Love and Truth Will Meet—and Apparently Say "See Ya"

¹¹ Love and truth will meet; 

justice and peace will kiss. 

¹² Truth will spring from the earth; 

justice will look down from heaven. (Psalm 85:11–12).

Introduction

There’s an ugly battle flaming up between Catholics when it comes to the Orlando mass shooting. it’s a battle over how to address the people who have a same sex attraction when it comes to condolences. Are they a community? Or are they not? The dispute is over whether one should send condolences to the “LGBT community” or whether that would look like an endorsement of sinful acts. This seems like something which they can resolve charitably. Unfortunately, it’s gotten to the point where the two sides are practically throwing anathemas at each other, assuming the other side is guilty of bad will or even malice.

Setting Up the Situation

To sum up the two positions briefly (and hopefully, fairly):

1. Those who think we should use term “LGBT community” say this is no different than referring to “the black community” or the “Jewish community,” and nobody should take offense or think this is an endorsement of sinful behavior.
2. Those who oppose the use say that grouping people by their inclination or behavior is not the same as real ethnic or religious communities, but instead equates people with their behavior. Also, given the tendency of the media to present such things as “CHURCH TO CHANGE TEACHING” headlines, it does matter whether or not Catholics use this term.

So the question is over whether calling people with a disordered attraction a community is in keeping with the command to love the sinner and speaking against the sin.

There’s no official teaching on the proper form here. The official statement from the Holy See said:

The terrible massacre that has taken place in Orlando, with its dreadfully high number of innocent victims, has caused in Pope Francis, and in all of us, the deepest feelings of horror and condemnation, of pain and turmoil before this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred. Pope Francis joins the families of the victims and all of the injured in prayer and in compassion. Sharing in their indescribable suffering he entrusts them to the Lord so they may find comfort. We all hope that ways may be found, as soon as possible, to effectively identify and contrast the causes of such terrible and absurd violence which so deeply upsets the desire for peace of the American people and of the whole of humanity.

The Pope did not use the term, but there’s no doubt he was clear in condemning an evil act and showing love and compassion for victims and their families. So, unless wants to condemn the Pope, there is nothing wrong with avoiding the term. On the other hand, some bishops did use the term in sending condolences and Catholics dispute whether this was right.

Here’s the Problem

The problem with this debate is many debaters are openly insulting of the other side, accusing them of being bad Catholics. Hotheads among Catholics who support using the term “LGBT community” accuse those who don’t like it of bigotry and a lack of compassion for the victims and their families. Hotheads among Catholics opposed to the term accuse those who do use it of heresy and sending a false message to the world. Neither side is free of inflammatory rhetoric (So don’t go pointing fingers at the other side).

But people are assuming that a dispute proves a lack of love or a neglect of truth. Yes, we want to show compassion to the victims and their families. Yes, we want to condemn the mass shooting as something evil regardless of how the victims lived. But we also must make clear (where fitting) that our moral beliefs are not going to change because of the evil some do.

So, we have an obligation. Before we condemn a Catholic for being heretical or hateful, we have to know the intentions the speaker or writer had. Does the person who uses the term “LGBT community” mean to endorse something against Church teaching? Or is this a case of simply not thinking about the potential meanings people might draw from it? Does the person who does not use the term mean to show hatred to the victims? Or is it a case of wanting to be clear about where the Church stands?

What gets overlooked is the fact that a person may not intend what the listener/reader believes it the point. We should strive to speak clearly. But not all will have the same talent in doing so. We have to realize that condolences phrased differently than we like may not mean support of evil. It is possible the speaker is unclear or we have simply misunderstood because we give words meaning that the speaker does not intend. If the speaker uses the term, but does not mean to support sin, we must not condemn him for heresy. if the speaker does not use the term, but does not act out of hatred in doing so, we must not condemn him of bigotry. It is only when we know the person acts from a bad motive, that we can offer a rebuke.

Conclusion

It’s hypocrisy to love the person far away and hate our brother. God, who told us to love our enemies, also told us to love our neighbor as ourself. So if we call for love and compassion for the victims, but will not show it for the fellow Christian who we argue with, we are doing wrong. It’s time to stop accusing each other of bad will and time to start understanding what the other person meant, accepting different views as valid when they are compatible with Catholic belief and gently guiding them back when they are not.

Savaging each other over disagreements because we assume the other is deliberately choosing to do evil is rash judgment and we become hypocrites if we refuse to love our fellow Christian.

