"Morality" Tutorial And Case Study (1)

Just as I have for other subjects, such as capitalism and cultural diplomacy, I will author tutorials with specific case studies on the subject of morality. Here is the first one, and I’ve selected a case study that regularly appears in “Agony Aunt” columns (to use the British term for what Americans call “Advice columns” or by name such as “Dear Abby"). This same case study often appears in religious blogs, and the same scripture is cited over and over as the standard answer is given, which is, unfortunately, an incorrect interpretation, application and answer.

The case study is determining what to do if one learns that someone is participating in a secret “immoral” relationship, such as an affair. Typically a “friend,” co-worker or relative discovers that one spouse of a couple is having an affair, and questions whether he or she should tell the unsuspecting spouse who is being cheated on about the affair. Interestingly, a B movie made about ten years ago, that I watched at the repeated recommendation of someone who is in show business, opens with a young man who considers himself kind of a tormented spy, who for kicks, or a misplaced sense of “morality” (the movie never says which), photographs cheating couples “in the act” and then faxes the photographs to their work colleagues. This, obviously, is a kinky and inappropriate application of the case study question about “whether to tell or not.”

I’m going to make a generalization here, but it’s a fair one. In general, Catholics lean toward not saying anything and minding one’s own business. There are several theological and cultural reasons for this. First of all, Catholics tend to view everyone as sinners, and take Jesus’ admonishment to “not throw the first stone” very seriously. (This, by the way, is one of the reasons that Bishops acted so disappointingly remiss in their treatment of sex offender priests. It’s not that Bishops approve of the behavior, but because Catholics tend to accept the incredibly seamy side of humanity they lack the shock value when they discover a new depth. That is reasonable in the case study I am giving, but was a blasé that was entirely misplaced in the horror of the sexual abuse situation). So Catholics tend to be very cautious about appointing themselves as “moral judges” in day to day situations. This is also one reason that Catholics individually grapple with even obvious problems such as abortion, because they often think to themselves of an individual who is in a serious situation, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” These two generalizations about Catholic view of judging the morality of others is bolstered by the structure of the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, specifically Confession. (Confession now goes by the full name of “Penance and Reconciliation,” but I prefer to call it by its original name and function, which is “Confession.”) Observant Catholics live within a cycle whereby the Church, through the gift of Jesus Christ, has a sacred mechanism for confessing sins and receiving absolution. So Catholics tend to have a world view that people everywhere and frequently sin, but then at some point they recognize their sin, repent, go to Confession, receive Holy Eucharist (also called “Communion,”) and have a ‘clean slate.’ Thus Catholics do not feel, in general, some sort of self righteous quivering indignation at observing someone in a sin such as an affair, since Catholics have a world view that everyone sins, that “there but for the grace of God go I,” and that humans inevitably change and mature, and on their own recognize the need for confession and receiving communion during Mass.

In contrast to Catholics, in general, Protestants and non-denominationals are often “nosy busybodies” who feel that they must insert themselves into morally judgmental roles. I know this is a generalization so do excuse me, those of you who share the more Catholic world view that I describe above, but it is a valid observation. Consider the evidence. First of all, look at the name of the Evangelical political action group “The Moral Majority.” It is not a secret that Evangelicals and fundamentalists in particular feel that they own the moral yardstick for measuring “adherence” to the teachings and example of Jesus. However, as I’ve discussed before, they have a huge dose of Pharisee (public displays of piety for self gratification and superiority) and that is a problem, and that is also one reason that many Catholics (including myself) have long histories of being Democrats. Those who think they are “the majority” about “morality” took over the Republican party a long time ago, and I have always found that stance to be quite repellent and actually counterproductive (as I’ve discussed in regards to their lack of charity in the problem of abortions). They justify a busybody and self appointed judge approach to morality, and thus a tendency to gossip and meddle in, for example, an acquaintance’s affair using two broad rationales. One is that they cite the scripture where I believe it is St Paul (I’m too lazy to look up the reference right now) advises that if someone observes sin in a fellow parishioner you should confront him privately, and if that does not work, then bring some faith companions (kind of what moderns call an “intervention”) and if that does not work, then to use a modern term “call him out” in the general church body. I’ve seen these people kind of twist this scripture to be kind of a “permission card to meddle.” Virtually every blog that I looked at in the past couple of years who have the case study I mention of the affair, or something similar, cite that exact scripture. But in reality that is apples and oranges, in other words, a mismatched correlation. Rather than modeling how Jesus “handled” such situations they latch onto a “formula,” since these types of Evangelicals and fundamentalists tend to use the Bible as a “quick reference answer book” where there is a formula and that is what you follow. That, however, is not how Jesus taught the Apostles to think and behave. Also, the scripture I mention above is speaking about colleagues in the same faith body and how to resolve a sin problem. It does not mean that an early Christian would run across town and rat out the affair that a Jew they are working with is having! One has to be a contortionist to think scripture justifies that kind of uber-morality "intervention."

