ANSWER by Bro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM on April 16, 2004

Dear Anne-Marie: Thank you for your kind words about our services. Let me see what I can come up with to help you. According to Jesus, the Apostles, and the saints over the last 2000 years, sometimes a tough love must be applied. Often the most loving thing a person can do is to slap somebody upside the head. Indulging dysfunctional or sinful behavior will not help, but harm, our neighbor. This "let us be loving" garbage is not loving at all. It knows nothing of love. The word "nice" comes from the Latin meaning "ignorant". By the 15th century the word was used as "false civility". That is essentially what the word means today in this worldview of plausibility and political correctness that we all live in. As St. James, who was not very nice, would say to those people of plausibility: "Do you want proof, you ignoramus...." (James 2:20a) :) I would suggest that your read, and print out for your Adult Study Class, the essay, Three Secret Strategies of Satan to Destroy our Children, our Families, our Culture, and our Church. That essay explains in detail this whole subject. A common phrase is "What would Jesus do?" (WWJD). Well take a look at what Jesus did. He not only called people hypocrites,he actually did good old fashion name calling (See Matthew 23). Also in Mark 6:11 Jesus said, "And if any place will not receive you and they refuse to hear you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them." St. James in Chapter 2 of the Book of James calls the people he was arguing with a bunch of "ignoramuses". Here are a a few examples of the Saints (people we are to model ourselves after): Saint Louis De Montfort said: "The heretics, all of whom are children of the devil and clearly bear the sign of God's reprobation, have a horror of the Hail Mary." The pacific St. Thomas Aquinas forgets the calm of his cold syllogisms when he hurls his violent apostrophe against William of St. Amour and his disciples: "Enemies of God," he cries out, "ministers of the Devil, members of AntiChrist, ignorami, perverts, reprobates!" The seraphic St. Bonaventure, so full of sweetness, overwhelms his adversary Gerard with such epithets as "impudent, calumniator, spirit of malice, impious, shameless, ignorant, impostor, malefactor, perfidious, ingrate!" St. De Sales was asked by a Catholic, who desired to know if it were permissible to speak evil of a heretic who propagated false doctrines, he replied: "Yes, you can, on the condition that you adhere to the exact truth, to what you know of his bad conduct, presenting that which is doubtful as doubtful according to the degree of doubt which you may have in this regard." In his Introduction to a Devout Life, that precious and popular work, he expresses himself again: "If the declared enemies of God and of the Church ought to be blamed and censured with all possible vigor, charity obliges us to cry wolf' when the wolf slips into the midst of the flock, and in every way and place we may meet him." Now, of course the tough approach is not warranted in every case, but when tough love is needed, it is needed. I think we need to remember the words of Pope Innocent III: Error, cui non resistur, approbatur; et Veritas, cum minime defensatur That is: "Not to oppose erroneous Doctrine is to approve of it, and not to defend at all true Doctrine is to suppress it. A WARNING: If you present this material to your group, be prepared for a backlash. Most people do not want to hear the truth about this. Most are so influenced by the plausibility of our age that they will be VERY intolerant and unnice to all who would dare challenge it. Let me close with an essay from Louis de Wohl about "Tolerance" (Bishop Sheen, by the way said in 1930 about the same thing de Wohl says in this 1959 essay: Against Tolerance Tolerance is not a virtue. It is no more than an amiable weakness. Yet it is typical of this confused thinking of our time that many people regard it as a virtue and believe they are giving praise when they say a man is tolerant. To tolerate something means to accept it or to permit it, even though one does not agree with it. Tolerance is an entirely passive concept, and only too often serves as a cloak for indifference and cowardice. It is, as somebody once said, "the lowest form of collaboration"; and for exactly that reason, it entails a great deal of personal responsibility. He who tolerates evil becomes an accessory to it. Truth, because of its very nature, is absolutely intolerant. Two plus two equals four. Truth must protest against any other result of this addition. It will not accept seventeen, and it will not accept three and nine-tenths. Only four. Besides, there is a certain measure of condescension about tolerance. I tolerate your proximity. Nice of me, isn't it? But the worse thing about tolerance is that is knows nothing of love. It is, at best, the pale stepsister of patience. All of this does not imply that intolerance is a good thing. The opposite of a swelling on your head is a hole in your head, and that is not so good either. As Truth will not tolerate any other answer the the addition 2+2=4, so we must stand for the Truth as revealed to us by God through His Word and His Church and not tolerate any other "truth", but only the Truth of God. We are our brother's keeper and we have a moral obligation to inform our brother when he is about to drive off a cliff (into hell). We have a moral responsibility and duty to warn our neighbor that they are risking their souls by holding to a heretical belief, for example. In fact, what does the Church teach? Among the Spiritual Works of Mercy is to instruct the ignorant and to admonish the sinner. These are acts of mercy and love. If the situation warrants is LOVE demands that we be tough. Such a time was with St. James when he said: "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?" (James 2:15-16) What does it profit if we are nice to someone when what they need is a kick in the pants to wake them up to the reality of the risk to their soul. On your question about Luther, et al, I am really not up on that history. Here are a few links that might help you with that. These are listed in the order of most usefulness to your needs as far as I can tell: On the Sacraments On Lutheranism On the Real Presence God Bless, Bro. Ignatius Mary