Reflections on Orlando and Searching For Meaning

It’s undeniable that the attack in the Orlando night club shooting was evil. Outside of a few twisted individuals out there, everyone realizes this type of thing is indefensible. Regardless of what moral objections there may be over a person’s life, murder is never justified. One does not oppose wrongdoing by doing wrong. Yet, sometimes there are extremists who cross that line. Whether they act from mental illness or from dangerous views, there are people out there who will respond to things they don’t like in a disproportionate and dangerous way.

I think that when something like this happens, people sometimes start drawing the wrong conclusions. Some find scapegoats. Others, seeing some sort of similarity with the wrongdoer, feel they have to tone it down and sometimes appear to cave in on what is true due to fearing guilt by association. Nobody who feels revulsion over evil wants to seem guilty of supporting it, but they do want to root out the cause of the evil. That’s natural, but it can do more harm than good.

The problem is, it’s not enough to go with our emotions. We have to use our minds as well to find out what did happen and respond to the reality of the situation. In the course of less than 24 hours, claims shifted from the shooter being a rage filled Muslim extremist enflamed by the image of two men kissing to a claim that the shooter was a regular at the gay nightclub where he carried out his massacre. Today’s news may debunk this. Or maybe we will find more that proves it true. Who knows? Right now, the answer is “not us." The point is, we need to slow down and learn what happened before declaiming on “What Ought To Be Done."

Conservatives are blaming Islam. Liberals are blaming guns and intolerance. Rhetoric gets ramped up so high that whoever questions one of these causes finds themselves accused of blindness, or even supporting this crime. But few are asking the question, “What is the truth?” But the moment we stop asking that question and instead start blaming the groups we dislike, we stop searching for meaning and go into “It’s your fault!” mode. People want vengeance, not justice and they seem to want a hated foe to take the blame.

Some of the claims are contradictory. For example, if it does turn out to be true that the shooter was a patron of this club, then “homophobia” seems less likely and we need to find a new motive to help us understand it. If it turns out he was mentally ill, then perhaps the claims of this being a planned terrorist attack are false. So, I think there are some things we need to learn here.

First of all, we cannot guilt ourselves into silence over right and wrong. When the Church says we must speak against wrong in evangelizing the world, then we cannot shrink back from speaking the truth. That doesn’t mean we can be tactless or judgmental about it. As Pope Francis has made clear in his pontificate, we do need to show mercy and understanding. We have to show compassion and love.

Second, we need to remember that God wants the salvation of all. His respect for our free will may mean some will speak or act wrongly. But we can’t abandon them to damnation. That means both we can’t be harsh and drive them to despair and it means we can’t be so wishy-washy that people can’t find out whether a thing is wrong or not.

Third, building on God’s desire for our salvation, even if some victims have done wrong themselves, that does not mean they “got what they deserved” in this case. We should not say such things. God sent Old Testament prophets to exact punishments that were bloody by our standards. God did not send this shooter to do it.

Fourth, the actions of an extremist do not indict the whole unless the crime is explicitly what a person’s professed religious or value system obliges. It does not indict all Muslims, gun owners, people who believe homosexual acts are morally wrong unless the evidence inescapably proves this. 

So as we begin today with new developments and continued recriminations in this evil, let us remember our obligation to speak truth with love and compassion. Let us also remember our obligation to search for the truth before blaming our favorite scapegoats or backpedaling on what we believe about right and wrong.

Thoughts on Mercy and Elections

I recently discovered the writings of the “Forgotten Pope,” Pope John Paul I, who reigned for just over a month in 1978 before dying. While his body of work was very small, I find he had some insightful things to say. For example, in an audience on September 20th, 1978, he told this story of a personal experience:

Some one will say: what if I am a poor sinner? I reply to him as I replied to an unknown lady, who had confessed to me many years ago. She was discouraged because, she said, she had a stormy life morally. “May I ask you”, I said. “how old you are?”
 

—“Thirty-five”.
 

—“Thirty-five! But you can live for another forty or fifty and do a great deal of good. So, repentant as you are, instead of thinking of the past, project yourself into the future and renew your life. with God’s help.”

 

 John Paul I, Audiences of Pope John Paul I (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013).

I read this and I think of the rage that is raised among Catholics over his successor, Pope Francis. People are outraged that he does not denounce the sinners from whatever platform he is given. But when I consider the words of John Paul I, I think of what he hopes to accomplish in this year of mercy. I don’t think Pope Francis plans to let anybody go on sinning. I think he is calling people to cease sinning and renew their lives with God’s help.

