There is a great struggle that goes on inside people who are
predisposed to righteousness. God, the
bible tells us, is righteous. And
because that is the case, we human beings who are made in his image and
likeness, will find ourselves gravitating towards righteousness. Together with the call to holiness and
sanctity and perfection, lies the call to be righteous as well. When this is insufficiently understood, it can
become a great stumbling block for many people.
Classic moral teachings that are seen in the Roman Catholic church
gives those under her care very clear moral guidelines, and many of them do
require a certain moral framework within which they are both intelligible and beautiful. In order to comprehend and embrace this
beauty, one has to also embrace a certain philosophy of life. One classic example is the Catholic teaching
that all human life is sacred, from natural conception to natural death. Within this broad understanding lie all of the
church’s moral teachings that include a prohibition against abortion,
artificial and manipulated conception, sex outside of marriage (whether they be
heterosexual or homosexual in nature), and the act of ending one’s life
willfully. For the most part, these laws
make brilliant sense only within the system of a Catholic mind. Outside of the acceptance of an orthodox
Catholic moral mind, many of these teachings will be easily discarded, ignored
and dismissed as merely being fussy.
This is why it is understandable that many who do not operate within
this philosophical and moral framework and mind stridently find our teachings
offensive and reprehensible. The many
who troll Church teachings on the Internet are evident of this.
How does the Catholic broach this?
Jesus’ teachings have been clear to love one’s enemies, and herein lays
the great challenge. To love those who
disagree with us requires of us to do what is also difficult – to enter into
their shoes and walk with them. Will we
find ourselves at some sort of impasse when we do that? Certainly.
While we can sit with brothers and sisters of the same-sex community and
even have meals with them, sometimes we may find ourselves making silent
judgments on how imperfect and narrow their definition of love is. Even as we try to enter into a dialogue with
those who are pro-choice, angrily carrying our pro-life placards and harbouring
resentment and silent rancor at our opponents easily make us appear
self-righteous, making our cause doubly challenging. Unwittingly, it may give us a sense of moral
superiority, and can even cause us to appear churlish.
Perhaps this is why so many prefer to take the high road of moral
righteousness. It is far easier to hold
tightly to the rudiments of moral truths that we had been grounded on and tell
the world ‘you are wrong’. Doing this,
unfortunately, impedes dialogue and a softening of hearts. Those of us who are in official positions of
leadership in the faith have a far more pressing need to remember this, even as
we instruct and form the hearts and minds of the faithful who come under our
care. More and more, with the world
having strong views that are often directly opposed to the Church’s, it becomes
even more imperative that we never forget to have charity in the foundation of
our lives.
I am the last to say that this is an easy task. I myself have sometimes taken the easier way
out and out of either indolence or impatience, chosen instead the high ground
of ‘shoulds’. I have to keep reminding myself
of the old adage that God does write straight with crooked lines. To be able to see that my brothers and
sisters who live differently could be teaching me a thing or two about charity,
patience, kindness and generosity is humbling.
We need a new way of not just holding the truth with a new empathy,
but also a new way of imparting it.
Truth as truth is unchanged and unchangeable, but it may require
repackaging frequently. This has to be
the task of any serious theologian.
So true!
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