May 2002 Newsletter

CONDEMNATION

     The faith of the Church is not primarily about condemnation.  I repeat: the Church’s faith is not primarily about condemnation.  Instead, the Church’s faith is mainly about the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ.  “For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:18, RSV)

     However, centered on the love and light of God in Christ, the Church must, at times, name and condemn an evil of the day.  When the Church names and condemns evil, she does so in the hope of redeeming the doers of evil.

     As baptismal candidates and/or their sponsors stand before the congregation, they are examined by the Church.  First of all, they are asked: “Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?”  Then the Church asks them: “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?”

     But in our day, tolerance is promoted, in the general society, as the highest social good.  So the Church’s challenge to renounce and resist evil in this world sounds pretty tough, pretty intolerant.

     About tolerance, let us be clear.  Tolerance can be a product of faithful, Christian discipleship.  For tolerance can promote civility and even love.  For example, following Jesus Christ, Christians tolerate some things in others -- such as bad manners -- simply to remain friends.  However, if tolerance becomes the guiding principle of life, it leads to a laid-back relativism that learns to live comfortably with evil.

     Evil is something that Christians cannot and should not tolerate.  Again, evil is something about which Christians should be intolerant.  Evil is something toward which Christians should have “zero tolerance.”  For evil is something that Christians should name, renounce, and resist with all the loving power God gives.

     Consider these two examples from our day: anti-Semitism and the abuse of children and youth.

     First, across Europe anti-Semitism has recently reared its ugly head.  Charles Krauthammer, a Washington Post columnist, writes: “The European ‘street’ has lately been expressing itself on the subject of Jews...  In France, synagogues have been burned to the ground and Jewish youths savagely attacked.  In Belgium, two synagogues were firebombed, a third sprayed with bullets.  A Berlin police official advised Jews, for reasons of safety, not to wear outward symbols of their religion.” (The News-Times, 4/26/02)  It is hard to believe that all this is happening only 57 years after the demise of the Nazi assault on the European Jews.

     Hatred toward and attacks against the Jews, God’s first-chosen people, do not warrant the tolerance of the Church.  Quite the contrary, these outbursts of anti-Semitism deserve the Church’s strongest renunciation and resistance.

     Second, in the United States, the sexual abuses of children by Roman Catholic priests and the subsequent, apparent coverups of these outrageous crimes by bishops, has created a crisis in Catholicism.  In these cases, children, but mostly youth, have been exploited by those more powerful (physically and socially) and put through incalculable pain and suffering.  Their families have suffered with them.  And the bishops, who looked the other way while these evil deeds were occurring, have contributed to undermining the faith of millions of Christians, both Catholics and Protestants.  In addition, since the Roman Catholic Church is the leading moral authority in the United States, its moral voice has been quieted more than a little by today’s scandals.  This is especially unfortunate, for our society is in desperate need of moral guidance.

     In response to this crisis, the greater Catholic Church has not been tolerant.  Indeed, it is moving toward a policy of zero tolerance.  Having returned from the meeting between the American cardinals and Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua of Philadelphia said: “All of the cardinals are agreed on zero tolerance.  And by that I mean that we all agreed that no priest guilty of even one act of sexual abuse of a minor [will function] in any capacity in our dioceses...  All of the cardinals are agreed on that.” (New York Times, 4/27/02)  What will happen to the negligent bishops remains to be seen.

     Never should the Church be convinced that her main responsibility is to be tolerant and to teach tolerance.  For there is evil in this world that should be named and condemned.  Jesus Christ died at the hands of evil, and he was resurrected to win the grand victory over evil.  To be merely tolerant of evil is to suggest that our Lord’s death and resurrection were not that big a deal.

     But the Church knows better.  For we realize that having the courage to speak the truth in love -- to name, renounce, and resist evil -- is a sign of the power of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is conveyed regularly through Holy Baptism.

     As Ecclesiastes might have put it, there is a time to be tolerant, and a time to condemn.