Oscar Romero – eyebeleave

To judge or not to judge?

2281 words, 12 min read

This, like so much of putting Jesus’ teachings into practice, is at the same time utterly simple and rather complex. Are we to judge whether an act is right or wrong so that we may choose good over evil, or are we to abstain from judgement lest we, who are weak, imperfect and flawed, be judged ourselves? The immediate response to both – on the face of it – opposed questions is an obvious yes, which points to the need for a qualifier that in some cases points to non-judgment and in others to judgment.

How is that to be arrived at though? Again, simplicity and complexity meet: I just have to listen to my conscience (in the intimacy of which it is the Holy Spirit who speaks), but I must also involve intelligence, given to me by God to participate in the universe in a free and informed way.

As tends to be the case, what is to be sought here is not a decision tree of if-then casuistry, but an imitation of Christ. And where better to start understanding that than in the Gospels.

There, Luke 6 offers a first glimpse of both horns of the dichotomy. In verses 24-26 that follow Jesus’ setting out of the beatitudes, he reels off a series of warnings, which contain clear, negative judgments of wealth, satedness, jolliness, and good reputation:

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.” (Luke 6:24-26)

A few verses later (37-42, and also in Matthew 7:1-5) we get Jesus’ famous denunciation of judgment, condemnation and the holding of grudges, followed by a call to forgiveness and mercy that he promises will be reciprocated:

“Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” And he told them a parable, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.” (Luke 6:37-42)

In John 7 we then find Jesus encouraging his listeners in the temple to “Stop judging by appearances, but judge justly.” (7:24) when they condemn him for having worked a miracle on the Sabbath even though the Scriptures recount Moses performing a circumcision on the same day.

In the next chapter, John then recounts the episode of the adulteress who was about to be stoned to death and whose accusers had a change of heart when he challenged them by asking him who is without sin to throw the first stone. When the mob dispersed, Jesus said to the woman:

““Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, [and] from now on do not sin any more.”” (8:10-11).

Notice how this verse and a half contains both judgment (adultery is sin) and not judging (the woman). In fact, later in the same chapter we have Jesus saying: “You judge by appearances, but I do not judge anyone. And even if I should judge, my judgment is valid, because I am not alone, but it is I and the Father who sent me.” (8:15-16) when some Pharisees tell him that his statements about himself are not trustworthy. Again Jesus declares himself as not judging any person, even though he could.

In Matthew 18:6 we hear Jesus quite dramatically judging what appears to be a person, when he says the following (which is also found at Mark 9:42 and Luke 17:2):

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

Notice also how this pattern echoes in Jesus words about Judas at the Last Supper:

“He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me. The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.” (Matthew 26:23-24)

Next, we come to two epic judgment episodes in Jesus’ public life, both recorded by Matthew. The first is a vehement tirade against scribes and Pharisees, where you can imagine the veins on Jesus’ neck bulging as he spat it out:

“Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens [hard to carry] and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’ As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven[h] before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves.

“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If one swears by the temple, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.’ Blind fools, which is greater, the gold, or the temple that made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘If one swears by the altar, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gift on the altar, one is obligated.’ You blind ones, which is greater, the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? One who swears by the altar swears by it and all that is upon it; one who swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it; one who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who is seated on it.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. [But] these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’ Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out! You serpents, you brood of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Gehenna?” (23:1-33)

And just in case anyone felt like “Phew, good job I’m not a scribe or Pharisee!”, we hear Jesus pass universal Judgment in one of the Gospels’ most famous and fundamental passages in Matthew 25:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (31-46)

Yes, this is both beautiful in that God identifies himself with the hungry, thirsty, naked, strangers and prisoners and takes any good deed performed for them as performed directly for Him, but it is also a total and absolute condemnation of the opposite, of the absence of such good deeds, withheld from those in need and on the periphery.

Thinking about all of the above Gospel passages, my impression is that Jesus’ harshness comes when he speaks about behaviours and attitudes, where he judges with severity and points to Hell as the wages of hypocrisy, hatred and selfishness. Even when he speaks about Judas and that it would have been better had he not been born, he puts it in general terms – i.e., he speaks about “that man” who will betray him. Or, when he talks about leading others to sin being worse than having a millstone around ones neck, not to mention his tirade about the systematic perversions of the Pharisees. In all of these cases, it seems to me, Jesus’ objective is to warn against dangers to one’s ability to be part of a community and to participate in the life of God Himself. Betrayal, leading others to fall, hypocrisy all separate their perpetrators from others and introduce rifts in personal relationships. As such they lead to eternal death and Jesus pulls out all the stops to warn against them.

