On a recent thread regarding the SSPX Pedophile, I advised that we Catholics should also have compassion and charity for the perpetrator.  I mentioned that we don't know everything that led to these sins and we don't know whether we ourselves would not have gone down the same path had we been in his shoes.  I referred to the famous statement from St. Augustine, "There but for the grace of God go I."

For this I was mocked with "Who am I to judge?" images of Francis in that thread.

In point of fact, there's a very Catholic sense in which "Who am I to judge?" is absolutely true.

Judge not, that you may not be judged, For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again.

In fact, even the Church has always considered herself incompetent to judge matters of the internal forum, according to the maxim De internis Ecclesia non judicat. ("About internal matters the Church does not judge.")

Only God can see into the depths of souls and judge the degree of guilt that any individual has in the commission of various sins.  Yet the Church does indeed judge and make presumptions of judgment based on external forum indicators.

What has happened since Vatican II is that the Concilar Prelates have decided that internal forum subjectivism OVERRIDES these external forum judgments of the Church, that subjectivist intent actually represents the true objective reality of the matter, whereas the objective action means nothing, is purely accidental to what's going on, and in the eyes of God is completely trumped by the internal forum.  For them, internal forum is to external forum what substance is to accidents.

At first Vatican II did this with dogmatic theology.  If someone is sincerely seeking God, then that in itself constitutes supernatural faith and charity, whether or not a person objectively has the Catholic faith.  This is what has created the new subjectivist "subsistence" ecclesiology of Vatican II.

Now, in the moral order, they're doing exactly the same thing, with this Relatio from the Synod against the Family.  Despite the fact that the Church judges it objectively in the external forum to be a grave sin to cohabitate adulterously after divorce, if one has concluded in their own introspection of the internal forum that they do not have "full culpability" in the matter, then they are permitted to approach the Sacraments.  So here too, in the moral order, the subjectivist dispositions of the internal forum override the objective reality of the external forum.  That's clearly where Francis has been pushing his own "Who am I to judge?" agenda.  Unfortunately, not even we ourselves are competent to decide our own culpability in the internal forum.  But none of that trumps the judgment of the Church regarding the external forum.  Can I receive Holy Communion after committing a mortal sin and before Confession simply because I am morally certain that I had made a perfect act of contrition?  Absolutely not.

So let us make the proper distinctions between a true understanding of "Who am I to judge?" which Our Lord Himself and the Church after Him have taught and the modernist subjectivist version of the phrase.  Bishop Williamson absolutely nails it on stating that all the errors of Vatican II are rooted in this subjectivism, a mindset that has grown over the years from Descartes to the Phenomenologists and gradually infected Catholicism with its rot.  John Paul II and Benedict XVI were both leading phenomenologists.

"By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?"  Matt 7:16

Wonder what Christ meant by that then?

Quote from: Croixalist

If he is guilty of the crime, let him be punished to the fullest extent of the law. We ought to show our mercy in the form of providing for the sacraments to be made available.

In ancient times, even acts like theft could warrant death. The good thief wasn't called the "good murderer" probably for a reason... nor did he waste time arguing that he didn't deserve his own punishment. In the case of this scuмbag, what has been stolen can never be returned.  It's my personal belief that pedophilia ought to be punishable by death. That way, true contrition might be more forthcoming than if they know they can eek out a feigned repentant existence.

For grave sins of this nature (rape, pedophilia) castration might also work, instead of death. Wouldn't that remove the source of testosterone and basically the sex drive itself (ordered or disordered)?

I'm sure most men would fear castration about the same as death, anyhow.
For some it might be worse!

Well, that's a great option if allowed to live! Say, first offense? Victim's choice?

Multiple victims? Hang 'em high!
 
:judge:

Laudislaus is right, especially about not judging a person without all the facts of the case, and American newspapers rarely give us all the facts which was evidently the sole source of the facts.  Even then we should be slow to judge.  On the other hand....

If the report of the actual crimes are true, then we have to make some judgments.  If we have children who might be exposed to the man, we would certainly be prudent not to allow him access to them purely on the accusation since the accusation seemed, at the very least, credible.  We should do this, which does require a judgment, even if the individual is never indicted, much less, convicted.  I know individuals with whom I would never leave my children alone--even though they have never, to my knowledge, committed any crime.

What I was most disgusted about the whole topic was the reaction of people who condemned the SSPX for their "role" in all of this.  While the newspaper article mentioned the SSPX as somehow being in the neighborhood, the facts the paper reported didn't seem to have anything to do with the SSPX at all (i.e., multi-state trips in a truck, living with the family of victims, etc.).  These judgments were what seemed mostly out of place.  Even prudence wouldn't tell one to abandon the SSPX for this, yet some people seemed willing to do so.

For grave sins of this nature (rape, pedophilia) castration might also work, instead of death. Wouldn't that remove the source of testosterone and basically the sex drive itself (ordered or disordered)?

I'm sure most men would fear castration about the same as death, anyhow.
For some it might be worse!

That would be mutilation, which I'm fairly sure is forbidden.

No problem.  I just felt it important to understand internal forum vs. external forum and how it all fits in with what's happening with Vatican II and the Synod.

If you can find it in your heart to pray for wretches like these, that's fine... but do it on your own time.

Thus the crux of our disagreement.  Our Lord demands that we find it in our hearts to pray for such as these.

Quote from: Ladislaus

Quote from: Croixalist

If you can find it in your heart to pray for wretches like these, that's fine... but do it on your own time.

Thus the crux of our disagreement.  Our Lord demands that we find it in our hearts to pray for such as these.

How's that novena for Roman Polanski coming?

You miss the point.  No, I am not currently praying for Roman Polanski.  I have so many other people to pray for that I am not drawn to pray for him specifically at this time.  But that doesn't mean I could not find it in my heart to do so if the inclination struck me.  I do however pray generally every day for the "conversion of sinners", no matter how bad they are.

You know, the saints genuinely considered themselves the worst of all sinners; they would have considered themselves worse than Roman Polanski.  How could this be?  Theologians explain this as being due to the fact that while they knew quite well all their own sins and failings in the context of all the graces they had received, they were unable to draw the same conclusions regarding sinners like Roman Polanski.  This is a well-establish point of Catholic ascetical/mystical theology.