“Church of Nice” is a good way of putting it. People have been conditioned to place performative tolerance and virtue over their own morality and convictions.
I have to push back on this. As a Catholic convert, the militant part of the Christian church (including both Catholics and Protestants) that promotes the idea of intolerance toward other humans they view as "evil" kept me separated from my faith for way too long, and I'm still bitter about it.
Everyone is in a different place on their spiritual journey, and God works in mysterious ways - it's not up to you to judge or decide. Someone's experiences with evil today could lead them straight into God's arms tomorrow if it's part of the plan - which is exactly what happened to me. Living by example, rather than by the sword, has always seemed more in line with Christianity, to me at least.
The verses you quoted are certainly in the Bible, but the Bible (like the Torah) is meant to be understood as a whole, not in cherry-picked verses. May I ask, what do you make of these other verses that promote tolerance and respect and loving our neighbors as ourselves:
"With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love." (Ephesians 4:2)
"As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand." (Romans 14:1-4)
"And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, 'Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.'" (John 8:7)
"Judge not, that you be not judged." (Matthew 7:1)
"And he said to them, 'You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.'" (Acts 10:28)
"Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing." (1 Peter 3:8-11)
"Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will." (2 Timothy 2:22-26)
"Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." (Ephesians 4:30-32)
"Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." (Hebrews 12:14)
"You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?" (Matthew 5:43-48)
"The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” (Exodus 14:14)
I made quite a clear distinction: we hate evil, and are obliged to, but God forbid we should hate another person.
"As always, Bishop Sheen, in his 1932 article, “The Curse of Broadmindedness,” explains simply the principle found in the Bible, the writings of the saints and Doctors: “We must be tolerant to persons because they are human; we must be intolerant about principles because they are divine.
“We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have led them astray; but we must be intolerant to the error, because Truth is not our making, but God’s. And hence the Church in her history, due reparation made, has always welcomed the heretic back into the treasury of her souls, but never his heresy into the treasury of her wisdom.”
and
"Examine me, O Lord, and be sure that I hate your enemies “perfectly,” that is, in the same way you hate them, and if I do not, if I hate a man instead of his sin, I beg that you will correct me. Watch my every move, and never take your eyes off me and protect me from falling into sin myself.
God hates iniquity, and we sin if we also do not also hate these sins and hate them “perfectly”: idolatry, lust, adultery, dishonesty, usury and the love of violence."
I just cannot imagine anyone saying, "You're full of hate," if your approach to the conversation is in line with the verses I shared. It would be literally impossible for someone to have that impression.
You'd be surprised how vast a difference in perception there can be. There are cultural biases that you meet when you're involved in something like the Pro-life movement. No one in this life has a complete handle on themselves, but that was literally what the person I was speaking to - over tea in a doughnut shop - simply blurted out in the middle of the conversation. To say I was taken aback is to say little. I was shocked, but unsurprised. She was a liberal Catholic, from a middle-class American background, a cultural milieu in which simply speaking plainly and forthrightly, without simpering or circumlocution, is considered tantamount to "violence". If you've never experienced this, be glad.
I haven't experienced anyone saying that to me, but I have experienced similar freak-outs over political topics, so I understand the pain it causes.
As a former heathen, haha, my advice for dealing with younger generations and American liberals in particular (if you want to really reach them, rather than push them away) is to lean heavily on the Socratic method while being as patient, kind and respectful as the Bible calls us Catholics to be.
Ask more questions and speak less. Look for the good as well as the bad and point the good out, too. It's difficult to call a person who is overflowing with love and curiosity hateful, even if someone wants to.
A lot of peoples' beliefs are based on what others in their in-groups believe, without questioning or examining it. I've found this is also true among different camps of Christians. I was guilty of this for a long time. Asking someone, in a kind way, to reflect on the logic behind their beliefs is really effective in breaking through those almost culty barriers. I think it's a good method for the Examen, too, for personal growth. Just my two cents.
All very useful. This lady was in late middle age, and I know she was in an "irregular" relationship (as they're called in these iniquitous times), and I think as a Boomer of the New Paradigm, she was not really used to talking to someone like me who never bought into the 70s cultural norms, who had in fact fought them all my life.