When facing individuals, rather than patterns of behaviour, Jesus tells us that he choses not to judge, while also being clear that he – but not we – would be in a position to do so. Why? I believe this is because of who he is, who God is – a God of Mercy. It is because of this that he invites us not to judge – and I think he means not to judge others, lest we be judged. What I don’t see Jesus either asking us or doing himself is to abstain from judging what Blessed Óscar Romero called “structures of sin”. Here, I believe, we, like Jesus, must denounce the evil being done in the world, whether it be various forms of economic exploitation and exclusion, war, violence or abominations like the sexual abuse of children and other vulnerable persons that has been perpetrated even by representatives of the Church.

Romero: disobey false absolutes

Romero

After a tumultuous process following his martyrdom, Oscar Romero is finally due to be beatified on 23rd May in San Salvador, where he served as archbishop and where he was assassinated by a member of a death squad on 24th March 1980. Instead of writing about his life,¹ I would like to share some of his own words with you, from his pastoral letters, homilies and diaries.

Starting from his pastoral letters, there is a strong sense of the social dimension of Christianity, which grows from and is interconnected with individual choices:

“Throughout the centuries the Church has, quite rightly, denounced sin. Certainly she has denounced personal sins, and she has also denounced the sin that perverts relationships between persons, especially at the family level. But she has begun to recall now something that, at the Church’s beginning, was fundamental: social sin – the crystalization, in other words, of individuals’ sins into permanent structures that keep sin in being, and make its force to be felt by the majority of the people.” (2nd pastoral letter, 1977)

In the same pastoral letter, Romero’s response to the “crystalization” of personal sin into “structures of sin” is a call to an authentic, present-day, up-to-date Christianity that understands tradition like Vatican II does – as being alive:

“To remain anchored in a non-evolving traditionalism, whether out of ignorance or selfishness, is to close one’s eyes to what is meant by authentic Christian tradition. For the tradition that Christ entrusted to his Church is not a museum of souvenirs to be protected. It is true that tradition comes out of the past, and that it ought to be loved and faithfully preserved. But it has always a view to the future. It is a tradition that makes the Church new, up to date, effective in every historical epoch. It is a tradition that nourishes the Church’s hope and faith so that she may go on preaching, so that she may invite all men and women to the new heaven and new earth that God has promised (Revelation 21:1; Isaiah 65:17).”

Next, Romero moves on to emphasizing the non-legal, non-rule-based nature of faith and instead presents a model of participation in the person of Christ, as St. Paul did:

“The Church’s foundation is not to be thought of in a legal or juridical sense, as if Christ gathered some persons together, entrusted them with a teaching, gave them a kind of constitution, but then himself remained apart from them. It is not like that. The Church’s origin is something much more profound. Christ founded the Church so that he himself could go on being present in the history of humanity precisely through the group of Christians who make up his Church. The Church is the flesh in which Christ makes present down the ages his own life and his personal mission.”

This is an idea that he returned to in a meditation later that year, which also foreshadows Pope Benedict XVI’s introduction to the 2012-13 Year of Faith:

“How I would like to engrave this great idea
on each one’s heart:
Christianity is not a collection of truths to be believed,
of laws to be obeyed,
of prohibitions.
 That makes it very distasteful.
Christianity is a person,
one who loved us so much,
one who calls for our love.
Christianity is Christ.” (November 6, 1977)

Romero continues in his second pastoral letter with making the link between the Church’s authenticity and her being the Body of Christ:

“That is how changes in the Church are to be understood. They are needed if the Church is to be faithful to her divine mission of being the Body of Christ in history. The Church can be Church only so long as she goes on being the Body of Christ. Her mission will be authentic only so long as it is the mission of Jesus in the new situations, the new circumstances, of history. The criterion that will guide the Church will be neither the approval of, nor the fear of, men and women, no matter how powerful or threatening they may be. It is the Church’s duty in history to lend her voice to Christ so that he may speak, her feet so that he may walk today’s world, her hands to build the kingdom, and to enable all its members to make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ (Colossians 1:24).”

And again it is a theme he picks up in a mediation around a year later, which is also an examination of conscience:

“Christ became a man of his people and of his time:
He lived as a Jew,
he worked as a laborer of Nazareth,
and since then he continues to become incarnate in everyone.
 If many have distanced themselves from the church,
it is precisely because the church
has somewhat estranged itself from humanity.
But a church that can feel as its own all that is human
and wants to incarnate
the pain,
 the hope,
 the affliction
of all who suffer and feel joy,
such a church will be Christ loved and awaited,
Christ present.
And that depends on us.” (December 3, 1978)

What does a Church that has not become estranged from humanity and that lends “her feet so that he may walk today’s world” look like? Romero here points to the Matthean questions and updates them to his own time and place:

“There is one rule
by which to judge if God is near us
or is far away –
the rule that God’s word is giving us today:
everyone concerned for the hungry,
the naked,
the poor,
for those who have vanished in police custody,
for the tortured,
for prisoners,
for all flesh that suffers,
has God close at hand.” (February 5, 1978)

Returning to his second pastoral letter, Romero also underlines the non-negotiability of Jesus’ command – even in the face of aggression directed against the Church – to love one another has He has loved us and for that “another” to include our enemies:

“The Church has never incited to hatred or revenge, not even at those saddest of moments when priests have been murdered and faithful Christians have been killed or have disappeared. The Church has continued to preach Jesus’ command love one another (John 15:12). This is a command that the Church cannot renounce, nor has she renounced it, not even in recent months. On the contrary, she has recalled that other command, pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44).”

