(photo: Pope Leo XIV and author Diane Foley, Vatican Media, 2025)

I have a theory: Learning from experience is fundamentally human. We learn from our experiences, and what we learn changes the way we think, feel, and act — sometimes a little, but sometimes in ways that transform us. When we are in community with each other (communication), we are in oneness (unity) which enables my experience to be your experience, and your experience to be my experience. In that situation, you are able to learn much more and much more quickly because you are not limited to your own experience, but rather draws also upon the experience of others in your community. You can probably tell where this is going. Learning from all of the experiences in your community with which you connect is big learning (yes, lets call it that), and big learning makes it much more likely that your learning will result in your transformation. In transformation, a change happens to your thoughts, feelings, and even your actions, that markedly makes you different from who you used to be. You are a different person.

Diane Foley is part of the worldwide Catholic community. If you’re a Catholic, she is part of your community. If you’re not Catholic, she may still be part of your community, because she is also the founder and president of the Foley Foundation. The Foley Foundation advocates for foreign-held American hostages, promotes American journalist safety, and inspires moral courage. Those are important values and priorities for many communities, not just the Catholic community.

The Foley Foundation is named after Diane Foley’s son, Jim Foley, a journalist who was kidnapped in Syria in 2012 and subsequently murdered by the Islamic State (ISIS) forces. Diane Foley authored a book entitled American Mother (co-written with Colum McCann) which narrates her journey through grieving the loss of her son, to finding great compassion within herself, and eventually to meeting with one of her son’s assassins.

This week, Diane Foley met with Pope Leo XIV in a private audience. She also sat down with Vatican News for an interview regarding her work and the importance of forgiveness. The interview is published in Vatican News, and I will give you a list of the important points Diane Foley shared that relate to forgiveness, and add a few ideas of my own as well:

Hatred is dehumanizing. When we hate, we stop seeing the person or people we hate as human beings. We disregard our view of the wholeness, worthiness and dignity of persons, as well as their essential sameness with us as human beings. We lose our ability to see them with empathy. As Diane Foley relates, “You do not see faces. You don’t see people.” Regarding essential sameness and empathy, Diane Foley wanted her son’s assassin to know “…that in another life, they might have even been friends.”

I am writing this days after a school and church shooting at Annunciation School in Minneapolis. I think tragedies like this happen when the perpetrator is so consumed with hatred that they stop seeing people as human beings. How else could shooting at children ever enter into the mind of a perpetrator? If hatred is creeping into life for any of us, it is super important to put a stop to it so that it doesn’t gradually dehumanize others, and ourselves, with its poison.

Communication makes compassion. Diane Foley explains, “Compassion is part of the way that we need to dare to speak to people we don’t understand or maybe do not even like.” Compassion for one another depends upon communication, and importantly, active listening for understanding. As Diane Foley describes it: “He [her son’s assassin]really listened to me, and I prayed for the grace to listen to him. It was a grace. The Holy Spirit was present in a very profound way. It was a blessing. It was very sad, but it was a blessing.”

God accompanies us in our grief. God is the best of all constant companions, and is with us during our hardest times of grief. God is not far off during those times, or even removed, but rather at our side. We are never stuck all alone with our grief. Diane Foley describes: “…it was a gift, just a gift. I knew that God was present.”

One of the readings today for morning prayer (lauds) in the Liturgy of the Hours reminds us, “The Lord is at my side; I do not fear…The Lord is at my side as a helper… ” (Psalm 118). The reading also helps us understand that God is not a passive companion. God is a helper — participating in life with you, profoundly concerned about you, an active and helping companion to you.

Moral injustice can activate good people and make good things happen. A moral injustice never has to be the end of the story. It can have the impact of provoking a positive response and a rising force for justice and good. Diane Foley describes: “I spend a lot of my days trying to inspire other people to use their gifts for good, to aspire to have moral courage, and to share their gifts with the world in a good way…When bad things happen, that’s often when good people step up and make good things happen.”

Finding works of peace in the midst of conflict plants the seeds for a lasting peace. During her interview, Diane Foley describes the work of children and teenagers in Gaza, South Africa, and Ukraine to find peacemakers and works of peace. Diane Foley explains, “Those are the people who are planting the seeds for peace.”

I think that conflict is not a natural way of being for humans, it is an exception, and by many accounts a failure. Peace is natural, and part of the natural balance of the world, such that the scales are always tilted toward peace. As much as our humanity fails and we find ourselves in conflicts at any scale – at home or between nations or within ourselves – there is always an underlying force that wants to bring us back toward peace.

Mercy makes forgiveness. Recognizing our common humanity, our sameness is the key to forgiveness. That’s empathy. Diane Foley explains, “Part of forgiving one another is to understand that we’re all flawed.” I think that empathy enables us to realize that each and all of us live our lives out with a common humanity, and in life situations that can lead one person this way, and another person that way. Same humanity in both, but life situations that do not define our humanity can tragically get us into making mistakes, even big mistakes. When we have empathy, we can see that it’s a true tragedy, in the sense that there is still humanity in a person whom life circumstances led into making mistakes, including hurting people. That’s a basis for mercy, and mercy is the beginning of forgiveness. Diane Foley puts it this way: “There can be no forgiveness without mercy. Justice is needed. But the biggest thing is mercy. We need to have mercy for one another.”

The REACH Forgiveness Process that can be taught in Live and Forgive presentations, guided retreats, small group series, or wilderness walks, builds in a research-validated way to apply Diane Foley’s points. Empathy is a core component of the REACH Forgiveness Process: it’s what the “E” stands for in REACH. Live and Forgive weaves the research-validated REACH Forgiveness Process with important points of Catholic faith involved with forgiveness, such as God’s constant companionship throughout the forgiveness process (that’s my favorite).

Diane Foley’s story of forgiveness is marvelous, if not miraculous! There are also so many good stories of forgiveness to be written by everyday people who need to forgive and need forgiveness. The most beautiful tapestry you’ll ever see is woven with single threads, one thread at a time. Every thread, every little story of forgiveness, is important! There would be no tapestry without them. You are the thread that is needed!

(photo: Creation tapestry in the Museum of History in Catalonia, Spain, Enric, 2025)

“Mercy can be thought of as widening our judgement enough to include the possibility that, even in their brokenness, others still deserve our love.” ~ Peter Giersch, Day By Day with St. Francis

“Where there is mercy and discretion there is neither superfluity nor hard-heartedness.” ~ St. Francis of Assisi, Admonitions 27

This text is an original work of its author Tom Delaney and was entirely composed without the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

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If your parish or faith community is seeking a deeper experience of healing, mercy, and spiritual renewal, Live and Forgive is here to help. To begin the conversation, email Live and Forgive presenter and facilitator Tom Delaney at tom@liveandforgive.com—Tom will be glad to connect with you in a spirit of welcome, respect, and shared faith.