Moral Correction

[vern_humphrey]

The meaning is, apparently, that monitoring the results is actually of no importance, since no one has even asked about them.

Au contraire

Post #29

And the moral of this story is, Confrontation often doesn’t work.

Can you think of a different approach you could have tried that might have succeeded?

Post # 31

Hearing is one thing, being convinced is another. Are they all staunchly on your side now, rejecting the “heretic,” the sister and the pastor?

Post #38

Then why did you step in at all? What was your intention?

If through your actions you drove them away, instead of attracting them to the truth, you cannot wash your hands like Pilate.

And so on and so forth.

Apparently, aggressive tactics are verboten no matter what the results are. Have you now changed your mind on this point?

It’s clear that your tactics, whatever they were, didn’t work. In fact at one point you denied you had any responsibility for the outcome of your actions.

I get the feeling that you represent an idea which has failed.

As opposed to your idea which has failed?

 

[Jimbo2]

We’re apparently speaking at cross purposes.

You analyze situations on the immediate outcome.

I’m thinking longer term.

This is why I object to your analysis.

I now see why you respond the way you do in every thread.

Temporal happiness and temporary peace must be subordinate to actual good.

I consider the outcome of the situation I have described to be a successful one. Successful, because the people in the room at least had an opportunity to hear the truth. You consider it a failure because people had bad emotional feelings afterwards.

Your analysis strikes me as shallow.

 

[vern_humphrey]

We’re apparently speaking at cross purposes.

You analyze situations on the immediate outcome.

I’m thinking longer term.

Yet in Post #33, you denied all responsibilities for your actions:

I am not reposnsible for their decisions, only my own.

This is why I object to your analysis.

I now see why you respond the way you do in every thread.

Temporal happiness and temporary peace must be subordinate to actual good.

But what actual good can come when you deny responsibility for your actions?

I consider the outcome of the situation I have described to be a successful one. Successful, because the people in the room at least had an opportunity to hear the truth. You consider it a failure because people had bad emotional feelings afterwards.

I consider it a failure because of the way you define “success.” You do not claim that the people who heard you were persuaded, let alone the “heretic” and the sister.

Your analysis strikes me as shallow.

Funny, I was just going to say that about yours.

 

[Jimbo2]

This will be my last post in this thread.

I think the two positions are crystal clear, and so long as the pacifists are willing to let people like Vern do their talking for them, they get to stand with people like him and be judged with him.

I like how you put “heretic” in quotes - that says volumes about your position. Of course he is a heretic, he is an espouser (and public promoter) of heresy.

You’re either not understanding about responsibility or pretending not to. I think most people understand, I don’t care if you do. I am not responsible for other people’s decisions, they make their decisions. I am responsible for my own decisions and my own actions. None of this is contrary in principle to anything you have said, but you’ve misinterpreted it (willfully?) to mean that I’m not repsonsible for my own actions, which is either stupid or just trolling for attention.

Ultimately, every Catholic who wants to do more than warm a pew will have to decide “Am I the kind of person who will stand up against heresy and people who teach heresy…or am I the kind of person who would attend a gay wedding meekly and quietly to avoid offending someone.” (see other threads for background)

I think the choice is clear, and I remain convinced of my own position (especially given the cognitive problems evidenced on the other side AND the incredibly bad track record the other side has over 40 years of the fall of the Church in the West.

So, bona fortuna, you’re going back on the ignore list as of now.

 

[Romick]

From the Catholic Catechism, I repeat with regards to correcting others whom we know are jeopardizing their souls:

We do have a responsibility for each other:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church:

**V. THE PROLIFERATION OF SIN **

1865 Sin creates a proclivity to sin; it engenders vice by repetition of the same acts. This results in perverse inclinations which cloud conscience and corrupt the concrete judgment of good and evil. Thus sin tends to reproduce itself and reinforce itself, but it cannot destroy the moral sense at its root.
1866 Vices can be classified according to the virtues they oppose, or also be linked to the capital sins which Christian experience has distinguished, following St. John Cassian and St. Gregory the Great. They are called “capital” because they engender other sins, other vices.[138] They are pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth or acedia.
1867 The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are “sins that cry to heaven”: the blood of Abel,[139] the sin of the Sodomites,[140] the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt,[141] the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan,[142] injustice to the wage earner.[143]
**1868 Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them: **
**- by participating directly and voluntarily in them; **
**- by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them; **
**- by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so; **
- by protecting evil-doers. 1869 Thus sin makes men accomplices of one another and causes concupiscence, violence, and injustice to reign among them. Sins give rise to social situations and institutions that are contrary to the divine goodness. “Structures of sin” are the expression and effect of personal sins. They lead their victims to do evil in their turn. In an analogous sense, they constitute a “social sin.”[144]

 

[Penny_Plain]

1868 Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them:

• by participating directly and voluntarily in them;
• by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them;
• by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so;
• by protecting evil-doers. 1869 Thus sin makes men accomplices of one another and causes concupiscence, violence, and injustice to reign among them. Sins give rise to social situations and institutions that are contrary to the divine goodness. “Structures of sin” are the expression and effect of personal sins. They lead their victims to do evil in their turn. In an analogous sense, they constitute a “social sin.”

