Wading through the Cesspool: Caveat Lector

Earlier today, Vatican PR aide, Fr. Thomas Rosica  bemoaned the catholic Blogosphere as a place where hatred, venom, and vitriol could be witnessed from  the hand of writers and bloggers claiming to represent 'true' Catholicism.  " The character assassination on the Internet by those claiming to be Catholic and Christian has turned it into a graveyard of corpses strewn all around,” said Rosica, who assists the Vatican Press Office with English-speaking media, on May 11 as he delivered the keynote address at the Brooklyn Diocese’s observance of World Communications Day. “Often times the obsessed, scrupulous, self-appointed, nostalgia-hankering virtual guardians of faith or of liturgical practices are very disturbed, broken and angry individuals, who never found a platform or pulpit in real life and so resort to the Internet and become trolling pontiffs and holy executioners!” Rosica said"  http://www.cruxnow.com/cns/2016/05/17/vatican-pr-aide-warns-catholic-blogs-create-cesspool-of-hatred/

Truth be told, he's right.  To be sure, though, it is not limited to those who consider themselves conservative or traditionalist; progressives and liberals can be every bit as venomous.  The Catholic blogosphere has many wonderful and uplifting sights.  It also includes sites that are little more than a catholic TMZ where salacious gossip, unfounded speculation, and character assassination are commonplace.  Furthermore there are some Catholic sites that make the 5th concentric circle of hell look like the the Von Trapp family.  Anger seethes from some of these sites like lava from a seemingly ever active volcano.  The latter sites and blogs are the hellish little hovels of ideologues who feel slighted that the Church has not swerved whatever direction they think it should.  Both extremes dwell here.

These sites and blogs exists because there are audiences for them.  Some of the writers are men and women of faith who seek to utilize the internet as a place for forthright evangelization.  Some are writers who are publicly sorting out their own faith struggles.  Some are writers who are pitching a fit in the public forum; an electronic temper tantrum for which they want an audience.  All will claim to be Catholic.  Caveat Lector/ let the reader beware!

How do we distinguish?  That's the hard part.  Most everyone who knowingly goes into a Catholic website or blog has some questions or love for the Church.   Many are confused.  Heaven knows that the secular media knowingly and  gleefully feeds that confusion.  What did Pope Francis say today?  What did bishop so and so do?  Did that parish in Middleofnowhere, Nolandia really do that during Mass?  Inquiring minds want to know! At times, the catholic blogosphere can look like a laundry line full of dirty laundry strung up down the medium of an interstate highway.

I offer a simple rule of thumb to distinguish good from bad:

A) What is the intent of the writer?  Is he or she trying to invoke an anger which corresponds with the writer's anger?  Is he or she making a call to arms on behavior that has to be corrected?  Is the writer trying to lead you closer to faith and virtue or is the writer merely stirring up an emotional reaction?  A bad writer will rely on the latter.  A man seeking to sow division will use righteous indignation as their calling card.   They will go nowhere with it, other than gathering a electronic lynch mob.  If this is what the blog or site does, it may call itself catholic but is not.

B) Does the writer need personal enemies aside of the devil?  Ideologues love personal enemies, in fact, will define themselves by their personal enemies.  We can and should expose what is wrong, however it is attitudes we expose that are part of the human condition.  Exposing a person's sins, be they real, is called detraction.  It is mortally sinful.  Exposing sins which are false is calumny.  It is also mortally sinful. If a person is in sin, then prayers of conversion are the Catholic answer, not a public pillory.  Because one is writing  a blog does not exempt them from the teachings from Christ Himself on fraternal correction (Matthew 18:15-18).  When reading this, recall Jesus' attitude towards tax collectors and public sinners.

C)  Does the writer provoke to a deeper holiness of the reader?    A call to arms or a spiritual reflection should make the reader want to grow closer in relationship to Christ and those around us.  If a writer promotes tribes, with his tribe being the superior tribe...run...don't walk...run away from such a person.  What is written should promote virtue even when the topic is hard.

Gossip is gossip.  Attach whatever adjective you want to it.  It remains gossip.   What is written in any venue is not without moral value.  We need to judge wisely.

