Father Dwight Longenecker went on a rant, and it was too true. The only thing I would add is that there are a bushel and a peck of conservative hypocrites to sit on the shelf alongside the liberals. But that is another post, one which I need to write.
Here’s part of what Father Dwight said:
The attack on hypocrites in religion typically focusses on the uptight, self righteous conservative Catholic who judges others while they themselves are guilty of the same sin.
You know the schtick: “Mildred is always saying what terrible sinners young people are for sleeping around, but it turns out she’s been having sex with her neighbor’s husband!”
or “Those Catholics are such hypocrites. They’re always talking about helping the poor, but they’re sitting pretty in their big houses and driving their posh cars.”
The first thing to observe is that every Christian is a hypocrite to a certain extent simply because we uphold a moral standard that is impossible to achieve until we have become saints. In other words, we fail. We stumble and fall. Furthermore, we cover up our failures and we hide our shame.
So we’re all hypocrites. My hand is up. I’m a hypocrite. You’re a hypocrite. If we are not yet saints, then we are still a work in progress and we must admit that we stand for a heroic standard of behavior that we are still trying to attain.
What nobody ever talks about, however, are the particularly Catholic form of hypocrites which are paraded in front of us all the time with absolutely no shame. In fact these hypocrites wear their lying, two faced hypocrisy on their sleeve and seem to be proud of it.
I’m talking about liberal Catholics who think it’s smart to be “cafeteria Catholics”.
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