The temptation to divinize the universeFor any Christian, the concluding words of Mark's Gospel have sounded for twenty centuries like a good wake-up call: "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature". Nothing less! To the whole world and to every creature... It is a huge mission; as overwhelming as it is exciting. The urgencies of Francis Xavier and so many others, in a hurry to travel and convert the globe before their own breath ran out, are explainable... Matthew adds to his version a couple of nuances that should not be neglected: "Teach all nations... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you". In other words: everything to everyone. There is no exclusion clause in the message we must convey; the sower must continue to sow his seed without sparing it even among the stones and thistles, since no one knows beforehand if the sown ground lacks a hidden fruitfulness that is waiting for whoever says "Get up and walk!".
Today civilizations, rather than allying or warring with each other, are rubbing against each other and intermingling. That is why it is very easy to reach pessimistic conclusions about the possibility of reaching a truth that convinces everyone. As far as religions are concerned, the question of whether there are a that stands out among the rest also seems more irresolvable than ever. We Christians in many respects are no better than the rest of men. If the Jews of the Old Testament took every opportunity to disappoint the expectations that God had placed in them, we children of the Church that came out of the New Covenant also often disappoint our own and strangers.
But there is something that allows an impartial observer to notice a distinctive feature: our doctrine does not disprove the qualification of universal, Catholic. Unlike so many associations of one sign or another, in ours only God reserves the right of admission, and He will exercise it only at the end of time: as far as we are concerned, if it were objectively possible, no one should be excluded from the message. Unlike other fields that are better laid out, more conscientiously weeded or systematically weeded, in the gardens of the Church the weeds grow happily along with the wheat: this is not the time to separate one from the other, nor are we the ones called to do so.
In short, we must make sure that the good seed is not lost and does not die, even if an adversary who does not respect the rules of the game acts among us.. Hence a good part of the reproaches made to us by the children of the century, who try to compensate for the absence of God that they profess, with the supposedly immaculate purity of their wanderings. But it does not matter: let them be the ones who boast of practicing zero tolerance with these or those beyond. For the Christian faithful to his identity, the struggle is only against evil, against sin, but not against those who perpetrate it, since God has not authorized us to despair of the conversion of any sinner. The mercy we try to practice is for everyone.
On the face of it, the situation we have reached is funny. It would seem that those who throw so many things in the face of the members (and above all of the hierarchy) of the Church, claim almost infinite tolerance for evil and, on the other hand, very limited intolerance against those who protect or pardon repentant wrongdoers. I am not trying by this to excuse those who, having the duty of guardianship, have neglected, no matter with what motive, so elementary a duty. On the other hand, as Nicolás Gómez Dávila proclaims in one of his aphorisms: "At a certain deep level, every accusation made against us is correct". And undoubtedly, those who systematically reject any accusation made against them are wrong, and even more so those who boast of an immaculate performance. But it is one thing for believers to have a lot to improve and another for those who hate us for the mere fact of being believers to set themselves up as supreme judges of morality, while at the same time acting as prosecutors and executioners.
The denunciation of injustice is a prophetic virtue... provided, of course, that it is not instrumentalized in the service of other causes, especially that of persecuting enemies or favoring friends. It would be desirable that those who are so quick to accuse poor shepherds of being villains, victims of a guilty naivety or of a misunderstood generosity (and it would be good, of course, that they overcome both the one and the other), would have been able to apply such severe reprimands to themselves and their allies when the time came. Evil is still evil no matter how you look at it. When it comes to committing it, hypocritical dissimulation is undoubtedly an aggravating factor, but neither does the cynicism of those who boast of their misdeeds to their face serve as a mitigating factor.
According to the proverb "seven times the just man falls", very few of the faithful or pastors of the Church will pretend that it is not their duty to beat their breasts and face all the consequences of their actions and omissions. But, either we have mercy on everyone (bad guys included) as our Master taught, or I am afraid that we will start a dynamic that in the end will give no quarter to anyone (not even to the most innocent). According to what many say, it would seem that there are no sins, but only unforgivable sinners, who curiously coincide with those who for some reason are the object of their hatred.
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Seville, full member of the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, visiting professor in Mainz, Münster and Paris VI -La Sorbonne-, director of the philosophy journal Nature and Freedom and author of numerous books, articles and collaborations in collective works.