Then I think about the modern American political climate which Catholics are a part of. How many of us think of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump as evil incarnate, laughing at their misfortunes and consigning them to hell, either publicly or mentally. Why don’t we pray about their conversion to what God wants them to be (which may not be what we want them to be) and what they could do for the Kingdom of God?

Some might say this is impossible. We cannot say that it is impossible however. We do not know if our reviled candidates are refusing God’s grace or if God has not yet given them that grace. What might have happened if Christians had written off St. Augustine when he was a Manichee living a life of immorality? What might have happened if Christians had written off Saul of Tarsus when he was persecuting Christians. At those times, people would have thought the salvation of these men was impossible. The point is, we do not know what God wills for any individual and we cannot refuse to be a vessel of grace if God calls us to be one.

This also applies to the supporters of these politicians. 2016 is shaping up to be a very vicious election where even people who profess support of one party are fighting each other in a way that lacks the charity we are called to display. Yes, our choices this year are bleak and yes people feel strongly about who they think is the worse evil. Yes, I am even seeing Catholics who, hitherto, have been staunch supporters of Catholic teaching, say things to justify their political choices which I find morally appalling. But we cannot give up on these people.

That doesn’t mean we be a doormat and go along with their ideas when we think them in opposition to the Church or just accept abusive insults by such people. But it does mean that how we respond must be in keeping with what our Lord commands. Sure, we might even have to go so far as to block a person in order to prevent a torrent of abuse swarming our social media. But even in those dire cases, we cannot give up on them and hate them. At the least we must pray for them—and not in the sense of “Lord, please make this person stop being a damn idiot” either. I mean in the sense of “Lord, please make this person what You want him to be, even if it is not what I want him to be."

Yes, that is hard. It’s easy for me to go on Facebook, roll my eyes and mutter about what idiots I think people are. It’s easy to get so caught up in the exchange of the debating that I forget that the person on the other end is a human being loved by God. But that is what God calls us to remember—that the politician we despise or the supporter we exchange words with is someone who God desires to be saved just as much as He desires our own salvation.

Bad Reasoning: The Baptist Pastor Doesn't Crush Anyone

(See: Addicting Info – Baptist Pastor Crushes Kim Davis And The Hypocrisy Of His Fellow Evangelicals In Open Letter)

I’m seeing some posts on Facebook which speaks about the letter a Baptist pastor (Russell Williams from Florida) wrote, calling the Kentucky clerk, Kim Davis, a hypocrite for her stance. Since a judge took a heavy-handed response against her (normally one impeaches or recalls an elected official), this woman has been viewed as a hero in some circles and it is natural some would like to attack her credibility. The problem is, the letter uses a lot bad reasoning that does not prove its point.

Williams gives three reasons why he rejects the praise for this woman, but they’re bad reasons. Let’s look at them.

First:

First: This is not a case of the government forcing anyone to violate their religious belief. She is free to quit her job. If she quits her job to honor God surely God would take care of her.

Yes, she is free to quit her job, and perhaps she will reach a position where she should quit her job. But Williams is way off in saying that this dilemma is not an attempt to force someone to violate their religious rights. Whether the person is coerced by the loss of a job, lawsuits or jail time unless they comply with something, that is an attempt to force someone to change their beliefs or leave so someone more malleable can take over. What Williams does not answer is the question, “Does the government have the right to change the definition of right and wrong and force elected officials to defend it against their conscience?

If so, then no religious belief is safe. If the government should become radically Islamic, Communist or Nazi (the big boogey men today), then a person has no right to refuse their orders either. No, I’m not comparing “same sex marriage” with these things. I’m just saying that one can use the same argument to say “go along or quit” in these cases too.

Next, Williams argues:

Second: This is not a case of someone trying to uphold the sanctity of marriage. If she wanted to uphold the sanctity of marriage she should not have been married four different times. If she is worried about her name being affixed to a marriage license that goes against a biblical definition of marriage, she should not have her name on the last three marriage licenses given to her.

Being a Catholic, I belong to a religion that rejects the possibility of remarriage if the first marriage is valid. As such, I do not condone these actions. But Williams is committing a tu quoque fallacy. Her behavior on divorce and remarriage has no bearing on whether her behavior on signing marriage certificates is right or wrong.

Then, he says:

Third: This seems to be a case of someone looking to cash in on the religious right. Churches all across the south will throw money at her to come and tell congregations how the evil American government put her in jail because of her faith in Jesus.

