WHO AM I NOT TO JUDGE?
Pope Francis & the Synod
Something epic is happening with this Synod on Synodality. Depending upon where you’re standing, you either see something like the Berlin Wall crumbling down, or the gates of Mordor opening. It’s a matter of perspective. And judgment. While some are inclined to uncritically, uncharitably cast aspersions on Pope Francis, there are others equally in error who, given the faculty and exhortation to judge rightly, shrink from doing so. Perhaps thinking such is pious. It is not.
THE INESCAPABLE TRUTH: It's impossible not to judge. To disagree is to prove my point. It would imply your capacity to judge it as wrong, or bad.
While Christ cautioned us against making ultimate Judgments pertaining to one's character or soul, reserved for only Him, we are exhorted to make small "j" judgments, moral evaluations based upon reason. (CCC, #1778) We must do this with regard to every moral question, whether that concern extramarital sexual activity, or transgenderism, or abortion, or contraception, or salacious books in schools, or parental consent. Or voting.
What matters is not that we judge, but that we judge rightly, based not upon truth we can presume to determine, but in which we are determined.
ANSWERING POPE FRANCIS. "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?" The answer to his question is simply, “One equipped and exhorted by God to do so. You are to judge."
In fact, you will be judged if you do not.
GOOD PARENTS JUDGE. Because that's what good parents do. Because we desire what’s objectively good for our children. Because good, like love and truth, is not whatever anyone wants it to mean. If good is whatever anyone wants it to mean, it means anything. Which is to say, everything. Which is to say, nothing.
The truth is that love has a shape. Not something we determine, but Someone in whom we are determined. For us to receive or reject. For which we will experience the corresponding consequence.
Cecil B. DeMille summed this up, punctuated by the lives of everyone who has ever lived: “We cannot break the Ten Commandments. We can only break ourselves against them—or else, by keeping them, rise through them to the fullness of freedom under God. God means us to be free. With divine daring, he gave us the power of choice.”
PLEASE CONSIDER: Which of us do not have strong, disordered inclinations that merit self-control? While I do not share the challenges faced by those with homosexual inclinations, I certainly have my own! Here’s the question: If inclinations are their own moral validation, and anyone who disagrees is intolerant, hateful, or fascist, how does that not make all morality absurd? All laws absurd?
If inclinations are their own moral validation, you’ve got nothing to say to anyone about anything. Ever. Including this post, which I was so inclined to write.
AND WHERE’S THE EQUALITY? Why don't we have special banners, signs, months, movements, and masses to welcome every disordered inclination? Why would we disparage a pedophilia inclination? Or adulterous inclination? Who are you to judge? Why are you being so intolerant or hateful? Why don't we respect their freely chosen identity of “pedophile” or “adulterer"? Who are you to say God did not make them that way?
After all, (dear Pope!) if they've searched their will before God, who are we to judge?
At the end of the day, whether in this life or the next, we will discover that the only orientation that matters is the one we all share: from sin to salvation in Jesus Christ.
FAILURE TO JUDGE HAS VERY PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS. What doctor withholds life-saving information and treatment for a patient who is terminally ill, because to do so entails judgment? Consider former homosexual activist Joseph Sciambra's reply to Pope Francis after calling for the Church to apologize to homosexuals. Sciambra detailed his extraordinary trauma and suffering as a result of the failure of the clergy to speak lovingly, boldly, and clearly about his sin earlier in his life. Suffering that may not have happened if those appointed and anointed to speak in the name of Jesus Christ had the holy audacity to rightly judge. Yes, the Church needs to apologize to those engaged in homosexual activity: For not speaking lovingly, boldly, and clearly. For being causes of trauma and suffering. And sin.
CONFUSION ABOUT JUDGING. If you've ever said that Pope Benedict or Pope John Paul II were great popes, you've presumed the capacity to judge. Again, rightly, by standards we do not determine, but in which we are determined. Accordingly, to judge someone’s actions as good implies we might just as well have judged them as not good. Dare I say, as evil. Such capacity of judgment must be extended to our current pontiff. And everyone else. Without which the Enemy will continue to gain a foothold under false piety. We are absolutely called the judge, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer exhorted: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
GUIDANCE IN JUDGING. Jesus Christ exhorts us to judge from a place of standing in His light, with our own intentions and actions illuminated by the searing light of truth: “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matt. 7:2) Standing in His light is the occasion for our ever-greater repentance. Ever greater pursuit of perfection. Holiness. And as we all fall short of this glory, our proclamation and pursuit of truth ought not to be diminished. It is all the more demanded.
GIVEN THE BEST READ OF THIS PONTIFICATE, Pope Francis allows confusion to exist. A more reasonable read: Based upon so many decisions, like dismal lights lining a path abjectly contrary to the deposit of faith, we ought to have serious questions. Less than trust. Along with innumerable, solid cardinals, bishops, and theologians who deeply love our Church.
THE DISMAL LIGHTS include the blessing of same-sex unions, appointing prelates publicly against Church teaching, suggesting those living in mortal sin can receive the Eucharist, disparaging faith-filled believers with regard to Extraordinary Form, or having large families, desecrating sacred places with pagan images such as Pachimama....
I'M PRAYING FOR the grace to be truly, humbly disposed to ever-greater prayer and sacrifice. And examine my own life in the interest of humbly pursuing truth: Wherever I may be adrift, may I more fully turn to my Savior.