Wednesday of the
Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Ezekiel 9:1-7.10:18-22; Matthew 18:15-20)
One moral question on which there has been a distinctive
change in Catholic teaching is the freedom of conscience. Where for centuries the Church taught that it
is permissible to punish members of the community who adopt foreign beliefs,
she now honors the integrity of individual conscience. Freedom of conscience demands that no one be
forced to declare as true what she or he does not believe. The age of the Inquisition, however
inaccurately it is construed, has definitely past.
Still it might be pointed out that religious persecution has
biblical roots. In the reading today from
Ezekiel the Lord calls for the purification of the temple from idolaters. Obviously, the reading has more than
chastisement in mind as God demands the death of those who have defiled the
Temple by worshiping idols there. Today
we only stand aghast at the suggestion of such practices.
Can such intolerance be justified in retrospect? Certainly something may be said that in times
of less developed economies social cohesion standing on common beliefs and
religious practices was critical. We can
add that there is a progressive development in biblical teaching which reaches
its culmination in Christ. The people
came to understand God’s ways slowly and imperfectly until God sent His Son to
reveal them in their fullness. Even now
we grapple with how to understand some of Jesus’ teaching and, more challenging
still, how to practice it.
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