Charity vs Truth

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ToeInTheWater

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While I really appreciate the emphasis on charity here on CAF, in that it makes for an experience much more pleasant than many other Internet forums…sometimes I wonder what charity, and charitable behavior, actually encompasses.

For example, many people defending themselves against the charge of not being charitable say that they are just admonishing a sinner with the Truth, and seem to think that the goal of proclaiming the Truth makes any means justifiable, even insults, harsh words and other cruel behavior.

I’ve also seen examples of people attempting to be charitable to an extent that it strikes me as ridiculous; for example, a topic where a poster’s friend was living with her fiance, and some posters stated that the poster should be charitable, give the friend the benefit of the doubt, and assume she was still living chastely. When the OP stated that the friend had actually admitted to having sex with the fiance, a poster actually replied that the OP still shouldn’t make assumptions because the friend might be lying, since the social pressures to be sexually active were so strong. But…isn’t lying itself a sin? How can it be charitable to assume someone isn’t committing one sin (fornication), yet at the same time assuming she must be committing another (lying)?

I’ve also seen “charity” being applied to defend someone, yet the supposedly “charitable” person then reveals very uncharitable assumptions against the “persecutors”…the former-Father-Corapi case comes to mind.

Also, if charity means believing the best of someone unless you have proof otherwise (or, in the minds of some, even if you have proof otherwise), what do you do when two people are having a dispute? Let’s say you are friends with Jack and Jill, who go on a date. Jill charges that Jack sexually assaulted her after the date. Jack claims they had consensual sex. What’s the most charitable way to address this? Be charitable to Jack by assuming he is innocent? But that would mean assuming Jill is lying, and that wouldn’t be very charitable toward her. But they can’t both be right. Or do you assume there was some terrible misunderstanding? What if Jack is convicted of rape in a court of law, but continues to insist he is innocent? Is the most charitable way to approach Jack to still assume he’s innocent? Since I have seen some people say that the legal system is so corrupt that they do assume that even convicted criminals are innocent.

It also seems that people have different standards for public figures, certainly politicians seem to not be accorded any charity at all even on CAF, but even non-political celebrities as well. For example, many people have ridiculed Kim Kardashian for filing for divorce only a few weeks after getting married, and many have stated that they think the marriage was just a publicity stunt from the start. I don’t think most people would be that uncharitable to someone they actually know, but because she’s a rich, famous celebrity, that makes it okay to judge her without even knowing her?

Also, if people are supposed to be charitable and assume the best about everyone, then why the sin of scandal? To bring it back to the cohabitation issue, many have stated here that even chaste cohabitation is sinful, as it can cause others to be scandalized, as they will inevitably assume the cohabitants are NOT chaste…but aren’t such people being uncharitable, and sinning themselves?
 
ToeInTheWater said:
While I really appreciate the emphasis on charity here on CAF, in that it makes for an experience much more pleasant than many other Internet forums…sometimes I wonder what charity, and charitable behavior, actually encompasses.

For example, many people defending themselves against the charge of not being charitable say that they are just admonishing a sinner with the Truth, and seem to think that the goal of proclaiming the Truth makes any means justifiable, even insults, harsh words and other cruel behavior.

I’ve also seen examples of people attempting to be charitable to an extent that it strikes me as ridiculous; for example, a topic where a poster’s friend was living with her fiance, and some posters stated that the poster should be charitable, give the friend the benefit of the doubt, and assume she was still living chastely. When the OP stated that the friend had actually admitted to having sex with the fiance, a poster actually replied that the OP still shouldn’t make assumptions because the friend might be lying, since the social pressures to be sexually active were so strong. But…isn’t lying itself a sin? How can it be charitable to assume someone isn’t committing one sin (fornication), yet at the same time assuming she must be committing another (lying)?

I’ve also seen “charity” being applied to defend someone, yet the supposedly “charitable” person then reveals very uncharitable assumptions against the “persecutors”…the former-Father-Corapi case comes to mind.

Also, if charity means believing the best of someone unless you have proof otherwise (or, in the minds of some, even if you have proof otherwise), what do you do when two people are having a dispute? Let’s say you are friends with Jack and Jill, who go on a date. Jill charges that Jack sexually assaulted her after the date. Jack claims they had consensual sex. What’s the most charitable way to address this? Be charitable to Jack by assuming he is innocent? But that would mean assuming Jill is lying, and that wouldn’t be very charitable toward her. But they can’t both be right. Or do you assume there was some terrible misunderstanding? What if Jack is convicted of rape in a court of law, but continues to insist he is innocent? Is the most charitable way to approach Jack to still assume he’s innocent? Since I have seen some people say that the legal system is so corrupt that they do assume that even convicted criminals are innocent.

It also seems that people have different standards for public figures, certainly politicians seem to not be accorded any charity at all even on CAF, but even non-political celebrities as well. For example, many people have ridiculed Kim Kardashian for filing for divorce only a few weeks after getting married, and many have stated that they think the marriage was just a publicity stunt from the start. I don’t think most people would be that uncharitable to someone they actually know, but because she’s a rich, famous celebrity, that makes it okay to judge her without even knowing her?