And, having annoyed all the "liberal Catholics" with this post, it'll be on to bigger and better things next when I annoy all the TradCaths by talking in the next post about the Sacred Music of George Harrison...
That sounds difficult. It sounds like maybe something you said touched a part of her that agreed with you in some way - shame always makes people lash out. But shame isn't a great way to get people to change either. I've had a bunch of friends who did multi-person relationships. Thankfully they never appealed to me, but over time I observed that they create a lot of chaos and self-loathing, so she really might be going through some difficult stuff. I would try to be gentle.
And haha that's so funny, I'm looking forward to the George Harrison post!
Genuine question for Hilary here- what does it mean to hate perfectly in a concrete sense? like what does it look like for a person to do this? or maybe it's not an outward state? is this an emotional state about sin or just an absolute rejection of sin using the will in the sense that you never do any of the sins or both or something else? I don't quite get what this hatred that we are being exhorted to is meant to look like here or in the post
The first step is called by the classical spiritual writers (in the western tradition) the Purgative Way. It takes a long time to "hate perfectly" in the sense of the Psalm - meaning to hate sin out of love of God. We take a lifetime to get to that point. It's a summation of the whole purpose of the spiritual life.
There's an interesting anecdote about St. Catherine of Siena who was visiting Avignon when the pope lived there. (She was admonishing him to return to Rome bcs of the Great Western Schism). She was cordially introduced to a famous woman who was known as a courtesan - a woman of an iniquitous lifestyle, but who had donated a lot of money to papal causes. Her companion remonstrated with her after the meeting saying that she had been cold and distant to the woman, who surely needed a better example of Christian virtue. The saint was genuinely surprised, and said, But didn't you smell her?
Her spiritual gifts were so developed that she was able to detect the woman's unrepentant sinful condition as though it was a physical odour of corruption and said it was so poisonous that she could barely stand to breathe in her presence.
We hate evil to the degree that we love God. The more that love grows the less "tolerant" we can be toward that which opposes God. The sin and evil itself, not (I reiterate again) the person.
If there is no clear distinction between the person and the sin, how is it possible to repent of anything? This is how we have got the terrible situation now of people literally *identifying* with their sins and temptations, and violently refusing the suggestion of turning back to God in repentance, and a purpose of amendment. They say, and obviously believe, that if they are to give up those sins, they would somehow destroy their very selves. What an appalling situation to be in, horrifying. To be constantly at odds with your own conscience, in an existential battle. It's one we all fight to one degree or another; but how dreadful an interior war it must be to have gone all the way in and equated yourself, your being and identity, with your sinfulness. It would lead to despair.
Thanks for the thoughtful and interesting reply - if I understand correctly, growing into perfect hatred is then the same as growing into perfect love, which is identical with sanctification? I understand and agree with the revulsion towards evil as part of a growth in love. Christ also, mysteriously, gives us a model of drawing close to those who are suffering, including those who are committed to evils, in genuine love. I don't think that is a counterpoint to what you are saying, but it seems like the next step - like Catherine of Siena was legendarily sensitized to and repulsed by evil but still (for example) went to the Pope in love *anyway* and, I would hope, to many others who were in need of God's charity, primarily because of her love for God, AND despite of AND because of her revulsion for sin. So I guess we are also meant humbly to do with others, even those who identify with what is hurtful to themselves.
I used to really puzzle over the saints' ability to be kind, patient, heroically self-sacrificing, etc. I knew quite a lot about my own failings in those areas, and really almost despaired of how I could possibly improve to the point of "heroic virtue". It was rather a relief to find out that being all those things towards other people, that seemed impossible for me, is something that just starts happening the more you dive into the spiritual life. It's not that I think it's something happening to me, but that it took away the mystery of how it's possible for anyone to bridge that apparently uncrossable gulf between human reactions and spiritual perfection. It's not something we do, it's something God does to us, something that happens as we grow closer. If we concentrate on that, you just get better. It's something to give one hope, at least.
