BishopAccountability.org
	The Rights of Nature By J. Leon Podles Dialogue May 3, 2010 http://www.podles.org/dialogue/ As I said in the previous post, justice must be satisfied. Some Catholics believe that charity does away with justice, that it is wrong to punish sinners and criminals. John Zmirak examines this idea at Inside Catholic in the context of Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos’ 2001 letter praising a bishop for not turning over to the police a priest who raped children. There’s something else going on. As Dorothy Sayers once observed of Goethe’s Faust, “He is much better served by exploiting our virtues than by appealing to our lower passions.” Some of the worst crimes in European history were committed by men devoted to Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. These values, as John Paul wrote in Memory and Identity, are secular forms of the theological virtues Faith, Hope, and Charity. Why should it surprise us that the Father of Lies can mislead men into misreading even these? I’ve written here before of the toxic trap that Mother Angelica calls Misguided Compassion. What if we are nowadays facing, even among the most sincere Catholics, distortions of the theological virtues — Blind Faith, False Hope, and Bankrupt Charity? While the genuine articles are infused directly by God, such counterfeits are cobbled together out of one-sided theology and our sentiments.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.