[Question:]{.underline} Is it a sin to judge others’ actions?
[Answer:]{.underline} Rash judgment is a mortal sin against the virtue of justice, and one repeatedly condemned, both by our Divine Savior, and the Apostles. “Judge not, that you may not be judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged”, Our Lord declares in his sermon on the mountain (Mt 7:1,2). St. Paul’s teaching is neither different nor any less frightening: “Wherefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art, that judgest. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself. For thou dost the same things which thou judgest.” (Rm 2:1). In fact, St. Paul is so careful that he dare not even judge himself, declaring that even when he is not aware of doing evil “yet am I not hereby justified, but he that judgeth me is the Lord.” (I Cor 4:4). If such be the case with our own selves, how much more dangerous yet is it to judge others: “Therefore judge not before the time; until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsel of the hearts” (I Cor 4:5).
However, it might readily be objected that we are forced to make judgments on others on a constant daily basis, for if we were not to make such judgments we would not know whom to imitate, whom to follow, whom to avoid, whose actions to detest; we would not be able to govern ourselves prudently, nor to protect ourselves against evil, nor even to keep the commandments nor to live in a rational and human manner, let alone in a good and supernatural way. Are we not to make judgments on such evil persons as Luther and Henry VIII, who caused incalculable damage to the Church and to souls, or Loisy, the condemned founder of modernism?
The objection is an entirely valid one. A judgment is only a sin if it is rash, which means that it is not based upon sufficient clear evidence and proof. If the evidence is overwhelming, the judgment can be and ought to be made, provided we are certain about our objectivity, and that we have excluded the natural tendency of fallen human nature that Our Lord castigates so clearly: “Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” (Mt 7:5). Moreover, a rash judgment is only a sin if, without sufficient reason, it is a judgment of the moral character of another’s actions, namely if we accuse him of a vice. It is perfectly possible to make an observation on the objectivity wrongness or a person’s work, or even of the immorality of an action, without questioning a person’s good intentions, namely that he is in ignorance as to the moral evil that his actions contain. For example, we must condemn artificial birth control as a mortal sin. However, we do not state that all those who use this are necessarily culpable of the sin and condemned to eternal damnation for it. Likewise the Church is obliged to condemn and excommunicate heretics and all those who maintain communion with them. If we likewise must hold their actions and beliefs as evil, we are not forasmuch enabled to make any judgment as to the state of their individual souls.
Modernists take advantage of our Divine Savior’s teaching on this question to perpetrate their errors and deception. Under cloak of charity, of being loving and accepting towards everyone, they fall into subjectivism, and indifferentism, as if man cannot know the one true religion, but that believers of all religions are in a certain way right and pleasing to God. Anybody who would dare question their theory that faith is a purely interior sentiment is accused of lack of charity and understanding, and condemned to silence, under pain of judging his neighbor. Such a “reasoning” is no reasoning at all, but actually the destruction of human reason, of the truth, of the true charity that enlightens the mind in error. In answer to this, it is our duty, in the light to the Church’s constant, infallible and certain teachings, to make judgments concerning all the novelties, errors and betrayals of the modernists in the Church’s hierarchy, remembering the words of St. Paul: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema” (Gal 1:8). However, in so doing, let us remember that we cannot make judgments for which we do not have certain and compelling evidence. Thus we cannot judge that any particular bishop or prelate has formally sinned against the Faith, or that he has lost the Faith. This would (in general) be rash. However, the judgment that their actions endanger the Faith, as does the New Mass, the practice of Ecumenism and the Humanism of the modern Church, is an obvious fact that any reasoning man is bound to conclude from the evidence.
Closely related to the sin of rash judgment is that of detraction — namely the telling of the sins of another, or the sharing of one’s judgments on him with others, so as to destroy his good reputation in the minds of others. All men have a right to their good reputation, regardless of their own personal sins, and it is not because our observations are true that we have the right to say them publicly or even privately to others. It is only when there is a proportionate and grave reason that, reluctantly, we are bound to do so. In the case of the crisis in the Church, there is indeed such a reason — the common good, the salvation of souls, the protection of Holy Mother Church against the infiltration of sacrileges and errors without number. However, in doing so, it is our duty in charity and in justice not to judge the interior intentions, nor the subjective moral character of the actions performed by members of the hierarchy, and this all the more on account of the confusion that modernism creates. It is so easy for them to be in ignorance, on account of the brainwashing to which they have been subjected.
The Catholic spirit is consequently to be found in due moderation, even in condemning modern errors. It is for this reason that the bitter, condemnatory spirit of the sedevacantists is not Catholic. In the same spirit, we will condemn the manifest errors in the Pope’s writings and practices, and the dangers to the Faith that they pose, but we will not judge his personal Faith or intentions and certainly not presume to pronounce on his pertinacity.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.