"Always remember that gentleness and persuasion penetrate into the soul, while firmness and rigor cause only an external change.  Severity and direct opposition to people's evil dispositions serve merely to break them; it almost never leads to a cure.  Tolerate the evil for a long time, and if, at times, you think you ought not to suffer it any longer, suffer it still, and you will see in the end that you did the right thing...many people are lost through discouragement.  This is the universal evil especially among the devout.  Sustain and encourage and you will see that Our Lord will come to your assistance."  -- Venerable Francis Libermann (founder of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart, which later merged with the Congregation of the Holy Ghost - often referred to as the "Second Founder of the Holy Ghost Fathers" - the order from which Archbishop Lefebvre came. He was declared Venerable by Pope Pius IX in 1876.)

And never dull down the truth for the sake of human respect.

Absolutely - and the Venerable Father Libermann didn't say to do so.  But sometimes we are a little quick to point out the truth (as harsh as it can sometimes be) when it is perhaps not appropriate.  It is one thing to deny the truth to not offend, and another to slowly introduce a person to the truth without scaring them away.

There is a rather old adage that goes: "you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar".  That is perfectly in line with what the Venerable Father is saying above.

Is it better to blurt out the truth and lose a soul forever than to bide one's time and bring it to a person gently when the end result is more likely to be conversion and, consequently, salvation?

Oh so never tell a person they're anathema?  Even when the facts speak for themselves, when they show themselves to be anathema by their very words?

If someone speaks heresy to you, if you immediately reply "you are anathema!" do you think they will ask you to extrapolate and beg for your forgiveness, or do you think they will be turned off listening to you - you being perhaps the only person who may be the one to SLOWLY bring them to the truth through gentle coercion?

CM can call me anathema and a heretic all he wants.  I don't take it personally nor will it stop me from listening to his point of view.  I'm no pansy.  I would seriously question anyone who is such a wuss that they can't abide the sterile bleating of a Feeneyite without storming off in a huff.  This is one of the perils of the times and not the worst of them.

If it were the Pope saying that I was anathema, however -- a real Pope -- you'd better believe that it would be effective.  I'd say "Holy Father, what can I do to have this sentence lifted?  Please let me kiss the scabs on your feet for the next six months."

Are you a Feeneyite Jamie?  Do you realize St. Thomas did not say those qualifying for baptism of desire are touched with water?  Yet you would say we MUST believe his throwaway comment that goods become "common property" in an emergency?  Okay -- you MUST believe that no water touches those who are baptized by desire.

Situation 2 is the first thing we should try.  And when we do it agains and again and again, we have already gone beyond this:

"A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid:  Knowing that he, that is such an one, is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment."

Please don't think for a minute that I don't believe there is a time and place to condemn - there certainly is - and I would be the first to erect the stake.  What I am hoping we might all get from the original comment is that sometimes our emotions prevent us from realising that we need to wait that one more day - to be patient just a little longer.  Here is a requote of what I initially posted:

"Tolerate the evil for a long time, and if, at times, you think you ought not to suffer it any longer, suffer it still, and you will see in the end that you did the right thing."