finally, the community at large.

Authentic forgiveness is a religiously expensive exercise, and cheap forgiveness is an insult to the real thing.

ITEM: The Smithsonian Institution has terminated its contract with Douglas Cardinal, the chief designer of the National Museum of the American Indian planned for the National Mall in Washington. As in all such spats, charges and counter-charges are the rule. The Smithsonian cites excessive delays and contractual disagreements as reasons for the”drastic action”it has taken in dismissing the museum’s designer. And Cardinal, who is of Blackfoot ancestry, has his own list of complaints against the Smithsonian.

However, lost in the swirling controversy is Cardinal’s personal vision of the museum, whose ground breaking is scheduled for the fall. The architect, who also designed the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec, envisions the American Indian Museum as something more than a vast collection of artifacts relating to Native Americans.

For Cardinal, the museum, which will stand near the Capitol, should be a visible symbol of public forgiveness and healing since Indians have been so mistreated throughout American history. The current dispute will be ended only after that vision becomes a reality.

ITEM: New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has formally apologized for what he has called his city’s”clearly inadequate response”to the August 1991 disturbances in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn that resulted in four days of riots and the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year-old rabbinical student. The riots began when a car driven by a Hasidic Jew accidentally killed Gavin Cato, a black youngster.

While Giuliani blamed his predecessor, former Mayor David Dinkins, for mishandling the violence in Crown Heights, nonetheless, Giuliani’s public apology was both extraordinary in tone and specific in scope:”… for all these reasons _ the human tragedy involved, the loss of life, the tremendous amount of damage done … I apologize to the citizens of Crown Heights, to the Rosenbaum family, and to all the people that were affected by this.” In a totally unplanned way, the Jonesboro pastors, a Native American museum architect, and the mayor of America’s largest city have all focused public attention on two vital subjects that are usually discussed in the privacy of seminary classrooms: apology and forgiveness.

DEA END RUDIN