In Search Of Forgiveness
On Thursday November 6th at 8pm BBC Radio 4 are hosting a programme entitled 'In Search Of forgiveness'. As the name suggests the show will explore the relevance and meaning of forgiveness by speaking first hand to a people impacted first hand by crime and terrorism.
Show host Julie Nicholson was a vicar in Bristol when her daughter Jenny was killed in the Edgware Road tube bomb on 7th July 2005.Unable to forgive her daughter's murderer Mohammad Sidique Khan, she resigned her post.
Since then Julie Nicholson has researched the nature and meaning of forgiveness. Her search has been conducted with intellectual rigour and searing honesty.
In this reflective journey for Radio 4, Julie Nicholson explores the contemporary meaning and symbolism of forgiveness through meetings with a psychologist, a theologian and a number of victims of serious crime.
Patsie McKie's son Dorrie was shot in Moss Side eight years ago. Dorrie's killer has never been caught, and almost certainly livesfreely on the same estate as Patsie.Yet Patsie tells Julie she has forgiven him. What does that mean? How is it possible? Is it even right to forgive in such circumstances?
Julie asks her how it can make sense to forgive someone you don't know? Do you have the right to forgive the perpetrator of harm when you are not it's primary victim? People speak about the need for victims to forgive in order to find "closure."But isn't that ultimately a selfish motive? And doesn't it involve treating deep injustices as if they don't really matter?
Julie explores this with Professor Sheila Hollins, who is President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and a practising Catholic. She is also the mother of Abigail Witchalls, the young mother who was stabbed and paralysed in 2005 by a stranger who later killed himself. Professor Hollins says that she was misquoted by newspapers who wanted her to say that she had forgiven her daughter’s attacker. “The idea of forgiveness is irrelevant” she says.
Producer Andrew Graystone comments that “The quality that stands out in Julie is her searing honesty. She has made a moving and searching programme – and comes to conclusions that some people may find surprising and uncomfortable”
Links:
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/
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