{"id":12046,"date":"2016-04-27T15:29:04","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T19:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=12046"},"modified":"2016-04-27T15:29:04","modified_gmt":"2016-04-27T19:29:04","slug":"mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html","title":{"rendered":"Mercy, Justice, and How To Tell The Difference"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"(Sharat
(Sharat Ganapati \/ Flickr, CC 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

I haven\u2019t blogged at all about Pope Francis\u2019s Apostolic exortation Amoris Laetitia<\/a><\/em>, for the simple reason that I haven\u2019t yet read it! So I\u2019m not in a position to analyze it myself or to evaluate other people\u2019s takes on it. But Eve Tushnet wrote a reflection for First Things<\/a> which opens with a good analysis of plain ol\u2019 human nature, no pre-reading required:<\/p>\n

Philip Larkin lamented that whether or not anybody refills your drink at a party \u201cseems to turn on where you are. Or who.\u201d In our divided Catholic Church, pastoral care is a lot like Larkin\u2019s cocktails. Catholics who sincerely desire to submit themselves to the Church they love come to their local parish seeking the wine of resurrection; and receive sometimes water, sometimes vinegar. If you\u2019re in an especially culturally-contentious position, you may be favored with alternating doses of each. Laxity disguised as mercy creates a predictable reaction of stringency disguised as truth.<\/p>\n

Read more at First Things\u2026<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eve\u2019s written previously about how uncomfortable and confused our relationship to mercy and justice can be, most notably in her \u201c5 Things the Disease Model Gets Wrong About Addiction\u201d<\/a> for\u00a0The American Conservative<\/em><\/p>\n

If someone genuinely did not choose to do wrong then compassion for that person isn\u2019t mercy\u2014it\u2019s justice<\/em>. And conversely, if you can only<\/em> have compassion on someone if you believe she did not choose her misdeeds, then you\u2019ve defined mercy out of existence. You\u2019re not forgiving\u2014you\u2019re saying there was never anything to forgive.<\/p>\n

And I think this narrative, in which addiction destroys the will, exists precisely because we don\u2019t trust others to have mercy on us or on those we love.<\/p>\n

[\u2026]<\/p>\n

Adam Smith had this cute little tagline, which I admit I am taking out of context, \u201cMercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.\u201d Now first of all, mercy to the guilty is\u00a0the only kind of mercy there is<\/em>, see above for details. But we might also add, \u201cCruelty to the guilty creates pressure to declare everybody innocent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more at AmCon\u2026<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I tend to get muddled in this way, gearing myself up to forgive (or just to be pleasant to) someone I\u2019m angry with by running through a mental checklist of things that may have constrained their choices\/reasons why they could have been acting in good faith, in pursuit of a perceived good.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not a bad habit! I have access to more of my constraints and mitigating factors than I do about anyone else, so I should be leaving a healthy margin of error when I try to make sense of others\u2019 actions. \u00a0But I want to be careful of reworking my view until I\u2019ve erased the fault or infantilized my friend and preemptively taken forgiveness off the table, when it might well be appropriate.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven\u2019t blogged at all about Pope Francis\u2019s Apostolic exortation Amoris Laetitia, for the simple reason that I haven\u2019t yet read it! So I\u2019m not in a position to analyze it myself or to evaluate other people\u2019s takes on it. But Eve Tushnet wrote a reflection for First Things which opens with a good analysis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":12048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-morality-in-practice"],"yoast_head":"\nMercy, Justice, and How To Tell The Difference<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I haven't blogged at all about Pope Francis's Apostolic exortation Amoris Laetitia, for the simple reason that I haven't yet read it! So I'm not in a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mercy, Justice, and How To Tell The Difference\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I haven't blogged at all about Pope Francis's Apostolic exortation Amoris Laetitia, for the simple reason that I haven't yet read it! So I'm not in a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Unequally Yoked\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-04-27T19:29:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/84\/2016\/04\/eraser.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"333\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html\",\"name\":\"Mercy, Justice, and How To Tell The Difference\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-27T19:29:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-27T19:29:04+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\"},\"description\":\"I haven't blogged at all about Pope Francis's Apostolic exortation Amoris Laetitia, for the simple reason that I haven't yet read it! So I'm not in a\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Mercy, Justice, and How To Tell The Difference\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/\",\"name\":\"Unequally Yoked\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\",\"name\":\"Leah Libresco\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"caption\":\"Leah Libresco\"},\"description\":\"Leah is the author of Arriving at Amen and Building the Benedict Option. Her further writing can be found at leahlibresco.com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/author\/leahlibresco\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mercy, Justice, and How To Tell The Difference","description":"I haven't blogged at all about Pope Francis's Apostolic exortation Amoris Laetitia, for the simple reason that I haven't yet read it! So I'm not in a","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mercy, Justice, and How To Tell The Difference","og_description":"I haven't blogged at all about Pope Francis's Apostolic exortation Amoris Laetitia, for the simple reason that I haven't yet read it! So I'm not in a","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html","og_site_name":"Unequally Yoked","article_published_time":"2016-04-27T19:29:04+00:00","og_image":[{"width":500,"height":333,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/84\/2016\/04\/eraser.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Leah Libresco","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Leah Libresco","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html","name":"Mercy, Justice, and How To Tell The Difference","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-04-27T19:29:04+00:00","dateModified":"2016-04-27T19:29:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464"},"description":"I haven't blogged at all about Pope Francis's Apostolic exortation Amoris Laetitia, for the simple reason that I haven't yet read it! So I'm not in a","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/04\/mercy-justice-and-how-to-tell-the-difference.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mercy, Justice, and How To Tell The Difference"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/","name":"Unequally Yoked","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464","name":"Leah Libresco","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r","caption":"Leah Libresco"},"description":"Leah is the author of Arriving at Amen and Building the Benedict Option. Her further writing can be found at leahlibresco.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/author\/leahlibresco"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}