Pretending to be without hate is not virtuous. When they let slip what they really hate (say, being upset by images of the evils of abortion and not the act itself), at least they're being *accidentally* honest.
I once had an hour-long emotional scream-fest from my sister when I told her I didn't agree with abortion. For some reason, she thought I agreed with everything she did. She, the liberal supreme; me, the traditional-minded dupe of religion (in her mind). It was very wearing, and I tried to calmly explain as best as I could what I objected to as morally wrong. But I did not manage to show her any light on the subject. Some ideologies have been so deeply embedded into society that there is no allowance for any other thought. I think it is who they think they are as an identity. If deviated from, life would be incomprehensible to understand.
"The sacred music of George Harrison" ? That should be interesting...
While I agree with some of what EMM said in the thread above, your conversation shows the limits of a Socratic dialogue. Sin short-circuits reason and the powers and principalities (fallen or no) end up guiding the discussion. Then words mean little and must give way to prayer and fasting. God bless you for trying!
What you say is very true - explaining the situation more fully for me. The irony is that if I had been speaking of abortion of puppies in the womb, she would have exploded with righteous anger. How twisted our society has become.
Often in a discussion like this, I try to point out how often Jesus was not very "nice" at all. He dished out a LOT of pushback, particularly to the Pharisees and other religious leaders of the time. He said, "Get away from me, Satan" to his own disciple. The soft-spoken, genteel Jesus often portrayed in our churches just doesn't align with what I read in Scripture. That does not mean that Christ was not merciful. He was extraordinarily merciful. But "nice" is a watered down, empty version of what people think mercy and grace is. And it does nothing to fill the soul, when what we really need is truth in the service of love (real truth and real love, which can require harsh and jarring words).
This quote from the article is a great summation: "We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have led them astray; but we must be intolerant to the error, because Truth is not our making, but God’s. And hence the Church in her history, due reparation made, has always welcomed the heretic back into the treasury of her souls, but never his heresy into the treasury of her wisdom."
“Church of Nice” is a good way of putting it. People have been conditioned to place performative tolerance and virtue over their own morality and convictions.
I have to push back on this. As a Catholic convert, the militant part of the Christian church (including both Catholics and Protestants) that promotes the idea of intolerance toward other humans they view as "evil" kept me separated from my faith for way too long, and I'm still bitter about it.
Everyone is in a different place on their spiritual journey, and God works in mysterious ways - it's not up to you to judge or decide. Someone's experiences with evil today could lead them straight into God's arms tomorrow if it's part of the plan - which is exactly what happened to me. Living by example, rather than by the sword, has always seemed more in line with Christianity, to me at least.
The verses you quoted are certainly in the Bible, but the Bible (like the Torah) is meant to be understood as a whole, not in cherry-picked verses. May I ask, what do you make of these other verses that promote tolerance and respect and loving our neighbors as ourselves:
"With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love." (Ephesians 4:2)
"As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand." (Romans 14:1-4)
"And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, 'Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.'" (John 8:7)
"Judge not, that you be not judged." (Matthew 7:1)
"And he said to them, 'You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.'" (Acts 10:28)
"Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing." (1 Peter 3:8-11)
"Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will." (2 Timothy 2:22-26)
"Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." (Ephesians 4:30-32)
"Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." (Hebrews 12:14)
"You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?" (Matthew 5:43-48)
"The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” (Exodus 14:14)
I made quite a clear distinction: we hate evil, and are obliged to, but God forbid we should hate another person.
"As always, Bishop Sheen, in his 1932 article, “The Curse of Broadmindedness,” explains simply the principle found in the Bible, the writings of the saints and Doctors: “We must be tolerant to persons because they are human; we must be intolerant about principles because they are divine.
“We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have led them astray; but we must be intolerant to the error, because Truth is not our making, but God’s. And hence the Church in her history, due reparation made, has always welcomed the heretic back into the treasury of her souls, but never his heresy into the treasury of her wisdom.”
and
"Examine me, O Lord, and be sure that I hate your enemies “perfectly,” that is, in the same way you hate them, and if I do not, if I hate a man instead of his sin, I beg that you will correct me. Watch my every move, and never take your eyes off me and protect me from falling into sin myself.