The Roman Catholic Man and the Virtue of Hope

For four posts, I have looked at the four cardinal virtues: prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude.  These virtues can be cultivated by anyone, believer or non believer.  As the virtues are habits, we do possess the ability to use self-discipline to foster these virtues. Now, I deal with the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and love.  These three are gifts from God and must have God to be properly exercised. Surely everyone can use these words, but what we Roman Catholics mean by this is substantially different than what the world means, both in practice and ends.  The practice of the cardinal virtues make you a good man, the practice of the theological virtues make you a holy man.  Here is this disquieting fact: being good is not enough, we are called, Roman Catholic men to be holy.

The theological virtue of hope is ordered to heaven.  It is the desire and expectation of heaven mixed with an understanding of the difficulty that is present in this task.  Hope is a response provoked by God, ordered to God, and a grace given to make the necessary changes to stay ordered to God.  Hope will play a part in the setting of priorities in this life.  While we cannot earn heaven, we can given a constant response to God as to what we truly hope for.  There are only two trajectories here: heaven or hell.  Our call as Roman catholic men is either to sainthood or eternal damnation.  Where our hope is will determine our trajectory.

Let us not mix up the concepts of hope and presumption.  Hope wants heaven and realizes that it doesn't come easy.  Presumption, too, wants heaven and assumes it is easy.  Presumption hides behind a false concept of the mercy of God' a mercy devoid of justice.  Presumption is driven by a sense of entitlement.  Presumption looks for the low bar, while hope recognizes the high standard that is set.  The heresy of universalism (everyone goes to heaven) is born of this diabolical presumption.

Jesus tells us that where our treasure is, there our heart will be.  The treasure is where our hope is and the heart will orient itself towards it.  Here where it is going to get rough.  Where is our treasure?  Is it in the things of this world or in the things of God?  We will know by our priorities in life.  What do we believe will save us, how do we want to be saved, and what are being saved from?

Let's take the last question first.  What are being saved from?  Do we wish to be saved from fiscal or spiritual poverty?     Do we desire to be saved from a bad reputation, powerlessness, pain, or embarrassment?  Whose the enemy?  If we see earthly deficiencies to be the enemy, our hope will be to conquer them.  Our time, energy, and resources will be dedicated to eradicating these.  I am not saying that these problems are not real.  The man of hope sees these same deficiencies but knows that the bigger problem is what separates us from God.  The Roman Ctholic man is supposed to live in this world but of this world.  He does not measure life by power, pleasure, wealth, and reputation.  No, the Roman Catholic man, knowing that the greater things require sacrifice and even suffering, will surrender these things if they get in the way of heaven.

How do we get saved?  If a man is worldly he will pursue worldly pursuits over God.  The worldly man will try to compromise.  If I sit in a pew for an hour a week that should be enough.  If I send my kids to a Catholic school or to a CCD class, that should be enough.  A failure of hope will lead a man to throw God the scraps of his time, energy and resources,  What God ask for is the first fruits of our time, energy, and resources.  The man without hope will see that last sentence and be revolted by it.  If a man believes he is going to be saved by his own efforts, he will point his life in that direction.  If a man believes that God saves him, he will point his life in that direction.   For the man called to the monastery, this becomes man all encompassing thing.  For the rest of us, is it a constant adjustment of priorities to reflect where our hope is.

Who saves us?  For the worldly man, worldly things save him.  Dedication to career, manipulating how others see him, athletic ability, academic ability, honing a skill all become paths to salvation in this world.  They come first.  They come before faith.  They come before family.  They are ultimately born of selfish desire.  For the godly man, he might well too have a career, play sports, study, hone a skill and such...but never at the cost of his relationship with God or his family.  Earthly hope will have us abandon these relationships, divine hope will make them priorities.

So the hard questions: When you have a choice between faith or sports, what comes first?  What do you teach your kids comes first?  We act as if letting down faith is desirable to letting down a ball team.  If you job is stressing your relationships with family, which one comes first?  The man who hopes in worldly things tries to fill an insatiable hole.  It is never enough.  The worldly man, depressed about that emptiness will try to numb it away.  He will turn even further away from God and to numbing agents: narcotics, alcohol, porn, gluttony, and infidelity.  The man of God needs nor desires such things as he realizes this hole can only be filled with God.  Hence, his choices and priorities will follow. 

