Hume urges JPs to take merciful line

By Beth Webb MAGISTRATES have been asked by Cardinal Hume to "temper justice with mercy". The Cardinal was speaking at the annual meeting of the Magistrates' Association at St Lawrence Jewry Church in London on Friday.
In his address to the magistrates, Cardinal Hume said how impressed he had been by a remark of the Pope's that the family is the true measure of the greatness of a nation, just as the dignity of man is the true measure of civilisation. "You. perhaps more than any other group of persons, are best able to provide evidence of the devastating effect upon our society when families are broken up", said the Cardinal. Ile reminded the magistrates that it was neither his job nor theirs to make the laws that governed the family, but to try to understand why young people had problems. and to help maintain God's standards of justice in society.
Cardinal Hume emphasised that we were all made in the image of God, but, he reminded his listeners, original sin affected magistrates as well as young offenders. As St Paul put it, "I cannot understand my own behaviour. I fail to carry out the things I want to do. and I find myself doin&the very things I hate.., When I act against my will, it is not my true self which is doing it, but sin which lives in me."
Because of that.original sin and because of the deep wounds caused by family problems and being unloved in a harsh society, it was no wonder, he said, that young people were "unsure. fearful. blind. and often foolish, "Is this not the reason," he asked, "why we feel instinctively that justice should he tempered with mercy?" But, the Cardinal insisted, "mercy" did not mean making weak concessions, but "it is the stooping down by the greater to save the smaller and weaker from their predicament. That is what Christ did through his redeeming work." However, he went on, this understanding of the problems of the young people, and their original sin, did not constitute an excuse for their bad behaviour. Fie reminded his listeners that "St Paul told the Romans, and us, too, that we are to obey the governing authorities, since all government comes from God."
Then using St Paul's words to Timothy. Cardinal Hume continued. "Exercise your great responsibilities. Refute falsehood, correct error, call to obedience — but do all with patience and with the intention of teaching. It is thus that you, and others will help to build the greatness of our nation and enable the authentic values of cilization to prevail.
"It means, 1 believe, respecting the dignity of all men and making every family a school of love."