That servant who knew his master’s will but did not make preparations nor act in accord with his will shall be beaten severely; and the servant who was ignorant of his master’s will but acted in a way deserving of a severe beating shall be beaten only lightly. Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more. (Luke 12:47-48)
The “Seamless Garment” is viewed with suspicion by some Catholics. The reason for this bad reputation is because it is twisted by other Catholics who misuse by arguing that we can overlook failures on certain teachings if your preferred ideology ticks enough boxes in other categories. For example, the Church teaches that the right to life is the primary right on which all others depend. Yet those who misuse the “Seamless Garment” treat it as if a candidate can get a failing grade on abortion and still be morally acceptable so long as they are all right on other (lesser) issues†.However, before the suspicious faction gets smug, we need to remember that they commit similar evasions. In their case, they think that if they are right on the primary issue, they can freely ignore lesser evils. The result is both sides present a perverted view of the Church where people see and comment on the behavior of both sides as being hypocritical. That would not be so bad if those witnesses realized that the fault was only with those hypocrites. But that is not how it works. They see these antics as part of the whole and think the entire Church is hypocritical.
To step back from that, all of us need to recognize this: If we are finding excuses to set aside or pay lip service to a Catholic teaching, we are also bad Catholics regardless of what others do wrong. This is not my own assertion. Our Lord spoke to the Pharisees about this:
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! (Matthew 23:23-24)
I do not say that any of the moral teachings of the Church are insignificant like the tithes Jesus mentioned. But doing right before God means we cannot excuse ourselves from doing right. Yes, we are all sinners. But our attitude to sin should be one of repentance, not excusing ourselves for our failures. Repentance includes a firm purpose of amendment. To go and sin no more (cf. John 8:11). Yes, we may fail over and over, atoning over and over. But when we start making excuses for why we do not have to be sorry for our failures in an area, we have become corrupted.
Do you think that abortion is worse than the other sins currently being justified by secular law? You are right. The Church has made clear it is the primary right. But it is not the only right. If you decide that you do not have to worry about other evils if you oppose abortion, you are no longer in the right. It cuts both ways. If you think that if your campaign against a string of injustices means you can tacitly turn your back on the sin of abortion, your work on that string of injustices does not avail you.
Yes, all of us need God’s grace to be saved. But God has included us in His saving of us. We are to work with Him to do good and make known to others how to live (cf. Matthew 28:20). We have a Church which we profess has been established by Christ and teaches with His authority. So, we are without excuse if we fail to live according to how the Church teaches. As the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium #14 teaches:
He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a “bodily” manner and not “in his heart.” All the Church’s children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged.
I am not advocating any sort of “works based salvation” that anti-Catholics falsely try to tar us with. This is not a matter of “if I do X number of deeds, I am owed salvation.” This is a matter of relationship. If we are looking to avoid doing right in one area with the excuse of doing right in another are, we are not living the Great Commandment (cf. Matthew 22:38-39). And if we are not living the Great Commandment, our souls are at risk.
Facing the question of “how do we get out of a hole we have dug ourselves,” the humorous but true answer is, “Step One: Stop digging.” In terms of salvation, we need to stop digging and start asking questions about how we reached the state we are in. We need to ask ourselves if our focus on evil X has led us to giving our allies a free pass on evil Y. And if we discover this is so, we need to stop this hypocrisy and change. Moreover, we need to do this regardless of what others do. Our goal must be more than the political advantage of our preferred faction. It is turning back to Christ and helping others to see that His way is the right way to live.
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(†) Some context is needed. Cardinal Bernadin’s 1984 speech was inspired by the specter of nuclear war and the morality of the Arms Race. He did recognize that Catholics needed to be consistent. Unfortunately, some of the language in his speech could be twisted into thinking we could pick and choose other issues over abortion. But I do not think that giving anybody a free pass on one evil so long as he was good on another issue was the Cardinal’s intention at all.
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