This is very true:
Some anti social acts (or anti Catholic acts) are so repulsive to society (or Catholicism) that we use a word (“murderer” in this instance) to label and condemn the person and for all time. Few fully escape a social (or religious) label of condemnation even if they have totally reformed their lives with true sorrow and repentance.
To label the whole person is contrary to the Gospel i.e. to condemn the whole actual person and not the sin only.
Barb
Saint Maria Goretti was murdered by a young man trying to rape her. He claimed she enticed him sexually and then refused his advances. He stabbed her fourteen times. She appeared to him in a dream and handed him fourteen roses, each time saying “Alessandro I want you to be with me in heaven.” He confessed his crime and her innocence.
In court he asked for forgiveness and Maria’s mother stood up and said she forgave him. The crowd hated him and shouted at her. “How can you forgive this despicable criminal who murdered your daughter.” She said, “What if Jesus does not forgive me.”
After he spent many years in prison he was released, but no town would allow him to remain there. He wandered around as a beggar. He received a note of invitation to spend Christmas at a rectory from a priest. He went there and the housekeeper answered the door. It was Maria’s mother.
On the day Maria Goretti, the patron of purity, was canonized, at the papal Mass her mother was present. It was the first time in history that a parent of a saint was to witness the canonization of her child. Standing next to Maria’s mother was Alesandro, Maria’s murderer.
He spent the last years of his life as a monk.
Please don’t tell me that the Catholic Church stigmatizes evil doers, or that labels that call sin sin harm us. The Church’s entire mission is that of redemption, bringing mercy to all, no matter how depraved or guilty we are. Before you can be forgiven you must admit your guilt. You can not ask for mercy, unless you admit you need it. If a person is a slave to some sin we uphold them. They might fall a thousand times and we accept them.
By the power God gave the apostles the Church forgives sin. We do not excuse it. We do not say it is just. We say it is evil and if you do evil you can be pardoned no matter how evil you are.
So what do we say to Alessandro? You could not control your sexual cravings. It is understandable. You were driven to do what you did by normal biological functions. If there were not all of the moral restrictions placed on normal sexual appetite by religion you would not have been driven to become a murderer. It was not your fault. It was the fault of society and religion that you became a predator and a murderer and now you are stigmatized with the title murderer. You really are a victim. Your life is ruined, because you had no outlet for your healthy sexual desires.
Anyone who says what you did is wrong is judgmental and we know what Jesus said about that evil.
Saint Maria, as you lay dying you forgave your depraved murderer, pray for us.