For those of us who are Catholic we are
going through this season in which there
is plenty a person could complain about
and it seems like every time I come
across a headline about the church it's
just more fuel for the dumpster fire and
as you might expect there are plenty of
significant voices who are piling on to
that cycle of protest and complaint but
I'm at this point where I've reached
grievance fatigue and I'm starting to
understand why. I think it's because
there's nothing noble about this
relentless habit of denunciation and
this cycle of blame that were caught in.
There's nothing intellectually or
morally heroic about pointing out how
other people have gone wrong
anybody can point out the wrong answer
very few of us can articulate the right
answer or it's easy to criticize what is
not true but it's not easy to affirm
what is true. And I get the temptation to
respond in the spirit of complaint and
blame. I think anybody with any measure
of intellect can look at the world
around us and perceive injustice but
there's more than one way to respond to
that. We can do the difficult thing and
really the only thing, we have any
control over, which is to address
ourselves and the ways that we
contribute to the evils of this world.
Because if we're really honest with
ourselves, every single one of us is
guilty of the things that we love to
condemn in other people. We've all lied
or cheated or neglected our
responsibilities, instead preferring the
satisfaction of our appetites for
pleasure or entertainment. We've all
neglected the needs of other people,
we've all grumbled about things like the
price of our smartphone without giving a
second thought to the appalling working
conditions in which they were assembled
in and that's just the tip of the
iceberg. So we could do the difficult thing of
addressing ourselves and sorting
ourselves out and making sure that we
aren't contributing to the evils that we
perceive but that can be an unpleasant
thing because it means a kind of death
to self. It means denying yourself the
things that you might want to do,
motivated by your passions and your
appetite and instead preferring the
things that you ought to do the things
that you should do as motivated by our
sense of right and wrong and that can be
an unpleasant and painful thing - an
unpleasant process to undertake. But
there is another option instead of
focusing on myself in the ways that I'm
contributing to the problems of the
world, I could set my sights on the way
other people are causing problems and
then condemn them accordingly and this
can be a much more attractive option
because it doesn't cost me anything but
it still gives me all that sense of
thrill
and accomplishment that I get when I feel
like I'm making a difference. But the
thing is we haven't accomplished
anything and the anxiety and restlessness
that I believe God plants in our souls
and our psychology which is meant to
motivate us to address our own
dysfunction will persist because we
haven't done anything to address it
and that might explain why the anger and
frustration among those who prefer to
blame other people for the problems of
the world only grows until it becomes
something that is much more dangerous
than merely grumbling about your
neighbors. It might explain how we can
get swept up in this cycle of blame and
condemnation and scapegoating until you
it becomes something that, in a
worst-case scenario, can become a
genocidal passion. And that's exactly
what we've experienced in the modern age.
The horrors of the 20th century were the
result of two sides of the same
modernist coin which were Fascism and
Communism. Both of them were
incredibly skilled at condemning and blaming and scapegoating others but neither of
them were very good at offering viable
solutions. Communists blamed the
bourgeoisie for the problems that they
perceived and then promised prosperity
and equity for all. Instead what happened
was starvation, tyranny, and murder on a
scale that nobody could have imagined. And we're all too familiar with what the
Nazis did in blaming the Jewish people. Again it's it's easy to denounce
injustice, it's not so easy to establish
justice. And this is why the modern age
can so easily be characterized by
revolution which is the result of
unrestrained protest and blame. It
starts with this attitude that says, "If I
were in power I could do a better job so
we might as well overthrow those who are
in power and install ourselves or at
least our friends." It started with the
Protestant revolution and then the
French Revolution and the American
Revolution and the Russian Revolution
and this endless stream of revolutions
that have taken place over the past four
to five hundred years. And this is the
attitude that modern people have
inherited but it's certainly not a
Christian or a Catholic attitude.
Christianity and Catholicism have always
told us to address ourselves before we
start protesting and casting the blame
on other people. Jesus told us to address
the log in our own eyes before we try to
help our neighbor with the speck in
theirs and Saint Paul tells us in Romans
that if we judge other people we condemn
ourselves. And then he tells us in
Galatians that if we catch our brother
in his transgression that we should
restore him in a spirit of gentleness
not protesting condemnation. And from
the very beginning scripture tells us
that the first thing our sinful
ancestors did when they were caught in
their sin was cast the blame elsewhere
rather than take responsibility for
themselves. The man says that the woman
gave me the fruit to eat and the woman
blames the serpent. And this is what
concerns me about this current that I
perceive within traditional Catholicism
which is a perspective that I am
increasingly identifying with but
traditional Catholics have always
identified themselves as being the front
line of opposition against 
the currents of modernism within the
church. But this this attitude of protest
and blame is really pervasive especially
in traditionalist Catholic media. But as
we've already seen that is a thoroughly
modernist approach to dealing with the
problems of the world. If all you can do
is denounce and protest the faults of
others then you have embraced modernism
just as much as the liturgical dancers
down the road. So should we do nothing
and avoid the responsibility to confront
the evils and corruption that we
perceive especially within the Church?
Well I would say no there is a
responsibility and possibly even an
obligation for us to do so but
denunciation and protest and blame-casting are methods that nobody who
calls themselves Catholics should be using,
predominantly. The way we deal with
corruption in the Church is by first
making sure that we ourselves aren't
contributing to it. When the recent
streak of scandal started to break, I
was attending Mass and the priest who
was saying Mass said something that has
often been quoted within the midst of
what's been going on which is
that the smoke of Satan has entered the
Church. And the moment he said that I
actually surprised myself when I
reflexively blurted out, "and I brought it
here!" At that point I imagined that the
people sitting next to me were feeling a
little less comfortable for the
remainder of mass. If our appetite for
blame is so ravenous then let's start
with ourselves. There should be no
shortage of things that we can address
in ourselves and in turn making sure
that we again aren't contributing to the
corruption that we perceive in the
Church. And if we want reparations of
justice to be made then we can make
those reparations through penance and
prayer. Start making self-sacrificing
gestures in a spirit of prayer. This is
the Catholic way, this is the way that is
characterized by faith, hope, and love.
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