If that was her intention, then yes, it would be a shameful action. But, that is something he has to prove to be true. Even if she does receive speaking fees, this does not change the issue: Did the judge do wrong to imprison her for refusing to sign these marriage licenses? That is independent of what Kim Davis or the different denominations do.

Finishing his three points, he goes on to say:

This is why we are losing.

This is why people have such disdain for evangelicals.

Not because we disagree but because we don’t take the bible seriously. If ever there was a case of “he who is without sin cast the first stone”, this is it. If ever there was a “take the log out of your eye” moment, this is it.

We must stop looking to the government to make America a Christian utopia. Our kingdom is not of this world.

I think he is missing a major point here. Yes, our kingdom is not of this world. But we are called to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth. When the world does wrong, the Christian needs to stand in opposition to the wrongdoing. Nations and governments are made up of human beings. Those human beings can enact just laws or unjust laws. When they enact laws unjust before God, those people sin and must be corrected. We don’t have to turn America into a Christian nation. But when the people of a nation vote or governments govern to do wrong things, we have to bear witness, even up to the point of martyrdom.

Then he says something which is jaw-dropping appalling: 

We must abandon all thoughts of fixing others and let Jesus fix us.

To which I say, What in the hell do you think the Great Commission calls us to do? In Matthew 18:15-17 tells us of the obligation to correct those in error. In Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus commands His disciples to go out into the world to baptize and to teach all He commanded them. The entire history of Christianity was about converting nations engulfed in wickedness. Yes, we cannot do it without God’s grace. But we believe that God does give us both the grace and the commandment. We must witness by our word and by our actions.

He concludes by saying, 

If we want sanctity of marriage then stop cheating, stop having affairs, stop looking at porn, stop getting divorces. That is the way for the church to stand up for the biblical definition of marriage, not by someone martyring their self-righteous self.

I agree these things are evil, and Christians should reject them. But here is the problem. Williams is creating a false dilemma. It is not a case of doing either one or the other. We do the first, and if people jail or sue us for taking a stand, then we suffer for the faith.

Ultimately, whatever sins and personal flaws exist in her life, those things are not relevant to the question of whether a judge jailed her with the intention of coercing her into doing what she believed to be wrong. People who believe that the government neither has the right to redefine marriage nor coerce people with Christians to quit or go against their beliefs are not hypocritical in this protest.

Ultimately, while the letter is popular (over 126,000 shares on Facebook at the time I went there), this letter is not helpful. It gives people who want to attack Kim Davis specifically or Christians in general ammunition to use, but ignores the fact that Christians of good will can see what was done by a Kentucky judge to be a travesty and believe that a line needs to be drawn.

No doubt there are good things to say to prevent the Davis case from being politicized or from the Christian faith being exploited…but this letter didn’t have them.

We Have To Behave as Emissaries of Our Lord

It’s no secret that, since Obergefell, Christians who stand for the defense of marriage as God intended it have become something of pariahs on social media, and having our faces rubbed in the ruling. People have been unfriended because they defend Christian morality, accused openly of being bigots. Between the comments and the “rainbowized” pictures, it can be very difficult to avoid lashing out at the people who seem to want to throw the #lovewins and #loveislove in our faces when we know we are being misrepresented and demonized. But it is lashing out that we must not do, and—unfortunately—some Catholics have lashed out in ways which will lead those who support “same sex marriage” to view it as just that much more “proof" that we are the bigots they always thought we were.

We have to remember that it is Our Lord who commanded us:

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?* ⁴⁸ So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect. [Matthew 5:43-48]

It doesn’t matter how badly we are treated. In our response, even if we are forced to block them because of abusive attacks, we have to show that we love those who hate us—not as an act, but in sincerity. That means we have to be civil when we debate with them, avoiding insults, sarcasm or other rudeness. Now yes, that is hard. I confess I created a few sarcastic memes that I had to sit on when I really wanted to post them. (Through the grace of God, I was given a sense that to publish them was not in keeping with Christian witness). But we have to remember that the example we provide may be the only witness they have as to how a Christian bears witness to what they believe. If it is a bad witness, we become a stumbling block that keeps others from seeing God’s call.

Now that doesn’t mean that we have to be silent and not say that homosexual acts are wrong, as those who oppose us try to argue. As Emissaries of Our Lord, we have to carry His message telling the world to live according to God’s will. Indeed, when it comes to the State legalizing “same sex marriage,” the Church has made it very clear that we cannot give our assent:

In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.