We know this several ways. The first thing one must notice is that Jesus never once set an example of denouncing someone’s personal sin, either to their face, or to others. Jesus had many opportunities to do so if that was the correct thing to do, and yet one cannot point out a single time that Jesus denounced an average person’s sin, either to that person (think of the woman at the well who confessed to him that she did have, as Jesus knew, “many husbands.”) Jesus never expressed a word of reproach to any of the many sinners that he met (and even dined with) about their sin, and by extension, he certainly did not act as the “morality police informer” to squeal to others about someone’s sin. No one can seriously claim to be a student of the Gospels and then also justify gossip and tattletales about a personal sin that they come to know about. So you can enumerate that 1) Jesus never engaged in such practice of personal sin chastisement and certainly not in tattle tale telling of a sinner’s transgressions and 2) Jesus in fact warns most seriously about gossip. St. Paul himself has a very famous writing about the danger of the malicious and unruly tongue. Where Jesus DOES have a very public lambasting of behavior is of the priests and scribes who claim to be the, um, well, moral majority of their time, and who are sinners themselves. The sin Jesus denounces in them, however, is not about affairs or other personal transgressions, but sins against God and the faithful as they misrepresented the word of God. This is why, as I mentioned above, Catholics, in general, have a correct reticent stance about getting involved in denouncing individual sin, but err in the opposite case when they did not denounce the sin of the priests and other Church religious in the sexual abuse loud or early enough. It is ironic that Catholics have endured scorn for this problem because while they erred grievously in the Bishops not firmly handling the sexual abuse cases immediately and with charity for the victims, the lay body of the Catholic faithful are, in fact, emulating Christ more closely than anyone when they withhold from denouncing personal “sin” or morality among the average person.

Here is another way that I have to point to Jesus Christ and his example to explain to non-Catholic brethren why it is wrong to “inform” on someone having an affair, to look once again at the topic of our case study. Jesus, as we know, had a fullness of knowledge of all that will happen, given to him by God. We know this because Jesus would prophesy about the future, including all the way to the end of times, and also, more pertinent to our discussion, Jesus knew that he would be martyred, and so would his followers. Jesus is recorded in the Gospels warning the disciples that he will be martyred, but Jesus deliberately does not spell out for them when, what or how, even though he clearly knows. We know that he knows because, for example, he tells the Apostles that all will “follow him” except John, and indeed, time showed that all the Apostles except John died the violence of martyrdom. So Jesus knew exactly what would happen to him, and what would happen to each of his followers, both the good and the bad. So, knowing this, why did Jesus not “spell it out for them?”

Well, think about what that would have done, understanding human nature. When the mother of two of the Apostles came to him and asked Jesus to guarantee that her two sons would sit at his right and left hand in heaven, he answered in generalities, saying that only God can guarantee that. But what would you have wanted him to say? “Well, this is what is going to happen. First they are going to crucify me, but I will resurrect and justify the faith before ascending to heaven. Then, some years after that, one of your sons will be martyred (supplies details of the suffering and mode of death). And then, many years later, your other son will be imprisoned, suffer hardship, do this, see that, travel here, travel there, and then die and receive his reward from God.” What effect would it have on the hearts of good humans if they learn the date and nature of their death in advance from Jesus? Would you want to be the mother who is told point blank how your son will suffer and be martyred? How about the spouses of the disciples (since many were married, not because it’s “OK for priest to be married” but because Jesus called to him mature men who were leading normal lives before the priesthood was established). Should the wife of St Peter be told decades before that he will be crucified upside down in Rome? What would be the purpose of that? And who could follow the Holy Spirit with a full heart and an open nature with dire prophesy hanging over their heads? This is why “fortune telling,” by the way, is strictly forbidden by God. People change and no longer pursue the best path in life and suffer very much if they are told, either correctly (as from Jesus) or incorrectly (by witches and false prophets), of future events. St. Peter would not, as brave as he was, have been able to be as natural as he was if he knew the exact time and place of his death. For example, might St. Peter have been tempted to go straight to Rome after Jesus died, figuring to get as quick a start as possible at establishing the Church there? And might he not have, instead, been slain immediately, and thus failed the Church as a result? Instead St. Peter did exactly what he was supposed to do, which was to let the Holy Spirit naturally lead him, in Jerusalem, in Antioch, and then eventually to Rome. And why should his wife and children suffered in advance knowledge that St. Peter would be crucified? Is it not sad enough when it does happen, but only after many good years of planting churches and spreading the faith?

