In little over a week’s time, with the world still reeling from the trauma of terrorist atrocities in France, Mali and elsewhere, Catholics begin 12 months of reflection on the meaning of justice and compassion. Must mercy extend even to the merciless? Helene Muyal-Leiris was killed in the Bataclan concert hall massacre in Paris on the evening of 13 November. Her husband Antoine wrote: “On Friday night you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you won’t have my hatred … If this God for which you kill indiscriminately made us in his own image, every bullet in the body of my wife will have been a wound in his heart. So no, I don’t give you the gift of hating you … and you will not have [my son’s] h