The High Cost of Prudence
Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time; for it is an evil time (Amos 5:13).
This statement of sapiential practicality is noticeably odd in the Book of Amos. Indeed, it strikes one as a wholesale contradiction to the words of Amos. Amos would have agreed that this was an “evil time,” a time of harsh exploitation of the poor and the vulnerable. That social reality, however, did not lead the prophet to silence. To the contrary, it evoked from Amos daring, defiant utterance that he fashioned a word from YHWH. Amos had no intention of being “prudent.” He understood that silence in such a circumstance was not “prudent.” It was foolhardy and could only be without good outcomes.
We may wonder about the source of this odd verse. We can readily conclude that the verse is akin to the wisdom of the scribal tradition in Israel that warned against loose speech and that urged reticent discretion in speech:
When words are many, transgression is not lacking,
but the prudent are restrained in speech.
The tongue of the righteous is choice silver;
the mind of the wicked is of little worth.
The lips of the righteous feed many,
but fools die for lack of sense (Proverbs 10:19-21).One who is clever conceals knowledge,
but the mind of a fool broadcasts folly (Proverbs 12:23).One who spares words is knowledgeable;
one who is cool in spirit has understanding.
Even fools who keep silent are considered wise;
when they close their lips, they are deemed intelligent (Proverbs 17:27-28).Never be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be quick to utter a word before
God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few (Ecclesiastes 5:2).The more words, the more vanity, so how is one the better? (Ecclesiastes 6:11)
The “wise” understand that the less said, the better. When one asserts nothing, one is not put at risk.
We can well imagine, moreover, that such “wisdom” would have been readily available to Amaziah, the high priest at Bethel, Amos’s great nemesis. After all, one does not get to be the principle priest of a royal chapel unless one knows all about reticence and discretion. While our verse is not likely to come directly from Amaziah, it could easily reflect the eagerness of the priest to tone down the abrasive speech of the prophet. Amaziah apparently knew that he could not silence or even tone down Amos, so he wants him to relocate elsewhere (Amos 7:12-13). But perhaps some less sanguine opponent of Amos thought he could tone down the words of Amos by urging silence.
The words of Amos, however, sound nonetheless. He would not be silenced. He would not tone done his shrillness. He will speak out. Indeed, he must speak out (see Amos 3:3-8). And what he must say is an exposé of the utter failure of the royal house in Samaria, the collusion of wealth and power that preyed upon the poor and vulnerable. His words, uttered artfully and without restraint, place the royal establishment in jeopardy, and are sure to evoke hostile resistance.
This odd verse in Amos inevitably came to mind as I read The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius, Mussolini, and Hitler (2022) by David Kertzer. Kertzer’s work is based on more recently disclosed papers from the Vatican that report on the governance of Pius XII who came to the papacy in 1939 and lasted in that office until 1958. These dates indicate that Pius came to power just at the brink of World War II, just as Hitler and Mussolini were ready to impose their barbarism on Europe with special reference to the Jews of Europe. Kertzer’s book is hard and painful to read. On the one hand, his book traces out the development of lethal policies and brutalizing practices by the German and Italian governments under their detestable leaders. On the other hand, the book articulates, with great specific detail, the refusal and inability of Pope Pius to offer any resistance, critique, or moral indignation concerning those policies and practices. According to Kertzer, Pius was primarily concerned with protecting the interests and prerogatives of the church and protecting members of the church. Pius enjoyed a Concordant with Mussolini concerning church-state relations in Italy and would do nothing to disturb that agreement. Thus he carefully avoided any offense against Mussolini, as he was in constant contact with Mussolini’s son-in-law, Count Galeazzo Ciano. At the same time, Pius benefitted from a special and peculiar relation to the Catholic Church in Germany; he took great care to defer to German Church interests and would do nothing that would challenge Hitler who played a clever and duplicitous game with the Pope, teasing him with support, but invariably acting against church interests. Pius reckoned that any intervention on his part would only bring more trouble on the German Church.