Such conduct is anything but plain sailing though and is both a thorn in the side of those who seek wealth and power for themselves and a pretext for accusations being leveled against the Church (still from Romero’s second pastoral letter):

“The Church is not dedicated to any particular ideology as such. She must be prepared to speak out against turning any ideology into an absolute. As several of the Latin American hierarchies have said time and again in recent years, worldly interests try to make the Church’s position seem Marxist when it is in fact insisting on fundamental human rights and when it is placing the whole weight of its institutional and prophetic authority at the service of the dispossessed and weak.”

What struck me in the above was also Romero’s denunciation of the absolutization of ideologies, where it is not hard to see examples of this happening also today, and I was glad to see him return to this point and expand on it in his fourth (and final) pastoral letter as the Archbishop of San Salvador. There, his point of departure is an acclamation of transcendence, which he – interestingly – links to critical thinking and which he puts in opposition against the absolutization of human (limited) values:

“As well as offending God, every absolutization disorients, and ultimately destroys, human beings. It is the vocation of human beings to raise themselves to the dignity of the children of God and to participate in God’s divine life. This transcendence of human beings is not an escape from problems here on earth, still less is it an opium that distracts them from their obligations in history. On the contrary, by virtue of this transcendent destiny people have the capacity to always remain critical vis-a-vis the events of history. It gives them a powerful inspiration to reach out to ever higher goals. Social forces should hearken to the saving voice of Christ and of true Christians, cease their questioning, and open themselves to the values of the one and only Absolute. When a human value is turned into an absolute and endowed, whether in theory or in practice, with a divine character, human beings are deprived of their highest calling and inspiration. The spirit of the people is pushed in the direction of a real idolatry, which will only deform and repress it.”

Next, he applies the analysis of absolutization to two contexts, the first of which is wealth:

“The absolutization of wealth holds out to persons the ideal of having more and to that extent reduces interest in being more, whereas the latter should be the ideal for true progress, both for the people as such and for every individual. The absolute desire of having more encourages the selfishness that destroys communal bonds among the children of God. It does so because the idolatry of riches prevents the majority from sharing the goods that the Creator has made for all, and in the all-possessing minority it produces an exaggerated pleasure in these goods.”

Second, he looks at national security with the same optics – a topic of acute relevance also in today’s world:

“By virtue of [the absolutization of national security], the individual is placed at the total service of the state. His or her political participation is suppressed, and this leads to an unequal participation in the results of development. Peoples are put into the hands of military elites, and are subjected to policies that oppress and repress all who oppose them, in the name of what is alleged to be total war. The armed forces are put in charge of social and economic structures under the pretext of the interests of national security. Everyone not at one with the state is declared a national enemy, and the requirements of national security are used to justify assassinations, disappearances, arbitrary imprisonment, acts of terrorism, kidnappings, acts of torture … [all] indicate a complete lack of respect for the dignity of the human person (Puebla #1262).”

It is not hard to see from all of the above why Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the postulator of Oscar Romero’s cause for beatification, characterized him by saying: “Romero is truly a martyr of the Church of Vatican II, a Church, as Pope John used to say, who is mother of all, but in particular of the poor.” Everything I have read by him was steeped in the Gospel and in its reading today through the eyes of Vatican II. It is also for this reason that Paglia referred to Romero as the “proto-martyr” of contemporary martyrs.

No account of a martyr’s thought would be complete without including the words pertaining to his own martyrdom, which is a culmination of a life of imitating Christ. Here, Romero was acutely aware of the risk to his own life, which can be readily seen from an interview he gave just days before being shot at long range while celebrating mass:

“You can tell the people that if they succeed in killing me, that I forgive and bless those who do it. Hopefully, they will realize they are wasting their time. A bishop will die, but the church of God, which is the people, will never perish.”

In spite of the severe threats to his life, even on the day before his death, Romero spoke out against the “structures of sin” that he had been fighting for many years, addressing a group of soldiers:

“Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, ‘Thou shalt not kill’. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination … In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression!”

¹ For a brief biography of Archbishop Romero, see the one provided by the UN on the website about the “International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims,” dedicated to him and held on the anniversary of his martyrdom, the 24th March.