{"id":358,"date":"2009-03-23T08:17:52","date_gmt":"2009-03-23T08:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/casting-the-first-stone.html"},"modified":"2009-03-23T08:17:52","modified_gmt":"2009-03-23T08:17:52","slug":"casting-the-first-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/casting-the-first-stone.html","title":{"rendered":"“Casting the first stone”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\"Donald<\/span>That’s the title of the latest column by Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl<\/a>, in which he laments the polarized state of discourse in the Church–and begins to sketch a remedy by using an effective illustration:<\/p>\n

\n

At a recent clergy gathering, the principal celebrant at our Eucharistic Liturgy addressed the Gospel of the day. It was St. Matthew’s account of the Last Judgment where the Son of Man comes in his glory and, as a shepherd, separates the sheep from the goats. The homilist walked into the middle of the congregation and began by saying, “I think you on my right must be the sheep and you on my left must be the goats.” There was an uneasy chuckle, particularly from those on the left. Then, the bishop turned around and, facing the other direction, said, “Now, you must be the goats and you must be the sheep,” pointing to the same congregation but now having a different relationship to his right and left hand. Then he turned around again and said, “Perhaps the message of this Gospel is that we should not be judging. It is the Lord who judges. We are the ones who are judged.” <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The archbishop, whose even temperment and strong convictions are reflected in this piece, has experienced his share of harsh critiques, and now that he has been in Washington for a couple of years, he has probably seen even more than he’d like of lacerating polemics up close. <\/span><\/p>\n

As he writes, “<\/span>If we think something is wrong we should address it. But we are required to do so in a way that reflects who we are. Christians must not only speak the truth but must also do so in love (Ephesians 4:15).” And he continues:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

We are called to a higher level of respect for the truth and for each other than often is witnessed in some radio and television talk shows. The intensity of one’s opinion is not the same as the truth. Speaking out of anger does not justify falsehood. <\/p>\n

[snip] <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The more I reflect on our current level of Christian discourse, particularly in some of the highly opinionated publications, I sense the wisdom in the homily by my brother bishop when he reminded all of us that the division of the house into sheep and goats is really the task of the Lord in his role as Judge. In the meantime, unless we can truly say we are without sin, we should not cast the first or any stone.
<\/em> 
Also check out the new blog of the archdiocese<\/a>–it’s very good, and not just for a “church” blog! <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Pax. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s the title of the latest column by Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl, in which he laments the polarized state of discourse in the Church–and begins to sketch a remedy by using an effective illustration: At a recent clergy gathering, the principal celebrant at our Eucharistic Liturgy addressed the Gospel of the day. It was St. Matthew’s account…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,6,7,3,4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bishops","category-catholic","category-church","category-history","category-politics","category-pop-culture","category-pope"],"yoast_head":"\n"Casting the first stone" - Pontifications<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/casting-the-first-stone.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Casting the first stone" - Pontifications\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"That’s the title of the latest column by Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl, in which he laments the polarized state of discourse in the Church–and begins to sketch a remedy by using an effective illustration: At a recent clergy gathering, the principal celebrant at our Eucharistic Liturgy addressed the Gospel of the day. 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He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}