TO ALIENATE SINNERS
One afternoon, some priests and I were having late lunch with Manila Archbishop, Luis Antonio “Chito” Tagle, after a concelebrated Mass he presided in at Greenbelt Chapel in Makati.
It was a very engaging lunch. One priest shared about his experience as a guest priest in a parish in the United States. He said that, out of the blue, the parish priest told him to give advance notice if he ever decides to preach against abortion in his parish. “There are a lot of women and men who may have been directly or indirectly involved in abortion,” the pastor said, “and we don’t want to alienate them with our preaching.” It was short of telling him not to preach against abortion as the parish is sure to be bombarded by complaint letters (or maybe dwindling Mass collections).
If we push the logic of the pastor, we should not preach against sin and evil as for sure there are many sinners in the congregation whom we do not want to “alienate.”
Today’s Gospel is Jesus’ call of Levi the tax collector. The Pharisees criticized Jesus because He did not alienate the public sinners but instead welcomed them and even dined with them. Because of this, Jesus earned the reputation of being a “friend of tax collectors and sinners.”
Political correctness does not alienate the sinner by trivializing and even tolerating the sinner in his sinfulness by glossing over his fault. Jesus’ way of not alienating the sinner is by showing the sinner that his sin does not define his person. That is why Jesus still called Levi to be one of His disciples. Jesus’ way of not alienating the sinner is by loving the person of the sinner and being stern with the sin.
Jesus never cared about political correctness. He disturbed people with the truth and never appeased people with a lie. Fr. Joel Jason
REFLECTION QUESTION: Are you at times so concerned about being politically correct to the point of condoning others in their sin?
Give us, O Lord, the courage to embrace the truth that will set us free. Amen.
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