This isn't easy.  Hope is a virtue, which means we must use discipline to cultivate it.  That means being conscious about out choices and priorities. The Roman Catholic man is constantly asking what his decisions say about his priorities and what his priorities say abut his eternal trajectory.  The Roman Catholic man is willing and ready to make the hard choices.  He does not care about the ridicule that might result.  Utilizing the virtue of fortitude, he bucks up and gets busy of the truly worthy.

To the Roman Catholic man called to marriage, as you are the spiritual head of the home, you are the one who sets priorities.  Yes, that is done with your spouse, but you model the behavior.  You have the responsibility of steering the ship of your family towards God and teaching your children, especially your sons, how to do this.  You make the hard decisions, the unpopular decisions by worldly standards, and teach them to do the same.  You teach them what comes first.  Without cultivating the virtue of hope, you will sail into danger.  In a simple example: sports before faith or faith before sports?  Ball game or Mass?  Ball game of CCD?  Ball game or retreat?  It will say a lot about where one's hope is.  Sports, by the way, are one of many...you can easily put in other worldly pursuits in the blank.  I use sports, because it is the excuse I hear most often. Are you sinking into addictions to chemicals or porn?  These are inconsistent with hope. The Roman Catholic man is not concerned with popularity, but with truth.

To the Roman Catholic man called to priesthood: We should never see that we have chose the 'profession' of being a priest as the gateway to heaven.  Our vocation is a calling and not a career. The hopeful priest speaks boldly knowing that he must as he is to the parish what a dad is to the family. If a priest presumes heaven he will poison his flock with the same error.  When we do not cultivate the virtue of hope, it will devastate our ministry.  Too often we get caught in a numbers game, assessing success with how full things are.  We can get depressed when we see our flocks make us a last priority.  If we do not cultivate hope, we will be destroyed by lack of participation which will manifest itself in either a going through the motions (oftentimes doing as little as possible) or in unleashing a fury upon the flock.  How will we know if we are cultivating hope?  We don't give up.  We are not scared of the turth. We keep up the pace and are joyful for whatever comes.  We turn to prayer as our strength and not to numbing agents like alcohol or porn to fill the void hopelessness leaves. WE DON'T GIVE UP.

The Roman Catholic man  who exercises the virtue of hope is the brave man.  He will do what is necessary to step towards heaven.  He will set priorities straight.  The hopeful Roman Catholic man is the bulwark against any and all storms that come.

The Roman Catholic Man and the Virtue of Fortitude

John Locke wrote. "Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues."  Fortitude is the bravery to engage in the good.  One can hold the virtues of prudence, temperance, and justice to be true, but if the Roman Catholic man lacks fortitude, he will not execute anything of these in his life.  We are told that the Sacred Scriptures tell us "Do not be afraid" 365 times.  God places a premium on bravery.  These admonitions do not come in safe times in the Scriptures.  They come as the protagonist is coming up against the foe.  Without the stouthearted man rising up, the devil and his minions are given free movement among our flocks.

I would posit that it is a lack of fortitude that has become ingrained in the men of this society.  We have been constrained by the ever present political correctness.  Every historical misstep has been used to define man.  Our penance for these missteps is to remain dormant and quiet.  We have been told to be apologetic about our masculinity and allow more tolerant minds to rule us as we consign ourselves to games to prove any masculinity we might have.  Even there, on the field of sport, the last bastion, are we told to play nice and everyone gets a trophy for merely showing up and inhaling and exhaling.

It would seem that the virtual world is where we are left to retreat into cocoons where we can say and do anything we want. Why is it that many young men dwell in virtual worlds of porn and video games? They are safe there, they can be everything they think they can't in the real world: desirable, brave, the hero, and so on. What a dark and horrible prison to be in!

Brothers, we MUST not allow these constraints to tame the lion within.  This does not mean we go back to the days of misogyny, there is nothing noble or brave about being a true sexist jerk.  That said, stepping up and being a Roman catholic man is not being a sexist jerk; it is being the man we are created to be.

