‘Who am I to judge?’

No one is beyond the love and care of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for even his most errant sheep

Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger

“Thus God leads us by strange ways; we know He wills our ­happiness, but we neither know what our happiness is, nor the way… we must leave it to Him.”

— St. John Henry 

Cardinal Newman

Can anyone read the title of this article without thinking of the famous comment by Pope Francis — when he was asked about a fallen Vatican cleric restored to his position? Whatever the form of his delinquency — reportedly unchaste relationships with members of his own sex — he had repented, turned back to the Lord, and sought reinstatement. Pope Francis acknowledged the apparent retraction, accepting the man’s change of heart, and declined to comment further.

The narrative that was to follow, however, took the pope’s words out of context to suggest an affirmation, not of the priest’s remorse, but of his former behavior, which he had specifically renounced. Pope Francis had chosen to see this man’s identity as more than his past. Yet stories that circulated seemed bent on leaving him there.

When we first heard the report, what immediately came to my mind was the plight of the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1-11), early one morning. Bad enough to have been so outed, the scribes and the Pharisees seized her, making her stand in the middle of the people whom Jesus was teaching in the temple area. Quoting Moses, they sought to test him, extracting his affirmation and disrupting his ministry. Imagine if Jesus had said, “You’re right. Do it!” They persisted but Jesus demurred, tracing something on the sandy ground. What was he writing? Their own sins? They had made their judgment, based on law, but Jesus withheld his own at first: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (Jn 8:7). Beginning with the elders, they had departed one by one. Jesus was with her. Alone. Then follows his judgment, based on mercy: “Has no one condemned you? … Neither do I condemn you. Go (and) from now on do not sin anymore” (Jn 8:10-11).

Jesus invites this woman not to define herself by whatever fear or compulsion may have driven her. It seems to me that Pope Francis was offering a similar mercy to a man whose passions had led him in a direction he came to regret. He withheld the judgment of the law, as Jesus had done on another day as well, in an incident reported earlier in the same Gospel (Jn 4:1-42). The woman at the well had been looking for love in all the wrong places. Jesus encounters her and liberates her from being condemned by her past, branded by a dark social tattoo. He reveals to her his thirst for her soul, inviting her to accept his love as a reorientation or discovery of her true identity, not based on her own lust, passion or addiction. 

We hear in this so-called “pride” month much about a celebration of different forms of self-expression, mainly identified with sensual, sexual inclinations. I cannot help but wonder if we risk short-changing so many people by a subtle form of stereotyping, albeit consensual and socially supported in our time. From what I have come to understand, there are upwards of 60 or 70 different labels by which those who consider themselves part of an “LGBTQ+ community” may identify. With so many diverse titles, even if someone should identify by one, I would feel it only respectful to ask, “what do you mean by that?” Who am I to judge that person even by a title by which they choose to identify. How can I know exactly what their name means to them or who they really are? I want to know more about any person I meet than their pronoun! I want to hear their story, to know who they really are.

It has become fairly common — we heard much of it during the synod listening sessions — to judge the Church as not “inclusive” or “welcoming” enough. I am not sure these words mean the same thing or that either has been well defined. The complaint is that we do not want to engage or accept people living in certain situations — same-sex, divorced and so forth — and that we judge, condemn or exclude them from our community, or even our conversation. Fair enough. I do not dispute or even question that this is the experience of some people and their loved ones who have sought to find a place among us where they feel valued and accepted as persons in or in spite of their particular state of feeling or living. I will go even further as to ask forgiveness, as a pastor of souls and a spiritual father, of anyone who has felt devalued or rejected simply because of how they experience their sexuality or a state in which they are currently living. I do not want to stop there, however. I cannot be satisfied that bland “tolerance” is enough to build any soul-saving human relationship — if that indeed is what a community of Christian disciples should be about. 

Everybody has to grow. It is a basic dynamic of human life, a key to happiness and fulfillment that we not only begin our journey together from where we are — or perceive ourselves to be — but that we walk together in hope of seeking what will lead us to something more. We are not, therefore, defined exclusively by our past, whether saintly or sordid, by what we may have done or not done, by what anyone may have done to us or by what we may have been led into, with or without our consent. We are more than a label.

Jesus meets people where they are — sinners, lepers, the sick and disabled, outcasts — and then invites them into a relationship beyond the labels that leads to healing, restoration and all that “salvation” implies. Yes, Jesus changes lives! As his disciples, how can we refuse to encounter others — even those whom we disagree with or cannot understand — where we find them, or they find us. Friends can stay friends when one sins or lets down the other. Yet friends never leave friends just where they are. We abide with them.

A more “inclusive” and “welcoming” Church may be thought to be one that legitimizes or refrains from challenging ways of life that our Lord clearly wants to free us from for our own good. Everyone wants to feel or at least hope they will not be abandoned, left alone, that there is a place for them in the family. What we learn from the compassion of Jesus should assure us that no one is beyond the love and care of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for even his most errant sheep. If someone wants to walk with me to meet this Lord, our friend, to discover what is in his sacred heart, who am I to judge what God may do?

 @AlbanyDiocese