The question that Vern and I have been asking is when we have an obligation to do so.

I see no coherent response in the thread.

 

[vern_humphrey]

The question that Vern and I have been asking is when we have an obligation to do so.

I see no coherent response in the thread.

Not only when, but how. If one doesn’t accomplish his purpose, his efforts are wasted. If he deliberately chose a course of action that would not accomplish the purpose, he should have stayed home.

 

[Romick]

My very strong example for when people can and do fail to hinder or disclose sin and end up condoning it is when a person is committing adultery. Very often people begin to accept the adultery as “OK”

Justifications sound like this:

…“Adultery is just a personal choice someone is making. They left the marriage for “good reason” - who are we to judge? Why should we not socialize with this new couple? Are we supposed to play God and tell them how to act? Everyone does it today. If we tell them it goes against God’s Commandments, people will think we’re religious nuts. We may not personally approve, but we certainly aren’t going to say anything. Their families will get over it eventually. The kids will learn to love the new person…”

And on and on ad nauseum.

I know all these comments because I am one of the thousands of people who suffer in ever-growing numbers due to adultery. No one thinks of disapproving publically in today’s society, so the devil is having a field day with marriages. And adultery is only one of the most virulent sins our Lord rules against.

We do have to say and do something. Sure, we have to use disgression about timing, but what if everyone tried to follow the rules and didn’t keep silent?

I haven’t been back here in a while, but if I remember this all started because some of you feel a mother shouldn’t “abandon” her son as he enters a sham of a marriage, mocks God and His sacraments.

Silence can be a real killer of souls.

God bless and help us all…

Romick

 

[Dranu]

I think Jimbo is right for his zeal on admonishing the sinner, but tactfulness is the key. Sometimes (probably more a thing in us males) anger can be a thing which can hinder and corrupt this righteous act, boiling over from good just anger against the sin into evil anger against the person (who we have no right to judge their guilt in it), and thus also clouds the original goodness of the act in the first place, the love of the person admonishing. I think if anger is a problem we must remember it is the sin we are trying to stop, not the person. As in war, a direct confrontation against the enemy (sin/daemon, not the person) can be a good choice at times, but sometimes a more tatical way can better work to loosen hell’s grip on your fellow man. Just remember, the whole purpose is to save as many of your fellow man as you can. If you think the best option was a confrontation in the way you presented it agaisnt that heretical view, you may have been right.

On an IMPORTANT side note though, you should care about the man who stormed out (and the nun), and try to help him (and her).  In the end it is their choice wether to embrace heresy or not, but for love's sake, and your own soul it is important that you make sure you acted well so you are not somewhat guilty for leading (or keeping) them down a path of perdition.

The thing that any person who wishes to point out another’s sins has to avoid is the temptation to relish doing so.

I dunno about this though. I think one should always relish it. Though you should avoid pride in this joy by embracing humility, knowing that you too were/are a sinner, and that only through Christ can you be saved from hell, and the possibility that they may be less to blame for their sin than you ever were for any one of your own past sins.
My biggest problem is cowardice. I may try to rationalize that sometimes it is not prudent to do anything, but if that were true, that just shows a lack of my trust or love of God. Sometimes it is best to wait for the timing of a confrontation (with a determination to do so at a specific time), sometimes actions such as a frown or some other form of showing a distaste seem like the best option. I just need to make sure I do SOMETHING in the future, and pray that I do so more often.

 

[vern_humphrey]

We do have to say and do something. Sure, we have to use disgression about timing, but what if everyone tried to follow the rules and didn’t keep silent?

When we do something, we should adopt a course of action likely to accomplish our objective. It is quite possible, by adopting a holier-than-thou attitude to have exactly the opposite effect.

My question has been a simple one, “Can you think of how you could have done that better?” That’s a reasonable question – one should always ask that. There is no way to learn from experience if one will not examine the results of one’s actions in the light of that question.

I haven’t been back here in a while, but if I remember this all started because some of you feel a mother shouldn’t “abandon” her son as he enters a sham of a marriage, mocks God and His sacraments.

It is a violation of the rules to carry over a dispute from another thread. That thread has been closed.

 

[Julian_Peters]

Thank you to all who have participated. This thread is now closed.