REFLECTIONS - » How to find closure

How to find closure

Posted by DeanSMS
Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Heard on BBC-radio world service and read on the Canadian National Post about the Holy Father and that “Forgiveness is not a substitute for justice” statement.

Achieving justice against one’s trespassers is a temporary relief. Long-term peace can not be obtained from secular decrees. While forgiveness is not a substitute for justice, personal closure can not truly come from secular justice –a nagging hatred remains buried within — but it is only from the forgiveness of your bastardly trespassers will your heart mends toward a peace of mind.

This is a major difference between the Church and secular society today. The Church has placed sole remedy on forgiving wayward clerics instead of sending them off for secular punishment. The general society seeks revenge. Those who do evil should be punished and those who suffered from the evil must forgive. Closure comes from both being done; forgiving one’s trespassers is the more important one.

Information and Links

Join the fray by commenting, tracking what others have to say, or linking to it from your blog.

Information: May 11th, 2010; 2 Responses

Feeds and Links: Comment Feed; From This Author; Del.icio.us; Digg; Technorati

Categories: Religion; Secular

Other Posts: Your head _will_ explode; Interesting Items 5/10 –

Reader Comments

Comment Number:: 1
Written by:: BurkeanMama
Posted on:: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 13:55

Dean, I am sorry I must be mis-understanding you. You seem to be saying that priests who commit crimes should not be punished by criminal courts.

If this is not what you are saying I am sorry I mis-understood. If this is what you are saying, we are about to have a huge fight.

Comment Number:: 2
Written by:: DeanSMS
Posted on:: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 9:19

I don’t believe I said ‘priests who commit crimes should not be punished.’ I did say, “‘Those who do evil should be punished.’ Surely, you agree their action is evil. Perhaps, my sentence led to the mis-understanding: The Church has placed sole remedy on forgiving wayward clerics instead of sending them off for secular punishment [criminal courts]. This was my admission the Church failed repeatedly to do the correct thing by their covering-up wrong-doings.

My purpose of the post was to say while evil must be punished by the worldly powers, but also ‘those who suffered from the evil must forgive’ their trespassers. We don’t want these victims to suffered twice; the second violation usually causing an almost life-time of bitterness and hatred. In short, I understand closure can’t come from our seeking revenge against our trespassers but from forgiving those son-of-bitches who trespassed against us.

[this may be an example of my own distance from current society. In the Protestant hymnal, Amazing Grace, in the first stanza is the line: that saved a wrench like me. For Roman Catholics we don't see anybody as wrenches. We change that line in the song to: That saved and set me free. Sorry, for the theology but it may help for understanding our problem with these bastardly, wayward priests.] Thank you, for your helping me in clarifing my thought. I pray I may have done so a little bit more.