Love for Jesus and His Church Must Guide Any Fraternal Correction

We continue to celebrate the Easter season, but today’s First Reading reminds us that we must carry our cross until we attain heaven (see Matt. 25:46 CCC 1038). Today, I reflect on love for Jesus and His Church as necessary approach to fraternal correction.

There can be no Easter Sunday without first a Good Friday, and St. Stephen follows the path of our Lord Jesus Christ, enduring testimony from false witnesses (Acts 6:13; Matt.26:60) and praying that his persecutors be forgiven (Acts 7:60; Luke 23:34). 

In seeking to serve as prophets in our own day, we might be tempted to cite how Stephen also sharply rebukes his persecutors—“You stiff-necked people. . . . you always oppose the Holy Spirit;” (Acts. 7:51)—and how Jesus excoriates the scribes and the Pharisees (Matthew 23:11–33).

That is, to justify our reproach of religious leaders in our own day—namely, the Pope, bishops, and priests—we might invoke Stephen and Jesus as role models, whether speaking privately or commenting as lay leaders, including on social media.

While we must take heaven and hell seriously, and therefore recognize the place for public correction of even the highest leaders in the Church, we must also remember that Jesus is the Incarnate Word, the God-man who could not sin, and Stephen “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5) and unlike many of us. So, in offering correction, especially public correction, we must be wary that our style doesn’t undermine our prophetic substance, that the truth we seek to share is not impaired by the sinful manner in which we share it (cf. Rom. 12:21).

Speak the Truth with Gentleness and Reverence

In that light, we must remember that Jesus ordained the hierarchical leadership structure of the Catholic Church he founded (Matt. 16:18–19; Eph. 2:19–20). And so we must serenely speak and act in ways that testify that Jesus will sustain his Church in the worst of times, instead of scandalously leading people—not as well-formed in the Faith as we—to leave or not enter the Church because they conclude, in part from our witness, that the Church cannot be a divine institution (see CCC 2284–87).

Father Roger Landry notes well the grave responsibilities of bishops, and also how lay people can efficaciously call them to holiness, while never shrinking away from our commitment to the truth. As Father would agree, the truth can be difficult to receive even when spoken in the most irenic way, particularly in times of crisis. Therefore, we need to employ the counsel of St. Peter, the first Pope, and speak the truth “with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet. 3:15; see John 14:27).

In other words, we don’t want to serve as stumbling blocks for anyone (cf. Rom. 14:13), and thereby unwittingly play into the hands of our truly irrevocable enemies—the powers, principalities, and other fallen angels who seek our collective destruction (Eph. 6:12). Anyone else is a candidate for conversion. So always affirm and encourage the good and humbly reprimand the bad, including, in the worst of cases, making calls for resignation (e.g. Cardinal Bernard Law) or other Church discipline (Fr. Hans Kung and Theodore McCarrick).

Be Angry but Do Not Sin

St. Paul affirms, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Eph. 4:26–27). And, as St. Francis de Sales teaches, “You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a hundred barrels of vinegar.” And thus, we must be mindful of causing scandal in how we confront serious problems within the Church.

How can we renew the Church amidst ecclesiastical and societal disarray, and against such strong spiritual opponents? Only through Jesus himself, who give us spiritual weapons for our combat (2 Cor. 10:4), principally the sacraments and especially Eucharist. As Jesus makes clear in today’s Gospel Reading, taken from the early portion or the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

[Readings: Acts 7:51-8:1; Jn 6:30-35]