Where is fortitude needed?  Let's start in the home.  Are you the sentinel at the door?  Do you place yourself between those placed in your care and those who would prey on them?  Do you speak up when the world tries to redefine us out of existence? Do we guard against deceit?  We must. For society will take every bit of ground it can and pervert it.  Want proof?  We are arguing, seriously arguing, over who uses what bathroom.  We have stood by while subjective truth swallowed objective truth whole to the point where genetics and biology be damned, if I want to say I identify as woman then I should be able to use the same bathroom as those who are actually female!  We stand by emasculated?!  Oh hell no!  In our constant acquiescence, we ceded ground over and over again until nothing is left to take.  Bathrooms folks...it has come to this!

How did we get here?  We lacked fortitude...we didn't stand for the truth over and over again.  We hid behind a false identity and surrendered our Catholics principles one by one. We abandoned the sacraments and thought somehow that would work well for us.  We made faith a last priority and blamed God for the failures in our lives. No more!  This doesn't mean we break into persecution either.  There is nothing brave about being a bully.  Fortitude is an adherence to the truth, whether that truth be popular or not.

To the Roman Catholic man who is called to marriage:  you are the spiritual head of the home.  You either teach your children to stand tall in faith or to shrink away from faith.  You either teach them to stand tall or compromise away anything of worth.  Your sons, in particular, look to you to see what being  a man looks like.  We must show them what it means to be a  man of God.  We need more warriors and less weasels.  Are you aware of who is getting access to your children and spouse and the influence they bring?  The brave man is wary of such things.  You, Roman Catholic man, are the sentinel who stands guard over his home and defends against anything that would attack your wife and children. God will judge your execution of this task.    

To the Roman Catholic man who is called to priesthood: you are supposed to be the Person of Christ, the supreme example of fortitude, in your parish or assignment.  Are your words a call to arms or a call to compromise with an an insatiable enemy?  Do you have any clue what is being taught in your parish?  Do you step into the breach when needed, or flee from needed confrontation so as to not make waves?  Do you tackle the issues of the day that assault your flock or are you worried about comfort and ease?   What do the men and boys of your parish see when they see you:  a warrior or a weakling?  I know that sounds harsh, but let's be honest.  If we do not model the warrior, how will be able to muster our men to fortitude and inspire vocations to the priesthood?  Again, God will judge us on how we executed this task.

I have a fire about this obviously. My personality type would rather go down swinging than fade away.  We can possess the other virtues, but if we lack fortitude, those virtues lay dormant.  There is far too much ground to retake for us to ensconce ourselves in selfish and virtual worlds.  Our families and parishes need us to man up, step up, and get about the business of the Kingdom of God.

A Pastor's Lament

I have tried for some time to figure out how to tactfully write this column.  I do not wish to come across as whiny nor as have given up the fight for neither are true.  The conventional wisdom is to soft peddle these concerns so as to not drive away anyone who is barely hanging on.  The soft peddling is not working.  Perhaps a little tough love is needed.  I am aiming at that: tough love.  Tough in that sometimes it is necessary to face unpleasant truths.  Love in that the goal is to jostle enough awareness to change to a trajectory that leads to heaven.

This column is not aimed at my parish per se in that most every pastor will have similar laments and concerns.  These are the things that grieve me most as a pastor in the 16 years I have been a pastor.  It should be encouraging that these are the things that grieve me for it shows where I hope to take any parish. To my own parish, there will be nothing new here in that we have working on this for several years now.  These are reflected in the pastoral plan we have put together and will present next week.  These, however, are the battles we face.

So in no particular order:

1. We know we are not a priority  To the overwhelming number of people we are not a priority. We're just not.  We're not in their lives nor their children's lives. I am not sure there was ever a golden age on this one.  However, we know that for many that the parish is not a priority.  It is a convenience.  The sin of anything in the eye of the parishioners we try to do starts with the sin of being inconvenient. Everything must be convenient. Mass times...youth events...classes...you name it, we have to somehow wedge ourselves into the minuscule time allotments that are the scraps of the weekly time allotment in people's lives.  We are not what schedules are arranged around.  We get the scraps.