 

[#5. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2003).

So, we cannot recognize the diktat given to us in the Obergefell ruling as valid or cooperate—we must oppose it. But in doing so we have to be charitable. Being insulting or verbally (textually?) abusive is not the way we are to go about it. “Rainbowizing” Hitler or the Devil is not a charitable tactic for example. Regardless of whether a person is deliberately acting abusively or is unaware of how they come across, we must show the love of Christ while teaching the truth.

On People and Actions: You Are Not Your (Expletive) Khakis.

You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your @#$%ing khakis.

—Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

One of the major problems that comes up when people hear the old adage of loving the sinner and hating the sin is that nowadays, people assume that what they do is what they are. Therefore, when the Church condemns an action, people assume this means the Church hates them personally. This is why people assume Christianity is “homophobic” or “anti-woman” when they condemn behavior like homosexual acts, contraception, abortion and divorce/remarriage. Then we get to hear a lot of people quoting Matthew 7:1 out of context.

As St. Thomas Aquinas put it, "Parvus error in initio magnus erit in fine.” (“Small error in the beginning; large [error] will be in the end”). From the beginning error of believing a person is what they do, the concluding error is condemnation of a sin = condemning a person. A person may have a job as an accountant, but that does not make the person an accountant and a person may have a same sex attraction, but that does not make the person a homosexual. The Church believes that a person is more than their actions or ethnicity—and to reduce them to their behavior is to treat them as less than human. 

In terms of Catholic teaching, the person is primarily a child of God. The individual may be ignorant of that fact. The person may reject that fact. The person may accept that fact. But regardless of what the individual does with that information, the fact remains that he or she is a child of God and however they are treated must reflect this fact. Because of this, the Catholic Church never allows us to turn our backs on the sinners, the poor or anyone else—we’re not allowed to write off anyone as irredeemable.

But the fact that we, as Christians, cannot write off anyone as irredeemable has one very important fact that follows from it—every person is in need of redemption. That indicates that we are at odds with God in how we live to some extent. When we act in a way which is contrary to how God calls us to live, that needs to change. Living contrary to God’s call blocks us from Our Lord's redemption, and such behavior must be abandoned if we would be saved. People who know what the truth is can offer correction, just as the person who teaches can offer a student correction when the student gets a wrong answer. That’s not being judgmental. Consider this excerpt from a Socratic dialogue by Peter Kreeft (one that does not deserve to be in obscurity):

Libby: You sound so damned sure of yourself, so dogmatic, so judgmental! Your namesake[*] said, “Judge not.” But you don’t dig that soft stuff, do you?

‘Isa: What do you think Jesus meant when he said “judge not”? Do you think he meant “don’t judge deeds, don’t believe the Commandments, don’t morally discriminate a just war from an unjust war or a hero from a bully”? He couldn’t have meant that. He meant “don’t claim to judge motives and hearts, which only God can see.” I can judge your deeds, because I can see them. I can’t judge what your motives are, because I can’t see that.

Libby: Then stop being so judgmental about that, at least.

‘Isa: But I can judge what your motives ought to be—just as you’re doing, when you judge “judgmentalism”.

—Peter Kreeft, A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 108.

So the Christian teaching is not “homophobic” or “anti-woman” (two popular epithets today). Rather the teaching is concerned with letting people know how their lives estrange them from God and what they must do to be saved. It’s not a hatred. It’s a case of viewing a person as being worth the effort to save—worthy of receiving our love because God loves them.

Sure, you’ll find Christians who are judgmental and hateful. You’ll also find atheists and Buddhists who are judgmental and hateful. But the Christian who actually hates another person because of their sins is not acting as God commands them to act. They are not acting as the Church commands them to act. I think people forget that. Yes, in the Middle Ages, punishments that we now see as barbaric were seen as normal. But even then, the person was not reduced to the evil they did. Even when the evil done resulted in Capital Punishment, the Church was still concerned for the salvation of the person—to bring them back to right relationship to God before they died.

But what happens when a person refuses to be brought back into right relationship with God? We certainly cannot say “Oh well, might as well go ahead and do it then.” We cannot allow people to redefine their action as “good.” But we can try to show love in pointing out that this action is harmful to a person based on what God wants them to be—because trying to encourage a person to abandon a harmful action is an act of love, not an act of hatred.

________________________

[*] The Arabic form of “Jesus” is ‘Isa. Hence the reference to “Your namesake” in the quote from Peter Kreeft.