God hates iniquity, and we sin if we also do not also hate these sins and hate them “perfectly”: idolatry, lust, adultery, dishonesty, usury and the love of violence."
I just cannot imagine anyone saying, "You're full of hate," if your approach to the conversation is in line with the verses I shared. It would be literally impossible for someone to have that impression.
You'd be surprised how vast a difference in perception there can be. There are cultural biases that you meet when you're involved in something like the Pro-life movement. No one in this life has a complete handle on themselves, but that was literally what the person I was speaking to - over tea in a doughnut shop - simply blurted out in the middle of the conversation. To say I was taken aback is to say little. I was shocked, but unsurprised. She was a liberal Catholic, from a middle-class American background, a cultural milieu in which simply speaking plainly and forthrightly, without simpering or circumlocution, is considered tantamount to "violence". If you've never experienced this, be glad.
I haven't experienced anyone saying that to me, but I have experienced similar freak-outs over political topics, so I understand the pain it causes.
As a former heathen, haha, my advice for dealing with younger generations and American liberals in particular (if you want to really reach them, rather than push them away) is to lean heavily on the Socratic method while being as patient, kind and respectful as the Bible calls us Catholics to be.
Ask more questions and speak less. Look for the good as well as the bad and point the good out, too. It's difficult to call a person who is overflowing with love and curiosity hateful, even if someone wants to.
A lot of peoples' beliefs are based on what others in their in-groups believe, without questioning or examining it. I've found this is also true among different camps of Christians. I was guilty of this for a long time. Asking someone, in a kind way, to reflect on the logic behind their beliefs is really effective in breaking through those almost culty barriers. I think it's a good method for the Examen, too, for personal growth. Just my two cents.
All very useful. This lady was in late middle age, and I know she was in an "irregular" relationship (as they're called in these iniquitous times), and I think as a Boomer of the New Paradigm, she was not really used to talking to someone like me who never bought into the 70s cultural norms, who had in fact fought them all my life.
And, having annoyed all the "liberal Catholics" with this post, it'll be on to bigger and better things next when I annoy all the TradCaths by talking in the next post about the Sacred Music of George Harrison...
That sounds difficult. It sounds like maybe something you said touched a part of her that agreed with you in some way - shame always makes people lash out. But shame isn't a great way to get people to change either. I've had a bunch of friends who did multi-person relationships. Thankfully they never appealed to me, but over time I observed that they create a lot of chaos and self-loathing, so she really might be going through some difficult stuff. I would try to be gentle.
And haha that's so funny, I'm looking forward to the George Harrison post!
Genuine question for Hilary here- what does it mean to hate perfectly in a concrete sense? like what does it look like for a person to do this? or maybe it's not an outward state? is this an emotional state about sin or just an absolute rejection of sin using the will in the sense that you never do any of the sins or both or something else? I don't quite get what this hatred that we are being exhorted to is meant to look like here or in the post
The first step is called by the classical spiritual writers (in the western tradition) the Purgative Way. It takes a long time to "hate perfectly" in the sense of the Psalm - meaning to hate sin out of love of God. We take a lifetime to get to that point. It's a summation of the whole purpose of the spiritual life.
There's an interesting anecdote about St. Catherine of Siena who was visiting Avignon when the pope lived there. (She was admonishing him to return to Rome bcs of the Great Western Schism). She was cordially introduced to a famous woman who was known as a courtesan - a woman of an iniquitous lifestyle, but who had donated a lot of money to papal causes. Her companion remonstrated with her after the meeting saying that she had been cold and distant to the woman, who surely needed a better example of Christian virtue. The saint was genuinely surprised, and said, But didn't you smell her?
Her spiritual gifts were so developed that she was able to detect the woman's unrepentant sinful condition as though it was a physical odour of corruption and said it was so poisonous that she could barely stand to breathe in her presence.
