Pushing Back on Evil

"Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering emperors with world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence, and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods." - Joe Abercrombie, Red Country, as quoted in "Sunbeams" in The Sun Magazine April 2025

Growing up, my father often pondered the question of evil. "How can so much evil exist in a world created by a benevolent Creator God?" he would ask. We explored this whenever his philosophical side emerged, revealing the lasting impact of his Georgetown Jesuit education after years of working life.

My parents raised us Catholic and represented the best of that tradition—socially liberal, curious, and questioning. (Mom would still attend church if her small parish had a more open-minded priest, which sadly isn't the case.) Despite all our discussions, the question of evil - of course - remains unanswered.

The latest issue (592) of The Sun Magazine tackles this difficult subject. In an interview, writer and editor Randall Sullivan suggests that God permits evil because we have free will. To eliminate evil completely would mean creating copies of God rather than independent, free-thinking people. Sullivan also believes that "people are more good than bad," a view I want to share, though current events make this hard to believe.

The reality is that evil and harmful people do exist. Our freedom lies in how we respond to evil—whether small and petty or grand and destructive. I find strength in the words of author Ursula K. Le Guin, also featured in this month's "Sunbeams" section: "It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul." (A Wizard of Earthsea)

Last week, about 5 million people worldwide showed their refusal to accept the wrongs happening in our country. May we continue to resist, stand firm, and recognize our duty to oppose "selfishness and carelessness and waste," to not consent.