Let the Sword First Strike the Person, and then the Error He Defends

[Stone]

Catholic Intransigence Is Tantamount to Catholic Charity

TIA | April 21, 2007


In the pacifist world of our days, in which any more energetic defense of Catholic principles is viewed as inappropriate and anti-evangelical, it is opportune to remember what the Church taught us about Catholic intransigence. This is the great virtue that made the Lamb of God give His Blood to the last drop for us. It is also the virtue that inspired the glorious Crusades and many other episodes of Catholic combativity over the centuries.

The following considerations were taken from the book Liberalism is a Sin, by Fr. Felix Sardá y Salvany. This book was carefully examined by the Sacred Congregation of the Index, which on January 10, 1887 declared: "Not only is nothing found contrary to sound doctrine, but its author merits great praise for his exposition and defense of the sound doctrine therein set forth with solidity, order and lucidity."

Fr. Felix Sardá y Salvany

Supreme Catholic intransigence is nothing but supreme Catholic charity. This supreme charity is practiced in relation to our neighbor when, for his good, the guilty neighbor is crossed, humiliated, upset and chastised.

This supreme charity is practiced in relation to the common good when, to protect another from the contagion of evil, intransigence is used to denounce the promoters of evil, unmasking them as wicked and perverse and holding them up to public contempt, horror and execration. If it is possible, the one exercising intransigence should request the zeal of the public force [police] to contain and punish these evildoers.

Finally, supreme charity is practiced in relation to God when, for His glory and in His service, it becomes necessary for the one exercising intransigence to put aside all human considerations, to trample underfoot all human respect, to sacrifice all human interests, and risk even life itself to attain such a high end.

(Felix Sardá y Salvany , El Liberalismo es pecado, Madrid: EPC, 1936, p. 85).