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Good morning. A week ago today, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the nation of Haiti. Since then, the death toll has risen to more than 2,000 people, with a further 12,000 injured and hundreds more still missing. I have watched with growing horror as days have passed without basic support reaching survivors, despite the efforts of agencies on the ground. With the country already in political turmoil, it is difficult not to recall the controversies which surrounded external aid after the 2010 earthquake, and to fear that a nation which has suffered so deeply will fail to receive the support it desperately needs. Any philosophy or theology student can tell you that when faced with the problem of suffering you are supposed to divide it neatly into moral evil – human caused harm – and natural evil – so-called ‘Acts of God’. Earthquakes have long been offered as an example of natural evil, an event before which we are helpless – and so, we might think, blameless. But as the threads of human influence have woven their way into seemingly natural events, the lines between moral and natural evil become increasingly blurred. Climate change is an obvious example; we have increasingly loaded the dice towards weather extremes, whether flood, fire, or famine. But earthquakes also testify to these blurred lines. An earthquake of similar magnitude in Japan has comparatively little impact – the country’s warning systems and quake-proof buildings minimise the loss of both lives and infrastructure. By contrast, Haiti’s history of colonial-era debt and political instability has left its people exposed, and the international promises of safer buildings and contingency plans in 2010 seem to have been forgotten. Our responses to an event of this kind can also contribute to suffering – whether in neglecting to offer compassion or in blaming the victims. In 2010 U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson infamously blamed the Haitian earthquake on what he called the country’s ‘pact with the devil’. But in the Gospel of Luke Jesus uses the example of a building collapse to emphasise that suffering is not administered as punishment. Instead, he urges his listeners to examine their own need for repentance in the wake of tragedy. In my own Anglican tradition, the prayer of penitence invites us to both repent of the evil we have done and the good we have left undone. The suffering of the people of Haiti is a testament to these two kinds of moral evil – acts of deliberate harm and acts of neglect. The question is now whether international repentance and compassion will follow.