Clarification for our Gentle Readers
This not so gentle granny, tougher than nails, is definitely accusing a few people of attacking the Catholic Church from within. Here is my favorite example by a Catholic Professor of Old Testament, Semitic languages and biblical spirituality.
This example is five years old. Thus, out of charity, I do not give a citation because this priest may have come back to the correct teachings of the Catholic Church. However, damage has been done. Gentle warning – this is a difficult example. At the time I posted it on CAF, not many Catholics could grasp its intention. Interestingly, a thread on emerging Christianity died. I am hoping that more Catholics will understand this example in the light of
O is for the Original friendship relationship between the first human Adam and his Creator God
The example to ponder.
"… wrote that Catholics who ask, “Were there an Adam and Eve?” would be better off asking another question: “Are there an Adam and Eve?”
The answer, he said, “is a definite ‘yes.’ We find them when we look in the mirror. We are Adam, and we are Eve. … The man and woman of Genesis … are intended to represent an Everyman and Everywoman. They are paradigms, figurative equivalents, of human conduct in the face of temptation, not lessons in biology or history. The Bible is teaching religion, not science or literalistic history.”
From the dawn of human history, each human person is worthy of profound respect.
Charitable Readers who (like me) adore Granny:
Granny is not attacking the unnamed author of the words she quotes, even if she claims not to be gentle.
You see, if we look at the definition of “attack” from Merriam-Webster:
Attack: to act violently against (someone or something) : to try to hurt, injure, or destroy (something or someone)
She is not intending to hurt, injure, or destroy him. She may be intending to “destroy” his words with assertions and logic, but she is not attacking him, and as such, she is certainly not intending to attack the Church; she is intending to protect doctrine.
Readers with calm minds like Granny can also address the intent of the unnamed person she quoted. As the story of A&E is intended (among other things) to foster cooperation, there is some merit to describing A&E as “everyman” and “everywoman” so that we refrain from blaming two fellow humans for our plight. Indeed, we are all capable of disobedience and have disobeyed, and we are to form our consciences in such a way that we value obedience. If the story only applies to A&E, and not ourselves, then something is lost in terms of the purpose of the story. Especially in the tribal context, which is the time of the writing of the story, obedience to leadership was a matter of survival. When we charitably address the intent of the author of the words Granny quoted, we can clearly see no intent to destroy, injure, or hurt, but quite the opposite.
So yes, it is very important to “grasp intention”, as Granny knows, and to refrain from judging people. We are to give people the benefit of the doubt. Yes, we can judge words and look at their merits or lack thereof, but to accuse intent to hurt, injure, or destroy goes against the words of Jesus, as Granny knows:
Matthew 7:1-2New International Version (NIV)
Judging Others
7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
