Today we hear our Lord tell us that most dangerous of all His teachings. He tells us there are some sins that cannot be forgiven. Today I’m afraid to say, only scrupulous people really believe that. If you are one of those overly scrupulous people, please don’t read this article. Or perhaps you don’t consider yourself scrupulous but you’re suffering from a guilty conscience from infidelity or an abortion or some terrible sin that haunts you. You need a good dose of God’s mercy. Actually, if we listen to Jesus, He does show us the way to peace of mind; it’s called repentance. It seems the greater challenge in our society today is getting people to repent and confess their sins rather than to heal the consciences of the overly scrupulous.

The Gospel for today is more about waking up people who think they don’t sin and have written God out of the deliberations of their consciences. In particular, I write this article addressing the sin of arrogance. The audience for Jesus’ harsh words today are: policemen who work for criminals, or doctors who actively do things to harm their patients, or judges who use their courtroom authority to punish innocent people, or for teachers who teach lies. I think you can even add politicians who use their authority to serve themselves instead of their constituency. All these examples seem to catch the Spirit that Jesus refers to when He says, “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven.” (Mark 3). There is something parallel in the human conscience to the way flavor stays in salt. Recall Our Lord’s words in Matthew 5, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?” Once a policeman starts working for criminals or a judge uses his/her courtroom to punish innocent people how does he recover a good conscience? They are no good for anything but to be thrown out.

This meditation recalls the words of Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical On the Nature of True Liberty as he addresses something our modern world gets wrong so very often. He addresses the notion of “free speech.” What could be more American than freedom of speech? Well, if Superman is an American hero, then Superman points us to the same limits of speech that Pope Leo does. That is because Superman stood for “truth, justice and the American way.” Pope Leo says, “A right is a moral power about which it is absurd to suppose that nature has accorded indifferently to truth and falsehood, to justice and injustice. Men have a right to propagate throughout the State what things soever are true and honorable, but lying opinions, which no mental plague is greater, and vices which corrupt the heart and moral life should be diligently repressed by public authority, lest they insidiously work the ruin of the State.” (16 Papal Documents, p97) As we reflect on the trial that convicted the former President, the words from the Lord’s trial before Pilate come to mind. Jesus famously said, “You have no power unless it came to you from above.” It is an obvious reference to an authority above the State. As a nation, we have no greater task before us than to discover and live by the commandments conveyed to us by the Holy Spirit.