Every Catholic jerk’s motto
One of the dangers of being knowledgeable about Church history and the lives of the saints is that you can cherry-pick just about any action or words used by some saint at some time in history to justify your own actions.
Don’t feel like evangelizing? Just quote the apocryphal St. Francis quote, “Preach the Gospel always. When necessary, use words.”
Feel like smacking a co-worker that annoys you? Just remember that jolly ol’ St. Nick once hit the arch-heretic Arius.
In other words, take some event or quote out of context and (mis-)apply it to justify just about any action you take or any attitude you might have.
One of the most common historical phrases used by certain Catholics is “Athanasius contra mundum” or “Athanasius against the world”. This phrase is referring to the fact that St. Athanasius almost single-handedly held off the Arian heresy in the 4th century. When vast numbers of bishops capitulated to the Arians, Athanasius alone strongly defended Nicene orthodoxy, and in the end was successful (although after five exiles). St. Athanasius is a great example of perseverance and standing strong for the Faith even in the face of great adversity.
However, I have often seen this phrase used as the motto of those who do not want to put in the hard work necessary to be charitable to others and to change hearts and minds. For example, when a parish priest says something that doesn’t jibe with this person’s personal theology, he will attack the priest and accuse him of heresy. And when he is ostracized by the parish, he will take heart that he has joined the ranks of saints like St. Athanasius in defending the Faith in the face of persecution.
Well, no – he’s just been a jerk and treated accordingly.
We are required as Christians to treat everyone charitably and with the best possible intentions. St. Bernard said,
Even though you see something very bad about your neighbor, don’t jump immediately to conclusions, but rather make excuses for him interiorly. Excuse his intention, if you cannot excuse his action. Think that he may have acted out of ignorance, or by surprise, or accidentally. If the thing is so blatant that it cannot be denied, even so, believe it to be so, and say inwardly: the temptation must have been very strong. (Sermon on the Canticle of Canticles 40).
In other words, don’t go looking for errors and problems in others, but instead pray for them and assume the best. That does not mean that we do not resist heresy, it just means that we always do so charitably – and even reluctantly, in the sense that we hope and pray that the other person is simply being misunderstood or talking out of ignorance.
A more accurate way to describe the 4th century would be to say that it was “the world against Athanasius”. In other words, Athanasius did not go around looking for problems and people to offend. Instead he charitably and forcibly stood up for orthodoxy and then the world attacked him. We should do the same today. We don’t need to pursue persecution; simply living the Faith usually means that persecution will come to us.
Amen! This phenomenon is only amplified online. It dismays me to see blogs and websites whose entire raison d’être seems to be finding reasons to declare others heretics. Thank you for reminding us that we should always assume the best intentions. (Perhaps a new proverb: don’t attribute to heresy what is more easily attributable to sloppy blogging!)
This dynamic is seen in so many pseudo-Catholic groups who support homosexual, pro-abortion, pro-woman ordination agendas. Ideological minorities rally around their us-against-the-world mentality.
They promote the if-we-face-resistance-then-we-must-be-doing-something-right stance by invoking people like Athanasius, Joan of Arc, Galieleo, and Jesus himself.
This is seen in the extreme when it comes to Protestantism, whose heroes like Martin Luther and John Calvin stood strong against the ‘adversity’ of the Church. Modern Protestants rarely consider that Luther and Calvin were ‘oppressed’ not because the Big Bad Church is evil and is out to squash all dissenters, but maybe because they were actually wrong. Maybe the reformers were actually, in the truest form, heretics, and not heroes.
(That said, I agree with Jonathan that the self-ordained “heresy police” online are not only uncharitable but confused about the different streams of authentic Catholic religiosity. They immediately snipe anyone who veers from their narrowly defined way of practicing or defining the faith.)
Don’t want to obey the Pope? St Bernard of Clairvaux is supposed to have told him, “If I want your help I’ll ask for it.” I don’t know the context of it, though, so I wasn’t able to answer the person who said it (the pastor for whom I was working for, but I didn’t want to answer, I was sort of keeping a low profile as to what he would have called my “extremism.”
[...] Every Catholic Jerk’s Motto – Eric Sammons, The Divine Life [...]
Pingback by MONDAY AFTERNOON EDITION | The Pulpit — November 29, 2010 @ 1:10 pmWow, I’m glad I read the rest of this article, because in the beginning I started to murmur, “where is he going with this?” And, yes, charity seems fitting for those who want God to dwell in them.
I am being charitable when I tell you that you are running on empty these days. A better theme would be “When you feel like being a jerk stand back and take a pause.”
