How to survive “an absolutely hostile world”

Ingrid Betancourt did that through the sheer strength of her faith. That’s an integral part of this astonishing story, the key to survival that is otherwise unimagineable.

The New York Times carries this account today with horrifying details of the past six years of captivity in the jungle. And Betancourt’s answer to what sustained her through that hellish experience.

In comments to Europe 1 radio, she said her captors had chained her day and night for the first three years, but that she was sustained by her Roman Catholic faith and thoughts of her family. “I was in chains all the time, 24 hours a day, for three years,” she said. “I tried to wear those chains with dignity, even if I felt that it was unbearable.”

Asked if she had been tortured, she said, “Yes, yes,” and said her captors had fallen into “diabolical behavior,” adding: “It was so monstrous I think they themselves were disgusted.” She called her rescue “a miracle of the Virgin Mary” and said: “You need tremendous spirituality to stop yourself falling into the abyss.” She had made herself a wooden rosary in the jungle, she said.

Pope Benedict XVI has invited her to meet him next week.

Betancourt embodies and testifies to something Benedict talks about a lot in his addresses, the “new humanism” that understands the moral and spiritual dimension of the person as absolutely fundamental to their existence. How else to ‘wear chains with dignity’ than to realize the spiritual core of your being, and that it determines how you will live?

The rescue mission was stunning. The human story now coming out is transcendent. And a still largely untold part of it is the role Colombian President Alvaro Uribe played not only in his governing role working with the military commanders and others in planning the operation, but in a more profound and humble service he offered to the cause of freeing the captives.

On Latin American affairs, I often turn to my good friend Alejandro Bermudez, the editor-in-chief of ACI Prensa and its sister, Catholic News Agency. He’s always extremely knowledgeable and informative. Over the past day, I’ve asked him questions about this story, and his reply was startling.

He said great merit should go to President Uribe. “He has been praying the Rosary from the presidential palace on public radio every Thursday, bringing in famous guests, including once the president of Peru.” Imagine that. “A president praying the rosary on public radio. That’s one of the most under covered news” items, said Alejandro. But look for good coverage of it in the next few days on Catholic News Agency.