This makes planning anything nightmarish.  We know that we are seen as less important than sports (any level), a whole host of leisure activities, and life in general.  Youth ministers walk a mine field knowing that the windows they have to get youth's attention are growing smaller and smaller by the day.  We know that non-faith formation events will take precedence over everything religious, even Mass itself.  To try and draw, we feel this need to compete with these things by being fun, loud, and low impact.  It is like lasing a stick of dynamite. We are told we must cede ground to schools (even catholic schools), coaches, instructors, and bosses. As we aren't the parents, many times we are left to the nose bleed sections of our young flock's life.  If we care, and I do, it hurts.

When we complain, we are shrugged off with a legion of excuses: if only you all would _________.  So , we have to pray that some will see us a priority. Thankfully a minority does. 

2. We are barely catholic.  To be Catholic means to be in a relationship with God AND His Body, the Church. Many, however have bought a very worldly view of this.  God is wherever I want him: in nature, on a fishing boat, in a whole host of places outside of the churches.  He is the non-judgemental rubber stamp who is pleased with me despite my minimal to non-existent effort. The majority stay away Sunday after Sunday.  they teach their children to do the same.

Many times it is because they find a Church that is as cold as ice and lacks transcendence so much that it seems little more than a poorly executed glee club.  It is hard to convince people to seek God with us when it is hardly discernible  whether we in the church building are actively seeking the transcendent God. This is much more than ritual, a Latin Mass can be just as dead as any other.

The devotional life is barely discernible. The Church building sits empty most of the time.  Prayer seems to be waning.

3. Christian witness is hard to provoke.   Our faith is evangelical by nature.  It is meant to be proclaimed and powerfully lived.  It is a not a private function of the person.  We have allowed the world to tell us to be quiet about faith lest we be considered intolerant.  We have allowed ourselves to be bullied by the intolerant tolerant.  Timidity has swallowed up our witness.  We see so many parishes fold, close, and such because of demographic shifts.  It wasn't as if other people didn't move in, but since they weren't Catholics, we stuck to our country club until membership dried up.  We are content with not doing the things to not only insure our own survival, but  avoid retaking lost ground and getting about the business of the kingdom.

Too many times we regulate our witness to being do-gooders.  Don't get me wrong, the corporal works of mercy are necessary as a strong witness.  However, they can not be done in isolation of the spiritual works of mercy.  There is nothing merciful about writing off others, even this society itself, as going to hell in a hand basket.  Mercy should open our hands and mouths.  Such silence is NOT a virtue.

4. We know we have created this monster.  This is the poison pill that keeps many a cleric quiet and trapped in learned helplessness.  We pastors know that we cannot blame the laity for this one.  No, what we are seeing is decade upon decade of watered down catechesis, watered down liturgy, catering to entertainment demands, and generally being milquetoast when we needed to stand.  We failed to feed the flock so it went to the wolves who promised to feed them, even if in feeding them they were fattening them up for the slaughter.

We made opaque the transcendent God by abandoning the heavenly for the earthly.  We replaced beauty with banality.  We so watered down morality that we left the people believing everyone goes to heaven.   While there never has been a golden age in the Church, we know that in the present age, points 1-3 are monsters of our own making.

5. We know turning this around is  a near impossible task. Here I can say that in the parish I am in, I see signs of life blossoming, but it was no small task.  Many of my brothers, though, look at the task as insurmountable.  Given the sizes of the parishes in most areas and the sheer costs of running the parishes, we can be terrified that any effort to right the ship will be met with even emptier pews and shrinking coffers to pay the bills.  Sometimes we can define success in terms of how little the loss was under our time.  Very few even considering expansion an option, save where there are population shifts.

The truth is that it is and will be  a battle with each square inch won back at tremendous effort.  The best we can hope for is a baby step at a time.   Notice, I said 'near impossible' and not merely 'impossible'.  Don't forget that grace utilized will conquer sin.  We are not alone in this battle: Christ leads us.

