Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
August 9, 2000
America cannot be ruled by social lawlessness
Recently in this space, I complained about the sentimentality people dump on American rags-to-riches success stories like mine. In pitying our struggles, outsiders often lose sight of the down-to-earth plans of action and their focused implementation that any success requires.
Sadly, many of us Catholic insiders impose the same restrictions on our own faith. We neatly segregate our Gospel values as rather nice, sentimental, even cute — but impractical. On-the-job training surfs the net way cool, but on-the-job faith trashes bigtime.
Part of the reason, of course, is historical: when religion was integrated into daily life, Europeans mostly — caught up in the continental religious wars and persecutions of the day — abused religion's power. Witness the 16th-century inquisitions on one side of the Atlantic, and the Salem Witch Trials on our side a century later.
Even as late as the nervous 1980s, an American preacher, stirring our fears and rage as a dormant moral majority, can still rouse the eerie specters of Savonarola, Jonathan Edwards, and Salem's Judge Hathorne.
Still, our American soul yearns for the restoration of its moral infrastructure, its moral inner workings, if you will. Here's where I think we Catholics can help in one important way with our new and fully moral application of civil law.
Consider an example of our present legal shambles: when a well-known black minister intervenes on behalf of violent students, he uses legal maneuvers including the race card. Whether or not he so intends, he makes young
black people an exception to the rule of law. Similar instances, involving the handicapped, homosexuals and abortion clinic protesters among others, occur with equally chaotic results. Those who break the law are politically
correct and therefore above and outside the law.
As a direct result, and whether we admit it or not, Americans now suffer a parallel plague to the Wild West, emotional lawlessness in which only the loudest tantrums rule.
But surely, Solomon's loving wisdom still prevails when we raise our legal standards — "You have heard it said... "— to Jesus' — "but what I say is..."
You have heard it said to your ancestors that it is acceptable to harass the abortionists and their clients. But what I say to you is, you must cross the picket line, and tell them, gently and lovingly, "I love you, and I'll keep praying for you."
You have heard it said that sexist and racist language is politically incorrect. But what I say to you is this: when you disrespect any person in your heart, you have already sinned against the Lord your God.
You have heard it said that gossip, especially against the self-righteous clerics and blackrobes, is only a venial sin. But I tell you that your hateful words whispered against any person are the stones you cast against my Mother and yours. They are the nails you drive into my hands and feet.
While Jesus walked the earth, this new law radically transformed the relationship between God and His people, and between Gentiles and Jews. Today, it can do the same between blacks and whites, men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals, Jews and Christians, conservatives and liberals. Maybe even between some parents and their children, between members of families in pain.
Craig Bowman is a syndicated columnist and a public school educator.
