BEND — True hope-filled courage stands between imprudent silence and indiscreet speech. In my case, if there is an imprudent silence, that silence bespeaks not only the fear of losing the favor of men but also a fear of indiscreet speech. It has been my experience that any strong statement of faith or discipline runs the risk of being rashly judged by the secular society as indiscreet and politically incorrect. Unfortunately, the fact that this charge is issued quite routinely when strong traditional statements are made does not abolish the possibility that a particular statement may have been an example of indiscreet speech. Such strong statements will be the cause of rejection and ridicule but we, who are perhaps more inclined to make them, must be careful that we do not err on the side of excessive daring which resembles courage but which may, in fact, be the product of frustration. On the other hand a failure to speak, not only leaves in error those who could be converted but it greatly discourages the faithful who are longing for greater clarity and strength. Engaging this secular culture of ours and transforming it requires a courage which is neither imprudently silent nor indiscreetly vocal.
Perhaps a description of the need for prudent speech could be defined as the need to speak the truth boldly but to always speak that truth with tremendous love. A great witness to this is our present Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. He speaks the truth quite fearlessly and yet he speaks it with a tremendous compassion, solicitude, gentleness, and sensitivity. He speaks the truth with love. We can be assured that if he is charged with being harsh, judgmental, or excessively dogmatic the charge is quite simply false. I could rarely make the same claim about myself.
We live in a society which is excessively accommodating to sin, evil and error. We live in a world where the hoped-for motto would be: Only love is spoken here! This is certainly attractive and yet, as attractive as it is, there is a risk to such a statement. Love, as Pope Benedict points out in Deus Caritas Est, is a word with such a broad set of meanings that its authentic meaning can easily be lost. The desire to speak only love is essential but unfortunately such a loving attitude all too frequently is interpreted to mean retreating to an imprudent silence where sin, evil and error are never named and never challenged. This is a very real danger. Speaking love alone will not be sufficient to make the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church more present and effective in our society.
The truth must be spoken. A courageous engagement of the culture which does not have a firm and consistent relationship with the truth and with the One who is Truth, would have little in common with the kingdom Jesus came to establish. I do not speak here of the false notion of truth better known as relativism but rather of that which is universally true because it is founded in God Himself or in the nature of the human person. Recalling, as we are the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae and of the founding of Catholics United for the Faith, we must rededicate ourselves to learning and adhering to truth and to the Truth. As CUF founder H. Lyman Stebbins insisted upon in the organization’s mission statement: “to defend the entire treasury of Catholic teaching.” Certainly it is our hope and desire that every Catholic, indeed, every Christian, embrace these truths and that these truths more fully permeate the whole of our culture.
Love without Truth can easily devolve to a kind of sentimentality or romanticism. It is perhaps the difference between being nice and being holy. Being nice is certainly necessary and we cannot neglect this but it is not enough. I do not recall a single Scripture passage where someone says of Jesus, “Oh, He was so nice!” What they did say was, “No one has ever spoken to us like this man. He speaks with authority!” He spoke with authority because he spoke the truth. Jesus’ commitment to authentic truth was absolutely consistent with His commitment to authentic love.
As we could say that love without truth can devolve to a kind of sentimentality so we could also say that truth spoken without love could devolve to a kind of cold sterility, harsh indifference, aggressive intolerance or tyranny. While the accusation against the Church will always, almost of necessity, include such charges, our own prayerful reflection must assure that these charges are baseless and without foundation. The charges will be issued nonetheless but we need to be able to stand before God as men and women who have acted with integrity and charity. This will hold no weight relative to the world but in the realm of the supernatural it is all that matters. The overstated fears and reactions of worldly views while painful are more easily born because they lack veracity.
Neither truth nor love is sufficient unto itself. So it is not enough to speak with that false sense of love to our culture. It is also not enough simply to speak a direct and blunt truth to our culture. What is needed, now much more than forty years ago, is to speak the truth with tremendous love. More and more in our country there is a need to speak with great precision and clarity about that which is true and to explain as patiently as possible why there are some truths which the Founding Fathers of this country called “self evident.”
I believe that every one of my readers longs and hopes for the day when our culture would again recognize certain truths. I believe they long for that day when it is again known that the only true words of love are words which resonate with the truth. I believe that the true hope in our hearts is the hope for that day when the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of love and truth, will be made more fully manifest in our midst. The true hope is for that day when love is spoken truthfully and where the truth is always spoken with tremendous love.