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Well . . . it’s true that folks misuse quotations, such as those you correctly list above, but I really don’t think it’s a good idea to attack them as “jerks” just because they misappropriate some historical fact or quotation. I mean, your own post admonishes readers *not* to “go looking for errors and problems in others, but instead pray for them and assume the best.”
I agree with that bit of advice, Eric.
Don’t you think that accusing people of being jerks in this context goes more than a little against your own good advice?
@Patrick Madrid,
I assume and hope this comment was not by THE Patrick Madrid… Your comments on Eric’s piece are off in so far as he did not identify a certain person or clear group of persons as a jerk or jerks. Of course the Catholic internet “space” is full of jerks of every stripe, and Eric is taking a teaching moment to point out one way of being a jerk. Let’s all heed the lesson, scrutinize and open our ears and hearts, and seek continued holiness instead of a clever riposte.
Yes, I am he.
Eric’s advice at the end of his post is quite wise. But in my view, calling people jerks goes against that very advice.
Patrick,
I think you and I might have different connotations for the word “jerk”. I think of it as a light rebuke to someone who is uncaring towards the views and feelings of others, and the word is usually applied to specific actions, not a person’s overall personality. My point was that we can easily defend being a jerk by pulling out the “Athanasius contra mundum” line, when really we were just being a jerk.
Quite frankly, I often can be a jerk myself and would find no offense if someone called me that when it is appropriate (and perhaps this is one of those times?
).
Patrick, Eric didn’t call the hypothetical man a jerk “just because they misappropriate some historical fact or quotation”. That’s really “no big whoop” and Eric knows that. He called the hypothetical man a “jerk” because “when a parish priest says something that doesn’t jibe with this person’s personal theology, he will attack the priest and accuse him of heresy”.
Besides the caustic language and mocking that comes from so many “Catholic” bloggers, they are also often guilty of applying a double-standard even as they complain about the secular media doing the same. We just change who we apply the double-standard to. For many “Catholic” bloggers, we treat “orthodox Catholics” differently than everyone else. If the former does wrong, we will defend; if the latter does wrong, we feel free to label them as “jerks” and all kinds of other names. Patrick, I’ve seen you do it and I’ve seen other Catholic bloggers do it. But Our Lord said that if anything, we must hold our Catholic brothers to a higher standard. The Catechism said that Catholics will be more severely judged than others. Why don’t we practice this? Because we have set up our own “old boys clubs” – consisting generally of orthodox Catholics.
Mr Sammons,
Thank you for this important posting.
One quote I’ve seen misused is the one from Mother Theresa of Calcutta, “God has not called us to be successful. He has called us to be faithful.” I have seen this used to justify complacency in pastoral ministry. To me, it is a gravely sinful way to excuse one’s pastoral duties when Mother Theresa bent over backwards to do God’s work while others who misuse this quote use it to exercise minimalism in pastoral work.
Pax et bonum,
Matthew G. Hysell, MA, MTh
Here’s a good example, Patrick: http://patrickmadrid.blogspot.com/2009/10/hans-kung-accuses-pope-benedict-of.html.
I would use the term “jerk” here to describe your demeanor, sorry to say. And since this is “Eric’s” blog, not yours, you cannot reply that “I can take it or leave it”, like you did to Mr. Hysell in response to his calling you out on your lack of charity in that particular piece.
I could cite other examples, but there is no need – we have all seen enough of them to know that I speak the truth.
And here’s the kicker: Brandy Miller defends you by doing just what Eric is denouncing here: “Guess those who are worried about Mr. Madrid’s sarcasm haven’t read those biblical passages which start out ‘You imbecile!’” Nice proof-text. Matthew 23 is thrown around like a talisman in justification of all kinds of angry, negative, and uncharitable comments. It is a “catch-all” that excuses every sin we commit with our tongues or typing fingers.
I take it you were happy when Brandy came to your defense like that? I am starting to think that perhaps there is some defensiveness in your objections to what Eric says.
I made my point, Wade, and to coin a phrase, you can take it or leave it. You think I’m a “jerk” for saying so? Okay. Whatever. My original point here stands unrefuted: Eric’s post was inconsistent. Calling others jerks is incompatible with his advice to not “go looking for errors and problems in others, but instead pray for them and assume the best.” I’m surprised you can’t see that.
Thanks so much – really needed to hear this today. Quite appropriate for Advent reflections too.
Oh, I agree with the point you made, Patrick. Eric was being inconsistent. What I was highlighting was your own hypocrisy. Takes one to know one, I suppose.
And once again, I wasn’t calling you a jerk for what you said here. I was saying you came across as a jerk for what you said on the link I provided. You have a way of twisting things like that – we refer to one thing and you apply it to another. I can see how that would get you into trouble with the likes of James White. It’s a bad fallacy that your opponents can easily score debating points on you with.
