As I reflect on our spiritual needs today, the one thing that comes to mind is the need to be truly critical thinkers instead of critics. It is easy to confuse the two. However, a saint is a person who can be a critical thinker without stooping down to criticism. He or she is never affected by criticism, because he/she knows that criticism comes from an angry heart. Nor does a saint stoop down to criticizing others, because he/she knows that such an action is a covert way of judging. It is spiritual arrogance. The man or woman who is his brother’s critic is really making a statement about himself or herself. What’s he saying? He saying, “I’m better than you. I know better than you. I’m more virtuous than you.” While those are not the words that come out of the mouth of the critic, that certainly is the message.
On the other hand, a critical thinker is one who can separate the issue from the person. The critical thinker can tell the difference between the sin and the sinner. The critical thinker has the ability to identify problems and find solutions without targeting people and condemning them as a solution to the problem. I am always reminded of the martyrs. Those who put the martyrs to death were not very good critical thinkers. They didn’t understand that by putting these people to death they were not ridding themselves of their problems. In fact, when you create a martyr you fuel the cause. It is no surprise that many faiths, not just our own, are built upon the blood of the martyrs.
When you make a martyr out of the sinner, you fuel the sin. What society sees is our behavior, not the sin that we are attempting to fight. The real problem, which is the sin, becomes obscured and lost in the forest. We end up with a reaction to our behavior, rather than an end to an evil. Wisdom is an important part of holiness. Without wisdom, it is very difficult to be holy. The wise man or woman does not create a scenario where the attention shifts from the sin to the sinner to the point where the sinner becomes a victim. Why? Because when we make the sinner a victim, we obscure the evil that we’re trying to correct.
For example, today we have serious moral issues on our hands: abortion, homosexual unions, child-sexual abuse and more. Let us look at what has happened to those who have gone out of their way condemning gay people, abortionists, and child-abusers. There has been a turn in the events. Suddenly, the person who attacks the gay person, is labeled a homophobe, because that’s what he sounds like. He’s not talking about the virtue of purity and the inherent dignity of human sexuality; he’s talking about gay people, as if straight people never violate the sixth commandment
Those who call abortionists murderers draw very negative attention to themselves. They are not talking about the act of murdering. If truth be told, we really don’t know what the abortionist understands or does not understand about the dignity of life. We certainly do not know what the 16-year old girl who is terrified by her unexpected pregnancy really understands about the moral gravity of her choice. To go out on a campaign that labels and name-tags such people is not very useful and does not point out the real issue, the sanctity of human life, the rights of the unborn, the obligation of all people to protect life and the obligation of society to ensure that we use our human resources for the good of life, not its destruction. The word “murderer” does not proclaim any of these great truths. It simply becomes a pawn in a political conflict, which is not what the issue is about. The issue is about God’s moral law, not politics. The issue is about the attack on life, not about the attacker. The attacker needs to hear the Truth, not the scorn. The attacker needs to know about murder, not be called a murderer.
Those who make horrible statements about the priests who sexually abused children are forgetting that these men are also sons of God. They have committed a horrible crime against an innocent human being. They have violated trust and violated a vow. But the message that comes across is not this. What comes across is that we Christians want to destroy, crush, and throw the sinner into a dumpster. Nothing can be further from the truth. The truth is that we want this sin to be gone from our world. We want children to be safe. We want men and women to be responsible. We want to see sinners convert from their sins. We want to see those who are hurt by sin be healed. We want to find ways of chipping away at this problem until it disappears. We want to strike a balance between condemning the sin and forgiving the sinner. Most of all, we want to do God’s will.
These are just a few examples from our daily lives where we must be critical thinkers. We must ask ourselves whether we’re attacking the sin or calling attention to it by making a martyr out of the sinner. We must also ask ourselves whether we’re condemning the sin or placing ourselves on a pedestal where we are the judge, jury and prosecutor of those who sin. We must ask ourselves whether we are just condemning sin or are we also teaching the opposite virtues. If we only condemn sin, but never teach the opposite virtue, then our evangelization is out of balance. The saint has the wisdom to condemn the sin, teach the opposing virtue, and recognize that the sinner needs to be converted, not condemned. The Evangelist never forgets that God loves the sinner. The time will come when God will judge and sentence humanity. Our mission is to convert humanity.
I always have to ask myself whether I’m really against the sin or just angry at the sinner. If I’m just angry at the sinner, I’m not in a good spiritual place. There has to be balance and wisdom in our dealing with sins and sinners.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
