Traditionally, there were 7 of them. Now Pope Francis has added the 8th which concerns the care for the environment. Broadly speaking, our spiritual duties include but are not exclusive to instructing the ignorant, counselling the doubtful and the focus of this week, admonishing the sinner. How to correct a sinner and on what authority does one do it?
Firstly, one does it through credibility. Take the log out of your eye before you try to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye. All the more in a media-saturated society, integrity is identified with credibility. Ask Nancy Pelosi now made even more famous by her hairdo. Some people query how one could shut down the personal grooming industry in California yet insisted on having one’s hair done by a salon and not wearing a mask at that? She claimed it was a set-up, but many saw it as hypocritical.
That being said, and despite the merits of clearing the log out of one’s eye, we need to acknowledge that credibility is more than believability or even integrity because it is linked to veracity or truth. Although, “street creds” is important before one makes a judgement, it does not mean that one needs to be a Snow White before calling out a truth. For even the Devil can state the truth. This so-called “hypocrisy” test, that is, the fear that one is not “pure enough” before correcting another may have contributed to the moral confusion and darkness of our time.
“Who am I to judge?” gives the impression that one has to achieve a Jesus-like aura of “non-judgementalism” before passing remarks, forgetting that whilst Jesus did not judge the woman of ill-repute, He did judge her sin. Moral truth is independent of how I feel, and it remains a fact that a truth is true even if nobody were living it. For example, Cosmas is unfaithful to his wife but advises Damian to treat his wife well. Cosmas’ infidelity does not nullify the truth that one should well-treat a spouse.
Apart from this credibility test, we also face another kind of barrier. Currently, we are unwilling captives of this resounding echo-chamber of groupthink and thought policing. In this prison of approved narratives, everyone is corralled to think in a particular way that to behave otherwise invites censorship and ostracisation which is akin to social suicide.
Nevertheless, in this season of woke awareness, cancel culture, hate speech, identity politics, how does one engage in fraternal correction? For example, if we accept our Judeo-Christian tradition, there are clearly sinful behaviours which are now viewed as lifestyle choices. There is a subtle but systematic sanctification of evil and vilification of good. Watch Lucifer, the Devil is godly. Or notice our current terminologies. For example, prostitutes are supposed to be called sex-workers—not hookers or sluts. In other words, the “abnormal” is touted as the “new normal”. Perhaps you understand why I have consistently described the present arrangement as the “new abnormal” because the phrase “new normal” carries with it an amoral connotation. The effect is to normalise what is abnormal. Needless to say, given that the “new normal” has become the acceptable narrative, fraternal correction will be labelled as hate speech. Anyone who dares to call out a “sin” will be marked as narrow minded, #bigoted.
We need to break out of this prison of “if I am not perfect, I must shut up” or the fear of being tagged because fraternal correction belongs to the disposition of one’s love for the neighbour. It pertains to our common good because we are not solitary creature. Man is communitarian by nature, and admonishing a sinner has nothing to do with moral superiority. The love that is demanded of us is not emotional—the kind which is “touchy-feely”. In this therapeutic era, the word “love” may have lost its force because everything is reduced to feeling good. As indicated before, “I am good” and “I feel good” are not always synonymous. “I feel good” does not necessarily follow “I am good”. Does it ever feel good to admit that you were wrong, especially when you were so sure that you were right? If the word “love” has lost its meaning, maybe “charity” is more appropriate because it requires that one rolls up the sleeves.
Charity or love belongs to the will and it requires us to speak up. We can certainly retreat into the trenches or security of groupthink. There, we will be condemned to shout above the din in order to confirm our own belief. Perhaps this was the warning of Benedict XVI that the poisonous fruit of relativism is the destruction of the moral order for humanity. Our moral order is not and cannot be of our making or determination. It must be based on revealed Truth who is ultimately a person, Jesus Christ. Since faith is not scientific, as it cannot hold up in the court of “reason”, consigning Him to the margins of “personal belief” will translate into “Don’t bring your faith into the public square”, “Keep your religion out of my womb” or “My body my choice”. That being said, our “new normal” is possibly one of the expressions of the long retreat into the bubble of “solitary” anti-social behaviour.
The title of Benedict XVI’s encyclical can help us here: Caritas in veritate. Love in truth means that truth must always be spoken with love. It does not consist of “banging” people as if we own the truth. In this respect, the other spiritual works of mercy kick in for us. They entail patiently bearing those who wrong us and also to forgive offences. Here, this is not victim signalling but rather that anyone who wants to stand with the Son of God, he or she must be prepared to face rejection.
In a painfully confusing world, Christians have a responsibility of proclaiming the Truth that goes beyond “I, me and myself”. Jesus Christ is more than my personal ideas, opinions and views. Our duty is not to be policemen or women but rather to point to Jesus, His discipleship and His mission in the world. As people of the Truth, we must recognise that the truth is not a possession but rather something which commands our loyalty to the point that we be willing to lay our lives for Him.
To speak as truthfully as we can and know how to are both acts of charity as well as justice. Stating the truth is love because it aims at the good of the sinner. It is justice because it directed to highlighting the effects of sin on society. While charity and justice require that we speak with prudence and compassion, what is at the heart of fraternal correction is actually our integrity. It requires us to bridge the gap between what we say and what we do. In politics, that gap between word and deed is called BS. Integrity and holiness are two sides of a coin because the gap in holiness between speech and action is called? Sin—lying, cheating, dishonesty, etc. Thus, for the disciple, fraternal correction is a responsibility and is not about being right. The authority of Peter, as Pope St Gregory the Great signed himself, as the “Servant of the Servants of God”, is in the service of Truth, who is Jesus Christ. In fraternal correction, we help each other grow both in personal and communal holiness because our discipleship and mission are intended for a life in eternity with the Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Holiness is proclaiming the Truth as we engage in fraternal correction.