So looking at that example, who do you think you are to tell an uninformed spouse that their husband or wife is cheating? How do you know that with that information you are steering two individual souls onto the right path, when Jesus himself never presumed to do so by example? How do you think that you are providing the “best” future for that couple? You cause suffering and perhaps a rupture in the marriage, and then tell yourself you “had to do it” because you are some sort of judge of morality. But what if that was only a phase, where a spouse cheats, but then “outgrows” the situation, regrets it, and quietly recommits, and they have decades of happy faithful life ahead? That is, believe it or not, human nature, and people decades ago used to understand that. For example, many couples have a time of weakness in their marriages and it was so common and predictable (not in an occult way, duh) that it got the name of the “Seven Year Itch.” Traditionally MANY couples, especially the husband in past years, but more often than people realize, the wife, get the “itch” some years into a marriage. In the old days people who found out about someone having the itch SHUT THEIR STUPID MOUTHS. The odds were that over time the cheating spouse would get over the itch, and recommit, especially if there are children, as virtually all marriages had, until of course moderns decided to abort and demolish the traditional family. If people tattle tailed (and photographed and filmed) in the old days the way they do now, most marriages and joy would have been destroyed a long time ago. Only God knows the future and it is outrageous that some people use Biblical “justification” to rat on people who are involved in what the observer considers an “immoral” situation.

Remember, being moral means being “good,” yet Jesus himself, who is all goodness, turned down the praise of being “good,” saying “only God is good.” I do not know a single human who can claim to be clean enough to use the term “moral” or “immoral” about themselves or others. This is one reason you rarely see me use the word “moral” in my blogging, since I do not like to encourage humans to think of themselves as being able to bestow that virtue on themselves or others. When it comes to public policy or code of behavior I tend to use the word “ethics,” for example. I would never talk about a public policy or code of behavior as being “moral.” I am even hesitant to call something a sin, not because I am not vigorous enough in encouraging virtue but because sin is between the person and God. The Catholic Church teaches what sin is, and what is not, and that is appropriate. Further, a Catholic can go into Confession and get a good perspective from the confessor priest about whether something is bad behavior or a sin. So to reiterate, the theology and culture of the Catholic Church provides the correct context for identifying and cleansing one’s sin and does not require “interventions” by people who think that they are the “moral superiors” of fellow parishioners or acquaintances. THAT is being a Pharisee, not a Christian. A Christian who discovers a perceived sin of morality in another person may, after self discernment, speak to that person as a friend, not as a keeper or a judge. But even then I would be very cautious about that because there is a whiff of blackmail in that type of conversation, the way things are these days. Interventions are for things like in the secular world, addictions, and in the Catholic world, a Bishop’s decision about whether a parishioner may be denied Holy Eucharist because of a lack of state of grace to receive, such as the current controversy about pro-abortion Catholic politicians. No one can justify using the holy name and example of Jesus, or through selected Bible scriptures, running around tattle tailing and “telling on” people who they believe are doing something personally immoral. When someone does that they are taking it upon themselves to “abort” that couple’s happiness such as it is, and also that person is “aborting” the work of the Holy Spirit, who lets people who “sin” determine in their own time how to overcome that “sin” and recommit to their relationships and to God. People used to be serene and mature about phases of sin and weaknesses, knowing that with time people usually trend toward the good and the lasting. But nowadays people with the biggest mouths about sin are themselves the weakest morally. We all know who I am talking about.

I hope that you have found this helpful!