From the editor’s desk

Appalling evil, infinite love

The snatching of a small child from its loving parents is an unfathomable act of evil, which is why the world has been so moved by the plight of the McCann family these last four weeks - moved also by their dignity and faith, and by their utter determination to restore their four-year-old daughter Madeleine to their arms. Any minute their search could end in the joy of her recovery or the grief of finding her dead - and the third possibility, almost unimaginable, that they will never know what happened to her, their cruel loss reawakened every day of their lives. Yet Kate and Gerry McCann say again and again how grateful they are for the outpouring of prayerful compassion that has come their way, and how the experience has strengthened their faith in human nature and in God. If any couple ever had an excuse to be bitter, it was they.

The McCanns met Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday, an audience facilitated by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of Westminster and by the British Ambassador to the Holy See, Francis Campbell. Both in Britain and in Portugal, where the abduction took place, Church and State have been straining every sinew for them. The McCanns made a calculated decision to seek the highest possible media profile in the search for Madeleine, once they realised that Portuguese detectives were inhibited by Portuguese law - and hampered perhaps by the fact that child abduction is a rare crime in their country - from making the sort of public appeal that a British police force would have quickly resorted to. But it is not an easy choice. The constant spotlight on the case could conceivably be deterring whoever holds the child from returning her.

What the McCanns are implicitly saying, however, is enormously important - that this child's life is, quite literally, infinitely precious. No amount of effort to recover her safe and well would be too much. This itself is an act of faith, for Madeleine's value as a person comes from God, not from any sentimental reckoning that she is amusing, pretty or sweet - which she clearly is, abundantly. Indeed, the stoical unsentimentality of the McCanns is striking. Swept by powerful emotions, they are relying on something deeper to hold themselves together. The spectacle of such suffering is hard to watch, but their courage and endurance, impossible not to admire.

And as they signal the infinite value of one small human being, they are met by an answering intuition from the community at large that this is right: Madeleine does matter, more than anyone could possibly say. In that way she therefore stands for abducted children everywhere, recovered or lost; and for every child who suffers from the misdeeds of adults, be they victims of isolated crime, or injured, killed or orphaned as a result of armed conflict all over the globe. There is no rationing of compassion, no place for the calculation that the outpouring of concern and love for Madeleine McCann has somehow been taken away from some other child in need. It is an extraordinary paradox, inexplicable without faith in God, that the appallingly wicked act of stealing her from her parents has increased the amount of good in the world.