Aquinas and Zealous Anger

[marywarfield]

Absolutely, but things are not as separated as they may seem: if I’m prudent about my own anger, it isn’t just because “a compulsive fear of being angry” motivated by my attempt to preserve my holiness, but because I want to avoid doing wrong to others. Because I know from experience that if anger is a desire for vengeance, it’s easy to justify my anger and kill an abortionist or a governor of my state because I am moved by a “righteous” desire of vengeance. This is the thing that Jesus warned us against when He spoke about loving our enemies vs. “an eye for an eye” style of justice. Thankfully, we can do better than that.

I have reflected about your post about the rude guy from the Assembly of God and what your visiting priest and fellow parishioners said. And I felt angry, believe it or not. If the guy insulted you and your family and said you are filthy harlots, this was an obvious reason to “escort him to the door”; to say that you should have hidden the statue or the icon “to avoid offending him” is definitely stupid and can legitimate any stupid rule saying that people are forbidden to expose icons and statues in their own homes, because it can offend any potential guests who have other beliefs. The priest and the parishioners can ask themselves: if a member of this Assembly of God enters a Catholic church as a tourist or if there’s a storm outside and there’s no other shelter, or if he sees a Catholic church from outside, he may be offended by the statues and icons and the cross on the tower, then why do we keep exposing them? It’s absurd. By this logic, we have no rights and the member of the Assembly of God has all the rights. So your husband was right to tell the guy to leave your house; it wasn’t the guy’s house, so he should have known that he can’t make the rules in your house.

But the priest and the parishioners may have a point about “engaging him in debate” - this is what the Pope and the hierarchy do when they engage in a dialogue with non-Catholic people, because they know that responding to insults with insults (I’m not saying you husband did that) and basing their behavior on anger can lead only to more anger, hate and misunderstanding from the part of the “other”. Sometimes this dialogue is possible; sometimes is impossible, because the “others” have more anger (“righteous anger” from their perspective) than we have and are clearly blinded to any rational discussion. I guess the latter was the case with your rude guest. Thankfully, people are different; besides, a person can be overcome by anger at a certain moment and can be calm an open to discussion later. So it’s a matter of discernment - if and how can we talk to people whose minds are clouded by emotion and whose beliefs are founded on anger (like in: Catholics = those despicable idolaters who worship statues; people who demand punishment for sexual abuse by priests = those vengeful hotheads who don’t understand that all people are humans, therefore sinners).

So if we don’t want to be told “your mind is clouded by anger, so you don’t understand X, so you don’t deserve my attention”, we should make other realize that we aren’t motivated by anger. It doesn’t mean that we should suppress or condemn our initial, natural anger: it means that we don’t act out of our own anger anymore, but out of rational considerations, like “your right ends when the right of others begin” or “do to others as you would have them do to you”.

Does the world of today sorely need to be taught righteous anger, because people have become too acquiescent in the face of evil? I have asked myself this question when faced to the “just let’s be nice to each other” attitude that leads nowhere (and that in my eyes has more to do with a general lack of empathy than with a lack of righteous anger). But so far there’s nothing on this topic coming from Benedict XVI and Francis. What I see, instead, is a constant chorus of protests from “righteously angry” laypeople who constantly condemn the latest popes for being too lukewarm and “nice” for their own tastes. A thundering pope, a crusading pope, who excommunicates people left and right and rejects all dialogue with “heretics” is what they want. I’ve seen the SSPXers posting a picture of Jesus cleansing the temple when they wanted to justify their shameful behavior at the Kristallnacht memorial. Such “much more Catholic than the pope” attitudes taught me a good lesson about righteous anger assumed as a guiding principle for dealing with “others”.

Excellent post Vames. Very excellent.

 

[marywarfield]

@Vames: does it entail vengeance? How about
the simple act of withholding Communion? Is that
a vengeful act? Or perhaps those lay people demanding
action as you say from “lukewarm” priests are not
seeking vengeance as much as correction and respect
for the Sacrament.

I think it’s important we all distinguish between
self righteous behavior and the anger that occurs
when God is attacked. They aren’t the same. Self
righteousness in the church is the type of anger that
is just deadly. Deadly. And also the most common: to
the media, politicians, Putin etc. lol.

Righteous anger is a bit different. Righteous anger
might cause one of those parents with a kid in a burned
down school to say to the Bishop- hey you owe these
parents a better response than that. They are owed
an explanation as to why you and the Bishops before
you exposed their children to proximate danger.
The parent might be angry but not yelling, or red
In the face etc. he is asserting himself as far as rights
go on behalf of God and the children. And this
assertion, simple statement of what is terribly wrong
and why and what needs to be done about it may
result from righteous anger and not self righteousness.
Snd this is what we fail at so often these days.