Wade,
A warning: please do not use my blog to attack Patrick. If you have a criticism of him, use his blog or your own as your forum.
“Athanasius did not go around looking for problems and people to offend; (i)nstead, he charitably and forcibly stood up for orthodoxy and then the world attacked him.”
I think that sentence really goes to the heart of the matter. To condemn, to find fault, to moan and complain are easy. Anyone can do these things: children and adolescents do; criminals and scoundrels do, too. The man who is willing to conquer others, but who refuses to conquer himself, remains, in the end, a coward at heart. To raise a great noise and a great bluster – a sound and fury, signifying nothing – requires little in the way of sacrifice and discipline, and therefore accomplishes but little.
To speak the truth with a love and with a dignity that wins hearts – even the hearts of one’s opponents (slowly but surely, perhaps, but surely), requires a true hero’s heart – a hero’s heart accustomed to sacrifice and to discipline, a heart from which all self-indulgence, all pride, all self-pity, and all self-righteous rage have been ruthlessly purged.
Anyone – young or old, fool or sage – can climb atop a soapbox and hold forth . . . but who will listen? A soapbox is a couple of feet off the ground. But when an expedition reaches the summits of an Everest – a region of punishing winds, cold, treacherous terrain, desolation, and privation, a region in which the encamped mountaineers awaken each morning knowing this day may be their last, but still forge on, when they – they reach take that final step, the world stands still for a moment. Learning of their feat, the multitudes at last go on with their lives, but those lives are changed in ways large and small, forever.
It’s that discipline, and that conquest of self, I’ve come to realize, that “separates the men from the boys;” I think people almost instinctually pick up on that quality in a speaker or a writer, and respond to it.
Excellent post. Needed to be reminded of this. Thanks!
Wow — Catholics sure are mean to each other! Anyone drop the d**ch*-b*g bomb yet? Soooooooooooo mature and helpful.
The problem, Mack, is the mentality that it’s wrong to be “mean” to fellow Catholics, but it’s okay to be mean to pro-abortion politicians (Barack Obama), liberal/modernist theologians (Fr. Hans Kung), and other people who aren’t “one of us” (i.e. “orthodox Catholic). If I said what I said about Obama or Kung, you’d be hitting the thumbs-up button (if Eric’s blog provided one). Why the double-standard, Mack? (Btw, are you the same Mack I was discussing Christopher West with on Headline Bistro? Just curious).
By the way, your sarcastic and vulgar (“d*ch* b*g) post was not very “mature” or “helpful”.
I guess I’m surprised at how the comments about your essay played out. I didn’t find myself reacting negatively to your use of the word “jerk,” which I think of as an annoying person.
Instead, I focused on your quotation from St. Bernard. It reminded me of my upbringing. Both my parents and school teachers often exhorted us to “think the best thing” about others who offend us in some way.
Another good example is Our Lord, who, while on the cross said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Of course He is God and can read the hearts and minds of everyone. So I don’t think He said that just to be nice. He knew everything about his persecutors, and he judged them rather mercifully.
The longer I live, the more I believe that ignorance is the cause of a lot of the bad things that people do and say.
About “thinking the best of others” – I respect and accept this watchword very much, but to this day still wonder whether we want to and just leave it at that? I think I would prefer “think the best of others . . . but don’t stand by while your child is humiliated or abused by another’s thoughtlessness – that child’s feelings need to be considered, too!” or “think the best of others who are acting extremely out-of-line. . . but afterwards, in private, to put one’s foot down and set firm boundaries about what I will and will not tolerate in my presence / in my home.” That’s one.
And the other is: what about Jesus and Saint Paul’s words about what to do with someone who is an obstinate sinner. “If you speak with your brother, and he won’t listen, bring another to speak together with him. If he won’t listen to your friend, go to the whole church. And if he won’t listen to the whole church, then treat him like a Gentile or a tax collector.” The way Gentiles and tax collectors were treated was that there was a strictly-business relationship; civil, professional, but the interaction was never allowed to be personal or friendly or anything like that. Never chit-chatting, shooting the breeze, buddy-buddy; it was go in, say “good morning, Mr. Collector, here’s my money . . . thank you, good-bye” end of story. Same for Gentiles. “Here, Centurion, this silk is of the best quality and it’s a good price . . . thank you, that will be ten secesters. Wash in cold water only. I appreciate your business, good-bye.”
Are there people we are called to treat in that way?
Marion, to “think the best” about others’ motives does not exclude saying something charitably and firmly when necessary.