My friend His Hermeneuticalness has hit for six.
Here is a sample. But definitely go over to his place and spike his stats even while reading the rest of this excellent entry.
My emphases and comments:
Judge not, that you may not be judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. (Matt 7.1-2)
How often do we see this verse quoted in response to Catholic blog posts? Criticise the public actions of a politician or a high-ranking ecclesiastic and you can be sure that someone will say that you should not be "judgmental". Should bloggers cringe in shame at failing to observe the teaching of Our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount? I think we can reasonably take a deeper look at this. [Do I hear an "Amen!"?]
We cannot "judge" someone in the way that God judges us. (He will judge us, by the way.) [As a matter of fact, we will receive His judgment whether we want it or not. But His mercy is ours for the asking.] We do not have the right to make such a judgement, or in fact the information on which to base it. Only God knows the subjective state of an individual’s soul. So even if we consider the infernal columns’ brutal repression of the rising in the Vendée, the Mexican campaign against priests such as St Christopher Magellanes, the shooting of the intellectuals in Mao’s China or Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Lenin and Stalin’s atrocities (or indeed the Nazi concentration camps) it is still only God who can judge the individual’s state of soul. Nevertheless, we can and should judge all of those publicly known horrors as objectively evil. [We human beings are made in God’s image, with an intellect and the ability and obligation to make judgments. Not as God judges, but according to the Truth. We have our intellect and also the help of authority for the process of making judgments about that which is good, true and beautiful. To refuse to make judgments about such things is to deny our humanity.]
In the case of politicians who have voted in favour of abortion, embryo experimentation, assisted suicide, and passive euthanasia, we are entitled to look at their voting record and to make an objective judgement that what they have voted for is wrong, and call them to account for it. A public figure, making public decisions, in the public square, [open actions in the public square!] may be subjected to reasonable judgement as to the rightness or wrongness of their public actions. The political life of the country would not function without the people being able to express their opinions in such matters.
[…]