Take the case we read on CA this morning about
the lesbian couple denied Communion by the priest.
First we read they were lectures in that Parish, “in good
standing for twenty years”, very active in THAT
particular parish for twelve years. Now they scream
discrimination because they can’t receive Communion.
Righteous? No. It’s totally ludicrous.

But more frightening is that a lesbian couple is very active
in the parish for twelve years snd no one suggested
to them not to receive Communion or be lectors.
Not until it makes front page news. I find it almost
impossible to believe that no one knew about this
couple in twelve years! Nonsense, so knowing how
people operate on a natural basis here is what I believe
really happened: their fellow parishioners some of
them anyway probably knew, the priest probably knew
or suspected and probably there were rumors and
gossip and backstabbing at the rummage sales
and parish picnics. But apparently no one did anything
useful until it became a scandal to the public papers.
This should never have happened. Why did it?
Lack of righteous anger. I’m sure there was plenty
of SELF righteous anger to go around for their fellow
parishioners in gossip but no rightrous anger evident
anywhere. These ladies seriously jeopardized their
own souls and I don’t want to hear “judge bit lest
ye be judged” since they probably scandalized who
knows how many people over the past twelve years,
thereby jeopardizing them as well.
At some point we MUST assert ourselves for the
welfare of our fellow parishioners.

The governor of New York? Pelosi? Same thing.
They are blatant and scandalize people and yet
the Church lets them sail forth unmolested. At some
point there must be righteous anger. It’s not justifiable
to allow this behavior in definately as it confuses people
and scandalized. Perhaps the clergy is being rightly
accused of being lukewarm since we know the
failure to respond can be rooted in “unreasonable
patience”.

In any case I find it hard to believe that denying Communion
or firing molesting priests are acts of vengeance- this
is what the laity is asking for and far from vengeance
sounds very pragmatic and sensible to me anyway.

 

[Peter_Plato]

It’s a source that you have already referenced in this thread, that you claim to be intimate with.

Read. Pray. Absorb. Listen to what the Church says.

The gist of which is clear, but exact wording doesn’t always click, especially when it wasn’t Aquinas who wrote it, but “falsely ascribed” to another.

However, Aquinas says substantially the same thing, but accepts that righteous anger can “interrupt the deliberation of reason” while righteous anger is acted upon,

Anger may stand in a twofold relation to reason. First, antecedently; in this way it withdraws reason from its rectitude, and has therefore the character of evil. Secondly, **consequently, inasmuch as the movement of the sensitive appetite is directed against vice and in accordance with reason, this anger is good, and is called “zealous anger.” **Wherefore Gregory says (Moral. v, 45): “We must beware lest, when we use anger as an instrument of virtue, it overrule the mind, and go before it as its mistress, instead of following in reason’s train, ever ready, as its handmaid, to obey.” This latter anger, although it hinder somewhat the judgment of reason in the execution of the act, does not destroy the rectitude of reason. Hence Gregory says (Moral. v, 45) that “zealous anger troubles the eye of reason, whereas sinful anger blinds it.” Nor is it incompatible with virtue that the deliberation of reason be interrupted in the execution of what reason has deliberated: since art also would be hindered in its act, if it were to deliberate about what has to be done, while having to act.

 

[Bill1940]

As there should be no argument between revealed truth and common sense, allow me to put aside pedantic analysis respond from mere memory. One of the better things I have heard said about anger was, A virtuous person uses his temper. A vicious person loses it. In the case of the ungrateful guest: It seems he saw something of which he disapproved and lost his temper. Mary’s husband used his temper and firmly escorted the out of control and ungrateful guest to the door. Contrary to the second guesser’s suggestions that this was an opportunity for a productive debate, this was no such case but one of potential danger. To utter such vile imprecations against his kind hosts was evidence that this man’s anger exceeded his reason and extinguished his charity. A debate might have further provoked his rage. Anger is an emotion. It is what one decides to do with an emotion that matters. I’m reminded of a plainspoken sermon given by a priest one Sunday in Hawaii. To wit: We cannot help liking or disliking someone. Our inescapable emotions cause to like someone who makes us happy and to dislike someone who makes us unhappy. However, it requires a fully conscious act of the will to hate a person or to love a person. I may dislike a certain politician because his actions and policies make me unhappy but I am commanded by Christ to love and pray for my enemies. So each night, after my petitions for my wife, family and friends, I toss a prayerful bone…errrrr, I mean say a prayer for guess who.

 

[glendab]

Thank you Bill!

A very well stated reply. We all could use a reminder to pray for those who anger us.

Glenda