This leaves us in parish ministry (whether cleric or lay) with a choice to make: do we simply wait out our time or do we regain our footing and start addressing these issues?  It is not enough to state what is wrong and then shrug our shoulders and walk away.  We are responsible before God for the care we gave His flock.  Tough love is going to be required.  It is going to be required within our families and parishes.  Making faith really a priority is going to necessitate our helping them.  We won't help them by pandering to the lowest common denominator.  We will help them by teaching the Gospel in its fullness.  We cannot expect parents to stand their ground if we will not stand ours. We cannot expect them to witness if we will not.  We cannot ask them to make hard choices if we won't.

We are not without hope.  We might well have abandoned God, but He has not abandoned us.  It is not going to be easy.  Not for any of us.  My final lament as a pastor is that we need more to gain hope and faith.  I know that all I can do is propose these things, I cannot impose them.  I simply do not possess the ability to make people respond I as would have them do.  Free will is like that, it is left to the choice of the individual.  That I cannot change.  I can offer, teach, and try to do what is wanted of me by God.  I cannot make those who do not wish to see to see.  All I can do is try to shed a light of truth.  That is all.

Final thought: notice what doesn't grieve me...money.. Not because we have it, but because I run a parish and not a business.










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Is the Culture war lost?

There is a lot of angst out there about what is going on in society.  This is not without just cause. The battlefronts are multiple. Let's be honest, it is getting brutal out there.  Actually, it has gotten to the point of being ridiculous.  Why all the angst from some quarters about the culture wars being lost and is there merit to this?

Let's start at the core of the problem: the human person.  Within the human person is a constant battle between selflessness and selfishness.  We are born selfish.  An infant does not know or care that its screaming at 2AM has any negative effect on mom and dad.  It knows that it is hungry, scared, or has a full diaper as is incapable of fixing said problem.  They know if the cry, someone will hopefully come to the rescue.  As that child grows and its abilities grow with it, then the expectation grows of that child growing away from selfishness and growing towards selflessness.  In fact, classically, a child's growth towards selflessness and altruism have been marks of maturity.  A failure  to grow towards selflessness and altruism was seen as a sign of a psychological disorder that led to sociopathic  behavior.  A society of coddling, manufactured self esteem, enabling, and participation trophies has not served the last two generations well. 

It is well known that selfless behavior and altruistic behavior lead to personal contentment and union in whatever entities the person belonged.  However, where selfishness rules, there can be no other option than strife and division.  When a society becomes narcissistic, then discord will become the norm.  Selfishness is only capable of breeding personal discontent and creating an insatiable entitlement.

The more narcissistic a person becomes, the more objective truth becomes the enemy.  Objective truth are those things that are true of their own merit; they do not need my personal approval to be true.  Subjective truth are things true because I say so; they are matters of personal preference and opinion.  What we are seeing is the society falling into the tyranny of subjective truth.  Our society is not the first to fall into this trap, nor will it be the last.  Historically, the descent into such a tyranny does not end well.

The tyranny of subjective truth has indeed reached the point of craziness.  Statements do not even have to have any basis in reality.  We can now declare gender regardless of any physical, genetic, biological, or scientific criteria.  We can change our race by mere proclamation. There are multiple such fiats on every imaginable topic.   In this tyranny, other simply must accept whatever fiat is made and surrender their own dispositions to mine.  If you do not accept my fiat, you are a danger to me and must be eliminated.  The more tyrannical the narcissists becomes, the more voices contrary to their own must be silenced.  To be sure, we are seeing this played out on multiple fronts.

From this, suppression of free speech arises.  Your freedom must be curtailed if you do not cater to the demands of the narcissist. From this arrives the loathsome development of safe zones where no voice is heard other than my own (that is lasing the stick a dynamite for a narcissist). The debate of ideas devolves into a chorus of personal attacks where the word intolerance rains down like confetti.  If we stay on this road, there will be no other option than totalitarianism.   

With all this said, is all lost? No.  First, these things are not endemic to our society.  Others societies have gone through this.  Some were able to rise above it, some were destroyed by it.  Which happens to us is dependent on the ability of selfless to rise to the occasion and stand their ground.  Second, it is not as if objective truth has not been the victim of attempted assassination before. That is the beauty of objective truth, it always survives like a pheonix.  This isn't to say the war isn't going to be bloody.

