I see it again and again. A person receives a "good deed", and they become TOTALLY blind to what a company, organization, political party, religious group, priest, or other public person does in the future. It's as if that good deed, that piece of advice, that website URL, that booklet or book, is a "get out of jail free card" for the rest of their life. That little act of kindness earned them a life-long slave of sorts. What a deal! 

Nostalgia is a powerful drug! And perhaps gratitude is a powerful drug as well?

How many times have YOU seen this in YOUR life: (I've seen it many times, it's becoming quite a pattern to me)

Joe Catholic converts to the Faith thanks to various efforts of Fr. John (usually something small, like a good word, some advice, a book, 10 minutes of their time, etc.), and now Joe Catholic goes out of his way to defend Fr. John, even if the latter gets ensnared in a scandal involving altar boys -- or something equally grave. Perhaps heresy, schism, or slander against good Catholic prelates. "But Fr. John gave the Last Rites to my parents, so I will be FOREVER IN HIS DEBT. I don't care WHAT grave sins he commits which cry to heaven for vengeance. I will always have his back, because he helped my parents/wife/family members to convert/prepare for a good death/etc."

Can't we be grateful, decent individuals without becoming COMPLETELY BLIND to present/future evils in the person?

Or Mary Convert was going astray, and this or that layman or priest gave her a book or a tract, or a few webpages which set her on the path to the True Faith and perhaps salvation itself. Now NO AMOUNT OF DEFENSE IS TOO MUCH. Even if that layman or priest has serious, grave issues that need attention.

Sorry, but giving a homeless man some money does NOT make up for living in concubinage! Come on, can anyone REASON anymore? Is everything just emotion, feelings, and living on the level of feelings like a dog?

The short version of my post:

A person, priest, website, organization, etc. does ONE MINOR NICE THING for a person, and that person, out of gratitude, becomes biased to the point of blind, defending that person forever.

The situation could be as blatant as a guy stealing a purse from an old lady. But if that man helped you out when you were down a few years ago, you're actually going to assume that lady somehow had it coming, that somehow she was in the wrong.

It's jaw-dropping amazing how blind, how biased people can be -- and how easily a person is brought into that state.

I mean, we've all seen cases of it. Fr. X gave the Last Rites to a loved one, and now he can literally do no wrong. Even if I see Fr. X later emptying a gun into a fellow priest, I'm going to give him the "benefit of the doubt" and assume that the priest Fr. X killed was in the wrong. I know it sounds crazy, but I've seen real-life examples that are *almost this bad* and one cannot deny reality!