This characterization of Pius is a perfect embodiment of the “prudence” of our verse in Amos. At every turn Pius acted in a prudent way, for his interest and the interests of the church as he saw them. And then it was too late! And as it was too late, the Pope retreated more and more from the public world, so that eventually he sought only to prevent the sacking of the city of Rome, an effort in which he was only partially successful. In the end Kertzer makes clear that Pius utterly failed in his strategy of prudence. At every turn he judged speaking out to be too risky for the interests he intended to protect. By the end of his book Kertzer shows that after the war the Vatican constructed an alternative historical account that sought to present Pius in a better light. But the record is too clear. His was surely “an evil time;” his prudence led to silence that was tantamount to collusion in the barbarism of the two fascist states.
It is ironic and well worth noting that the Pope who followed Pius, John XXIII (Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, 1958-1963) had been a close and intimate advisor to Pius. When he became pope, however, John XXIII moved dramatically to stop the church’s demonization of Jews and to make a first step in recognizing that Jews (and Judaism) could be partners in biblical faith. The Pope who followed John, Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini, 1963-1978) had also been a close, intimate advisor to Pius. He continued the reforms instituted by John, though with considerably less ardor and energy. In any case, John XXIII and Paul VI were able to overcome the prudence of Pius in their courage and authority. The wreck and ruin perpetrated by the German and Italian fascists (with the silent collusion of Pius) witnesses to the failure of such prudence. The utterance of Amos, to the contrary, knows that an “evil time” requires bold candor and speech.
In his retrospect on Pius, Kertzer comments:
His decision [not to speak out] was based on two considerations. The first was his belief that “protests gain nothing, and they can harm those whom one hopes to assist.” The second was of a quite different nature: “Pius XII had to consider that a public statement on his part would have furnished ammunition to Nazi propaganda, which would in turn have presented the pope as an enemy of Germany…It could have unsettled the faithful—not all of whom were unaffected by the successes of the regime—in their confidence in the church and its leaders.” Father Blet was putting the matter delicately, but in plainer language this latter motivation boiled down to the pope’s recognition that nearly half the citizens of the enlarged German Reich were Catholic, and millions of them were avid supporters of Hitler. To denounce Hitler and the Nazis as the German army was marching through Europe and rounding up Jews for extermination would be to risk losing their allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church.…If Pius XII’s silence was motivated by fears of the actions that the Axis powers might take against the church if he spoke out, it was motivated as well by his fears that denouncing the Nazis would alienate millions of Catholics and risk producing a schism in the church.…As moral leader, Pius XII must be judged a failure. He had no love for Hitler, but he was intimidated by him, as he was by Italy’s dictator as well. At a time of great uncertainty, Pius XII clung firmly to his determination to do nothing to antagonize either man. In fulfilling this aim, the pope was remarkably successful (pp. 472-480).
This odd verse in Amos, the confrontation of Amos with Amaziah (7:10-17), and the verdict of Gary Wills (in his endorsement of Kertzer’s book) of the culpability of the Vatican as pertains to Pius XII, all converge in our moment that is also “an evil time.” (Perhaps it is always “an evil time.” But so it is for us now with the ominous rise of fascism among us.) The current violence of Israel, Hamas, and among Palestinians is only our contemporary moment of an evil time when huge destructive power is deployed against vulnerable populations. Such a time does not call for “prudence” in the church. It does not call for prudence among pastors and preachers, nor does it allow lay members of the church to settle into compliant silence. The time requires of the church imprudent action that speaks the truth about our economy and the policies of our government. I fully understand why the church and its pastors are prudent. We are prudent because we are in it for the long haul, because much of the laity of the church is not on board with a critical perspective, and because our message of love cannot be performed in ways that are excessively abrasive. All of that is beyond question. And yet…we are called, as we are able and can muster courage, to break the silence. For as Amos asked rhetorically:
The lion has roared.
who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken;
who can but prophesy? (Amos 3:8)
We know the “secret” of the Lord God (see Amos 3:78). It is that the world be brought to peaceable justice. Such work is assigned those who hear the lion roar!
Walter Brueggemann
Walter Brueggemann is one of the most influential Bible interpreters of our time. He is the author of over one hundred books and numerous scholarly articles.