Also, if people are supposed to be charitable and assume the best about everyone, then why the sin of scandal? To bring it back to the cohabitation issue, many have stated here that even chaste cohabitation is sinful, as it can cause others to be scandalized, as they will inevitably assume the cohabitants are NOT chaste…but aren’t such people being uncharitable, and sinning themselves?
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Truth and love can never contradict. Jesus expressed both unapologetically because He was both. It’s harder for us, though, lacking His wisdom and courage.
 
“Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity. Love — caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth. Each person finds his good by adherence to God’s plan for him, in order to realize it fully: in this plan, he finds his truth, and through adherence to this truth he becomes free (cf. Jn 8:32). To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity. Charity, in fact, “rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor 13:6). All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically: love and truth never abandon them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of every human person. The search for love and truth is purified and liberated by Jesus Christ from the impoverishment that our humanity brings to it, and he reveals to us in all its fullness the initiative of love and the plan for true life that God has prepared for us. In Christ, charity in truth becomes the Face of his Person, a vocation for us to love our brothers and sisters in the truth of his plan. Indeed, he himself is the Truth (cf. Jn 14:6).”

“I am aware of the ways in which charity has been and continues to be misconstrued and emptied of meaning, with the consequent risk of being misinterpreted, detached from ethical living and, in any event, undervalued. In the social, juridical, cultural, political and economic fields — the contexts, in other words, that are most exposed to this danger — it is easily dismissed as irrelevant for interpreting and giving direction to moral responsibility. Hence the need to link charity with truth not only in the sequence, pointed out by Saint Paul, of veritas in caritate (Eph 4:15), but also in the inverse and complementary sequence of caritas in veritate. Truth needs to be sought, found and expressed within the “economy” of charity, but charity in its turn needs to be understood, confirmed and practised in the light of truth. In this way, not only do we do a service to charity enlightened by truth, but we also help give credibility to truth, demonstrating its persuasive and authenticating power in the practical setting of social living. This is a matter of no small account today, in a social and cultural context which relativizes truth, often paying little heed to it and showing increasing reluctance to acknowledge its existence.”
 
“Through this close link with truth, charity can be recognized as an authentic expression of humanity and as an element of fundamental importance in human relations, including those of a public nature. Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing-space. In the truth, charity reflects the personal yet public dimension of faith in the God of the Bible, who is both Agápe and Lógos: Charity and Truth, Love and Word.”

“Because it is filled with truth, charity can be understood in the abundance of its values, it can be shared and communicated. Truth, in fact, is lógos which creates diá-logos, and hence communication and communion. Truth, by enabling men and women to let go of their subjective opinions and impressions, allows them to move beyond cultural and historical limitations and to come together in the assessment of the value and substance of things. Truth opens and unites our minds in the lógos of love: this is the Christian proclamation and testimony of charity. In the present social and cultural context, where there is a widespread tendency to relativize truth, practising charity in truth helps people to understand that adhering to the values of Christianity is not merely useful but essential for building a good society and for true integral human development. A Christianity of charity without truth would be more or less interchangeable with a pool of good sentiments, helpful for social cohesion, but of little relevance. In other words, there would no longer be any real place for God in the world. Without truth, charity is confined to a narrow field devoid of relations. It is excluded from the plans and processes of promoting human development of universal range, in dialogue between knowledge and praxis.”

These and ones above from Pope Benedict XVI

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html
 
ToeInTheWater said:
While I really appreciate the emphasis on charity here on CAF, in that it makes for an experience much more pleasant than many other Internet forums…sometimes I wonder what charity, and charitable behavior, actually encompasses.

For example, many people defending themselves against the charge of not being charitable say that they are just admonishing a sinner with the Truth, and seem to think that the goal of proclaiming the Truth makes any means justifiable, even insults, harsh words and other cruel behavior.

I’ve also seen examples of people attempting to be charitable to an extent that it strikes me as ridiculous; for example, a topic where a poster’s friend was living with her fiance, and some posters stated that the poster should be charitable, give the friend the benefit of the doubt, and assume she was still living chastely. When the OP stated that the friend had actually admitted to having sex with the fiance, a poster actually replied that the OP still shouldn’t make assumptions because the friend might be lying, since the social pressures to be sexually active were so strong. But…isn’t lying itself a sin? How can it be charitable to assume someone isn’t committing one sin (fornication), yet at the same time assuming she must be committing another (lying)?

I’ve also seen “charity” being applied to defend someone, yet the supposedly “charitable” person then reveals very uncharitable assumptions against the “persecutors”…the former-Father-Corapi case comes to mind.