For those who are followers of Christ: Jesus tells us multiple times to not be afraid.  Current persecutors who believe they will finally crush Christianity and Catholicism will end up on the same ash heap of history as every supposed victor.  Our lot is to stand our ground, to stick to the truth in boldness and charity.  No battle is won until one sides cedes the ground.  Honestly, we have ceded much ground.  That needs to stop.  This does mean we employ the same tactics as used against us?  No, quite the opposite.  We do not surrender the commandment to love in how we respond on the battlefield.  No victory will come if we respond in kind.  It never has.  The reason Christianity wins out is because we take a different road.

So chin up, fix your gaze, and know we might get bloodied, but we can not be defeated.   While we might well loose some battles, the war is never lost.   

The Roman Catholic Man and the Virtue of Justice

I would imagine that the cardinal virtue of justice might well be one of the most hotly contested in definition in our society. One camp would hold that justice is the giving to another that which his or her actions deserve.  A plea is made to Exodus 21:24, sometimes known as the lex taliones, which says "and eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth..." This is not so much a biblical prescription for the righteousness in taking revenge as it is a placement of restraint for the amount of vengeance that could be taken. In this interpretation, justice is the rendering of retaliation for wrong.  Is this what is meant by the cardinal virtue of justice?  Is it that we have a divine commission to rain down punishment on the guilty because they deserve it?

Those Christians who love to quote Exodus 21:24 quickly forget that Jesus negated such as interpretation in Matthew 5:36-41 where Jesus states "You have heard it said to you and eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth, but I say to you...turn the other cheek".  Does this sound like the allowance for revenge as justice?  NO.  What changed?  The Incarnation changes this.  This leads to the definition of the virtue of justice within the Church.

If justice was about rendering to another that which their actions, for good or for ill, merited, then the Incarnation  (the Son of God fully becoming human as well in all things but sin) doesn't happen. Our sins merit hell.  They merit eternal punishment.  This is what we deserved.  As St. Paul reminds us multiple times, God sent His Son while we were still sinners.  God didn't give what we deserved, but what we needed.  To render to another that which is needed is the definition of the cardinal virtue of justice.  The corporal and spiritual works of mercy are powerful examples of this.  As a quick aside, the false definition of social justice as a delegating of personal responsibility to engage in justice to the state is not what we are talking about.  We may ask the state to be just, but this does not absolve of us personal responsibility.  Taxes do not equal charity.

For the Roman Catholic Man, cultivating the virtue of justice requires the discipline of love.  It requires a man to actively be aware of those around him and to look to their needs, especially when they cannot do this themselves.  Furthermore, the virtue of justice holds a man back from the abuse, exploitation, neglect, or apathy towards another person.  To give an example, pornography is a sin against justice in that it reduces another person to a means to a personal end of self-gratification.  It leads to a stripping away of a person's dignity.  That the person might well have surrendered that dignity does not mean we should take it; what is needed by the person is their dignity to be respected even if their actions do not merit such.

The call to forgiveness that is constant within the New Testament, it is a rendering of judgement that allows mercy to temper any and all forays into vengeance.  The sinner needs forgiveness.  They might merit condemnation, but forgiveness is the standard to which the Roman Catholic man is called.

For the Roman Catholic man called to marriage.  To render justice, you must come last.  Your wife and children come first.  God comes first. Justice requires selflessness.  Their needs come before your wants.  Sometimes it comes before your needs. When dealing with mistakes and sins, regardless of their severity, the use of anger and vengeance are always wrong.  Abuse is never justified.  As spiritual head of the home, you are to be the model of restraint, mercy, and forgiveness.  Sometimes, especially with children, the removal of something to correct behavior might be what they need.  For example to find your son viewing porn.  It is in his best interest to restrict access to the internet.  This is not vengeance as it is doing what is necessary to correct the behavior so as to set thing back on the road on which they should be.  Ignoring or enabling bad behavior is just as unjust as inflicting revenge.  Hence the virtue of prudence is necessary in how to exercise justice.

