Who Am I to Judge? – 3

It still would have been better not to have lied. I might have said, “Mrs Florsheim, I have never seen a hat like that one!” or “”My dear, only you could wear that hat!”

Consequently, Catholics are able to make judgements about much more thorny moral issues with objectivity and a shrug of the shoulders because while we judge an action we do not judge the person’s guilt. We do not make a definitive judgement on the person’s guilt because we do not know al the circumstances and motivation.

Most non-Catholics do not understand these distinctions and therefore misunderstand Catholic judgements in two destructive and opposite ways.

Firstly, when they hear us make a judgment about the objective right-ness or wrong-ness of an action they think we are making a judgement on the culpability of the person, and not just the person’s culpability, but also their worth as a person, whether they are a nice person or not or whether we like them or not. So if I say, “Living together before marriage is wrong.” All they hear is a personal judgement and rejection of the person. No matter how much I make the statement objective and non judgmental they hear otherwise.

Secondly, when we do not make a judgement of the person they accept it as condoning the action–which we might very well wish to condemn. So when Pope Francis rightly said he did not judge the gay person the world heard him saying that he did not condemn homosexual actions. Wrong response. He was simply being Catholic in not judging the gay person’s culpability, but if anyone had said, “So Hoy Father does that mean you approve of gay sex?” He would have immediately corrected them.

So can we judge? Yes. We can judge whether an action is objectively right or wrong. We do so not out of our own personal opinion, but based on natural law and divine revelation.

Do we judge the guilt of the person, rejecting or accepting them because of their decision? No. That’s not for us to do either in this world or in the next.

God’s the judge. Because he knows everything he knows all the intricacies of all the circumstance and motivations. He is therefore the only one who can judge one’s guilt or innocence.