Also, if charity means believing the best of someone unless you have proof otherwise (or, in the minds of some, even if you have proof otherwise), what do you do when two people are having a dispute? Let’s say you are friends with Jack and Jill, who go on a date. Jill charges that Jack sexually assaulted her after the date. Jack claims they had consensual sex. What’s the most charitable way to address this? Be charitable to Jack by assuming he is innocent? But that would mean assuming Jill is lying, and that wouldn’t be very charitable toward her. But they can’t both be right. Or do you assume there was some terrible misunderstanding? What if Jack is convicted of rape in a court of law, but continues to insist he is innocent? Is the most charitable way to approach Jack to still assume he’s innocent? Since I have seen some people say that the legal system is so corrupt that they do assume that even convicted criminals are innocent.

It also seems that people have different standards for public figures, certainly politicians seem to not be accorded any charity at all even on CAF, but even non-political celebrities as well. For example, many people have ridiculed Kim Kardashian for filing for divorce only a few weeks after getting married, and many have stated that they think the marriage was just a publicity stunt from the start. I don’t think most people would be that uncharitable to someone they actually know, but because she’s a rich, famous celebrity, that makes it okay to judge her without even knowing her?

Also, if people are supposed to be charitable and assume the best about everyone, then why the sin of scandal? To bring it back to the cohabitation issue, many have stated here that even chaste cohabitation is sinful, as it can cause others to be scandalized, as they will inevitably assume the cohabitants are NOT chaste…but aren’t such people being uncharitable, and sinning themselves?
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I think that you are making a mistake when you identify being charitable with being nice and with assuming the best about everybody. That is not charity because charity is a virtue (theological) and one of the properties of virtues is that they consist in the golden mean, that is to say, in what lies between excess and deficit. We must bring the Truth forward and at time it can be harsh and it can hurt people’s feelings but it must be done. However, we cannot bring the Truth in order to hurt people and we also have an obligation to follow the four cardinal virtues (e.g. justice and prudence). Being a catholic is not picking and choosing which virtues or obligations we want to follow but we have to buy the whole package. The rule of thumb is that if you go against one of the theological or cardinal virtues then you are doing it wrong. Trust me that I am very charitable when I punish my son to teach him a lesson even if neither of us feels good about it. However, I am not charitable when I flatter him on some meaningless accomplishment or I mock him for some failure.
 
Yes, the issue you raise I think is one that involves the conflation of the ancient/traditional and modern conceptions of love.

We in the modern world do not have a word for “love” the way it is used in the Bible and the Catechism – “charity” as you note is coming to mean simply “attributing goodwill even where it is unwarranted,” and “goodwill” comes close but does not quite capture it all.

So the modern mind tends to assume that “love thy neighbor,” for instance, means “show affection for thy neighbor,” which means making them feel comfortable and at peace and thus never bringing their moral deficiencies to light.

In truth, “love thy neighbor” means “will what is best for your neighbor” – and this REQUIRES that you admonish them for their sins, which, if unrepented, will consign them to Hell forever.

Tolerating sin is in fact a gross FAILURE of charity – a sin in its own right!

When admonishing sinners it is quite important to distinguish between those who are sinning out of imperfect understanding or imperfect will (probably the most common case of people who come here asking if X or Y is a sin), to which the proper response is patience; and those who are sinning in full knowledge of the sin of the act but deny that the sin is a sin at all, which is a far more serious kind of sin because it includes an element of self-delusion and therefore requires a far more strident correction.

It is the difference, for instance, between a man who masturbates because he cannot control himself (and who feels guilt for his actions) and a man who masturbates because he enjoys it and to Hell what the Church has to say about it (who are they to teach us anything, anyway, bunch of old celibate white men, etc.!). One clearly requires a qualitatively different kind of correction than the other.
 
I think you are confusing charity with kindness. Charity (Love) wants the ultimate good of the other (Heaven). Kindness wants to relieve the other person’s suffering. One can be kind and charitable at the same time. And one can be charitable without being kind.

In your scenario of Jack and Jill, seeking the Truth is the most charitable thing you can do, even if it means someone will get “hurt.” A parent that loves a child has to “hurt” them occasionally to discipline them. The child may cry, and throw a fit, but the loving father knows what is best. God sometimes allows us to be hurt in order to truly love us.
 
Jesus gave major tongue-lashings like “thou hypocrite” in Matthew 23:1-38, “You brood of vipers” in Matthew 3:7; 12:34; 23:33, and told us he did not come to bring peace but division even the division of our families in Matthew 10:34-35. In addition the bible also says to not associate with those calling themselves Christian but living a life of sin in 1 Corinthians 5:11-13.
Jesus did all this stuff yet he is the just man/god without any stain of sin on himself. If we are to believe Jesus never sinned then we should believe you can walk on toes for what is right. Charity rejoices with truth and not iniquity.

You can be gentle but you can’t lie or pad down the truth when somebody does something.
 
Here is a description of charity.
-1 Corinthians Chapter 13-
13:4. Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not
perversely, is not puffed up,
13:5. Is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger,
thinketh no evil:
13:6. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth:
13:7. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things.
13:8. Charity never falleth away: whether prophecies shall be made void
or tongues shall cease or knowledge shall be destroyed.
 
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