For the Roman Catholic man called to priesthood. God and your flock come first.  We are to be poured out like a libation, as St. Paul says of himself, for the good of those God has placed in our care.  Fear cannot mitigate message.  Our flock may not want to hear the truth about Catholic morality.  This does matter, they need to hear it.  Our flock has a need to a Mass which orients them to God.  Our flocks need to experience mercy; regulating confession to 45 minutes or less at the most inconvenient time is criminal.  Our flocks need Jesus.  They need the truth.  Our flocks need forgiveness and mercy.  They need to find this in their parish.  Woe to the priests who is neglectful or abusive!  We are to model ourselves after Christ Himself, who gave the totality of his entire being for the good of the flock.  It is that high standard to which we are held.

As Roman Catholic men, we need to recapture this virtue of justice.  In a society transfixed by entitlement and selfishness, the selflessness of the just man is a powerful witness that provides the safe harbor needed by those who are tossed about by the storms of this life, especially the storms of their own making.  We need to model our judgement and its rendering on Jesus Christ Himself. 

The Roman Catholic Man and the virtue of Temperance

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Honestly, when many hear the word temperance, visions of scary looking ladies with hatchets just going to town destroying bars can come to mind. Ironically the temperance movement in this country wasn't really about temperance; at least not about the virtue of temperance. The cardinal virtue of temperance is the virtue concerning self-control, voluntary restraint, and moderation. 

This virtue restrains the sinful nature of the deadly sins of lust, greed and gluttony.  Temperance keeps us from the self indulgence of either craving or consuming too much.  Temperance also tells us what are the things we need to stay away from altogether.  As with the other virtues, the Roman Catholic man, motivated by love, trains himself to use wisely the things of this world for the sake of those placed under his care and as a witness to the larger world.

Temperance holds us firm in the face of falling into addiction.  This virtue informs our will that the use of certain items which are not evil in and of themselves (food, drink, alcohol) are always to be used in moderation and never to be seen as a crutch.  This virtue also informs us to stay away from certain items that are evil in their nature (pornography) lest we damage the relationships we have.

In conjunction with prudence, the Roman Catholic man is given the divine help to learn what is a proper use of his time and what is a waste of time on the basis of whether the behavior being engaged in is to the betterment or abasement of man himself and to the betterment or abasement of those placed under his care.  Temperance also helps him to set his priorities straight, knowing they either guide himself and those placed in his care towards or away from God.

Temperance is about detachment from worldly things, using them correctly.  Temperance underlies the use of the will in the mortifications of  abstinence and fasting.  Temperance helps the Roman Catholic man towards chastity (the right ordering of one's use of sexuality) so that he never degrades himself or others sexually so as to achieve a fleeting moment of pleasure.  In fact, the Roman Catholic man who hones the discipline of temperance does not see pleasure as a primary goal in life.  Informed by love, temperance gives us the ability to embrace sacrifice and suffering for those whom we love.

For the Roman Catholic man called to marriage, the virtue of temperance and its attendant discipline affords him the necessary mastery over himself to correctly navigate the balance needed in being the spiritual head of the home.  Not enslaved to pleasure or self aggrandizement, he is free to consciously and soberly lead, provide, and protect those placed under his care.  He can place himself last as an act of love, never allowing his wants to trump the needs of those laced in his care.  The temperate man is not willing to jeopardize the welfare of others for his own self-gain.

For the Roman Catholic man called to the priesthood, the virtue of temperance and its attendant discipline affords him the ability to act always in the person of the Good Shepherd, putting his own desires aside for the good of the flock assigned to him.  The temperate priest is a fitting model for the men of his parish in what Catholic masculinity looks like.  Not given to sin, he is free to openly act as the Persona Christi in all his endeavors.  He is able to live simply as the Church calls him to live, as is seen in Canon Law (Canon 282).

Temperance is so needed in this culture where the tyranny of selfishness has emasculated men into being driven like livestock from one transitory pleasure to another.  The only outcome of this is the attachment to compensatory behaviors (abuse of alcohol, narcotics/ use of pornography...to name a few) which further break down any classical sense of masculinity.  The Roman Catholic man needs to be witness and light in such grave darkness; to remind all men of the greatness to which they were called and created.