We hate evil to the degree that we love God. The more that love grows the less "tolerant" we can be toward that which opposes God. The sin and evil itself, not (I reiterate again) the person.
If there is no clear distinction between the person and the sin, how is it possible to repent of anything? This is how we have got the terrible situation now of people literally *identifying* with their sins and temptations, and violently refusing the suggestion of turning back to God in repentance, and a purpose of amendment. They say, and obviously believe, that if they are to give up those sins, they would somehow destroy their very selves. What an appalling situation to be in, horrifying. To be constantly at odds with your own conscience, in an existential battle. It's one we all fight to one degree or another; but how dreadful an interior war it must be to have gone all the way in and equated yourself, your being and identity, with your sinfulness. It would lead to despair.
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14254a.htm
Thanks for the thoughtful and interesting reply - if I understand correctly, growing into perfect hatred is then the same as growing into perfect love, which is identical with sanctification? I understand and agree with the revulsion towards evil as part of a growth in love. Christ also, mysteriously, gives us a model of drawing close to those who are suffering, including those who are committed to evils, in genuine love. I don't think that is a counterpoint to what you are saying, but it seems like the next step - like Catherine of Siena was legendarily sensitized to and repulsed by evil but still (for example) went to the Pope in love *anyway* and, I would hope, to many others who were in need of God's charity, primarily because of her love for God, AND despite of AND because of her revulsion for sin. So I guess we are also meant humbly to do with others, even those who identify with what is hurtful to themselves.
I used to really puzzle over the saints' ability to be kind, patient, heroically self-sacrificing, etc. I knew quite a lot about my own failings in those areas, and really almost despaired of how I could possibly improve to the point of "heroic virtue". It was rather a relief to find out that being all those things towards other people, that seemed impossible for me, is something that just starts happening the more you dive into the spiritual life. It's not that I think it's something happening to me, but that it took away the mystery of how it's possible for anyone to bridge that apparently uncrossable gulf between human reactions and spiritual perfection. It's not something we do, it's something God does to us, something that happens as we grow closer. If we concentrate on that, you just get better. It's something to give one hope, at least.
Pretending to be without hate is not virtuous. When they let slip what they really hate (say, being upset by images of the evils of abortion and not the act itself), at least they're being *accidentally* honest.
Ooh, that's a good one.
I once had an hour-long emotional scream-fest from my sister when I told her I didn't agree with abortion. For some reason, she thought I agreed with everything she did. She, the liberal supreme; me, the traditional-minded dupe of religion (in her mind). It was very wearing, and I tried to calmly explain as best as I could what I objected to as morally wrong. But I did not manage to show her any light on the subject. Some ideologies have been so deeply embedded into society that there is no allowance for any other thought. I think it is who they think they are as an identity. If deviated from, life would be incomprehensible to understand.
"The sacred music of George Harrison" ? That should be interesting...
While I agree with some of what EMM said in the thread above, your conversation shows the limits of a Socratic dialogue. Sin short-circuits reason and the powers and principalities (fallen or no) end up guiding the discussion. Then words mean little and must give way to prayer and fasting. God bless you for trying!
What you say is very true - explaining the situation more fully for me. The irony is that if I had been speaking of abortion of puppies in the womb, she would have exploded with righteous anger. How twisted our society has become.
Often in a discussion like this, I try to point out how often Jesus was not very "nice" at all. He dished out a LOT of pushback, particularly to the Pharisees and other religious leaders of the time. He said, "Get away from me, Satan" to his own disciple. The soft-spoken, genteel Jesus often portrayed in our churches just doesn't align with what I read in Scripture. That does not mean that Christ was not merciful. He was extraordinarily merciful. But "nice" is a watered down, empty version of what people think mercy and grace is. And it does nothing to fill the soul, when what we really need is truth in the service of love (real truth and real love, which can require harsh and jarring words).
This quote from the article is a great summation: "We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have led them astray; but we must be intolerant to the error, because Truth is not our making, but God’s. And hence the Church in her history, due reparation made, has always welcomed the heretic back into the treasury of her souls, but never his heresy into the treasury of her wisdom."