Peacemakers and Discord
28 January, 2022
Dear and gentle reader, this post may seem quite un-curmudgeonly, but in light of all the in-fighting in the Church today, it is, nonetheless, timely. Far too many Catholics identify themselves not just as simply Catholic, but as "progressive", "traditional", "conservative", "liberal" and so on. I don't like being referred to as a Roman Catholic. I am a Catholic of the Roman Rite of the Church. Yes, I am under the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, but so are Catholics of the Byzantine Rites, and that doesn't make them Roman. The moniker "Roman Catholic" was originally used pejoratively by the Protestant English to present the Catholics in their midst as foreign, and thus, suspiciously un-English.
However, on to the meat of the matter. I came upon this very eloquent statement made by an online friend in response to a rather judgemental and self-righteous comment left on his page, and I think it is a very solid and Catholic response to all the artificial divisions we set up within the Church today.
"Up to this point, I have been presenting the importance of mercy,
patience, and humility for being living members of the Church and for
facilitating evangelization through respectful dialogue. My sources
have been drawn for the Catholic tradition; but these sources also
indicate who needs strong correction, namely, those who tend to gloss
over their own sins (the self-righteous). Whereas people suffering from
sins of weakness should be treated gently, those suffering from the
sins of malice require stronger correction. The worst of these,
according to Gregory the Great, are the sowers of discord.
Gregory
warned that the sowers of discord are almost impossible to evangelize
or call to conversion. They cannot enter into dialogue. Such people
have virtually no humility, mercy, patience, or love. They require such
strong correction that it frequently hardens their hearts rather than
leads to repentance. If the peacemakers are the children of God, then,
Gregory reasoned, the sowers of discord are the children of Satan. Just
as Satan can appear as an angel of light, Satan’s children can appear
to be doing what is good – even as they undermine people’s adherence to
divine peace, which is necessary for unity and love.
The
sowers of discord will never leave the Church willingly. They are
convinced that, in the doing of evil, they are doing what is good. They
are not necessarily or even normally dissenters from the magisterium,
though they certainly can be. The sowers of discord convince themselves
that they are helping the Church by enforcing moral teachings, by
exposing hypocrisy, by pushing for progress, by reforming the liturgy,
by ripping up the tares among the wheat. They seek to drive the weak,
the impure, the ignorant, and the sinful out of our communion. They
wish to drive out all that they despise.
Gregory’s
understanding of the sowers of discord calls the tendency of Catholics
to identify themselves as conservatives or liberals, progressives or
traditionalists, or any of the other partisan labels into question
(though many who use these categories are not sowers of discord). He
said that a person who is actively creating strife has fallen into
apostasy (the denial of the faith). Such a person not only pulls people
down, he or she cuts them off from the path of loving humility by which
they could rise up to salvation. So there are people who deserve
strong censure, who need to be forcefully reminded of their sins;
however, the people who need the strongest discipline are not those who
are simply divorced and remarried, or those deemed to be impure, or
those who are wrong about some doctrinal matter."
A hearty thanks to Stephen DeVol for these wise words.
As always, gentle reader, may God bless you!
Father P.
Comments
Post a Comment