There are those who are just who are treated as though they are evil. Ecclesiastes 8:14
There is a lot of attention paid these days to the perpetrators of crime, less to the victims of crime and even less to the family and friends of both perpetrators and victims who suffer from the collateral damage that these crimes create.
I think of the parents of children who attend the trials and visit the prisons when their children have been accused, convicted and incarcerated for some heinous crime. They have to swallow their pride and face the humiliation of being associated with such a monster.
I think of the spouses whose partners have been arrested for drunk driving, solicitation for prostitution, grand theft or embezzlement. They have to face the ridicule, suspicion and shunning of neighbors, family members and friends after the fact.
I think of every priest in this country who has to pick up the paper and read another story about a brother priest who has been arrested in a child abuse case. They have to endure the suspicious glances and wondering looks, even from the parishioners he loves, every time he goes near a child.
The thing all these collateral-damage victims have in common is the love/hate relationship they have with the perpetrators. Words like shame, embarrassment, indignation, resentment and outrage come to mind, but so do words like pity, compassion, sadness, sympathy and mercy.
They are caught in that “love the sinner and hate the sin” conundrum. On one hand they would love to strangle them. On the other hand they would love to hug them.
I suppose the question I am coming around to is this:
“What do you do when really good people do really bad things?”
I suppose the only people who are forced to deal with that question in a serious way are the family members and friends of those who have done some truly heinous or stupid things. Everybody else has the luxury of just standing back and screaming in self-righteous indignation, “Hang ‘em from the nearest tree!”
I suppose there will never be a simple, easy or clear answer to the question of what you do when really good people do really bad things. However, after 45 years of priesthood, I found that two things seem to be true.
One, all of us are capable of about anything under the right circumstances.
Two, there is some bad in the best of us and there is some good in the worst of us.
There is a third thing that I have found to be absolutely true. It can be found in the 16th chapter of I Samuel: “People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
It takes a person of great courage to stand by those who are unjustly accused, but it takes a hero to stand with the truly guilty, knowing, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, even “in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.”
To read more from Father Knott, visit his blog: FatherKnott.com.
Father J. Ronald Knott
