Dearly beloved,

Today we mark the 5th Sunday after Pentecost. Both readings speak of going beyond the usual standards in our love of neighbor. St. Peter says that when we have evil done to us, we are to respond in an otherworldly way, ‘not rendering evil for evil, or abuse for abuse, but contrariwise, blessing.’ And in the Gospel, taken from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus outlines a key principle of his moral teaching: ‘Unless your justice exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Thus, not only are the worldly standards too little for Christians, so are the Jewish standards, determined by law. According to law, justice is satisfied if we do the external good and refrain from the external evil, but Christian morality is higher and nobler: we must purify our inner actions to be pleasing to God.

A corollary of this attention to inner actions, or intentions, is that while we work to purify our own, we work also to avoid reading into to those of others. Thus the divine admonition to ‘judge not, lest ye be judged’ is part of the program of greater justice. Lately I have been asked a lot about that admonition, and so I thought it good to treat of it today. It is related to today’s Gospel: our judgments of others, or reading into their intentions, often play into our anger; if we avoid judgment, we cut off a common source of anger, whereas if we judge others freely, anger arises more often.

‘Judge not, lest ye be judged’ is a very pertinent saying for Western society and for the Church of today. Our culture judges harshly—if someone says or does something in opposition to the status quo, they are labeled as haters or bigots. Judgment is rendered very quickly, often without any attempt to learn of someone’s motives or reasons. In the Church, there is lack of judgment—whereas society jumps to conclusions, many in authority in the Church spend too much time lingering on finding the best possible (or impossible) interpretation. In cases like this, with the hard sayings from Scripture, the wisest approach is to consult the prominent doctors of the Church, particularly Augustine and Aquinas. They will teach us how to rightly consider the question.

Aquinas says that judgment most properly belongs to a judge, in the legal sense, and it is the conclusion of a formal process. Judgments are lawful, or just, or good, when they have three characteristics: a just judgment proceeds from an inclination to justice, meaning that the judge is inclined to choose what is just in a case and is himself just; the judgment comes from lawful authority, someone competent and authorized to judge; and the judgment is pronounced according to prudence or right reason. Thus an unjust judgment has three possible defects: it is contrary to justice, biased in some way towards one party; it does not originate from lawful authority, but from someone who usurps the power; or the reason for the judgment lacks certainty, coming from a suspicion rather than evidence. This teaching of St. Thomas shows that in order to make a right judgment, we must desire justice, we must have authority over the person in question, and we must have sufficient evidence to make the judgment. These restrictions are good to keep in mind, especially if we have a habit of judging others: the stipulations are rather restrictive.

There is more to be said, however. First of all, Augustine says that there is indeed judgment in the Christian life. It could seem from Aquinas’ statements that when the Lord says ‘Judge not’ he means that quite literally. But Augustine points out that in the same section of the Lord’s teaching, he also says that we will know persons by their fruits; that is, we can judge them by the products of their actions. A certain person may say all the right things and woo the crowds, but the fruits that he produces are division and confusion and worldliness. We can judge from this that the person, no matter what he says, is in fact not a fig but a thistle, not a grape but a thorn. And we can and should defend ourselves against such a person, even if we do not have rightful authority to judge them in a formal sense.

Augustine also mentions that St. Paul and St. John give us lists of persons who will not inherit the kingdom of God if they persist in such behavior. We can also judge of these actions, and in some way, of these persons. The reason Augustine gives is that such actions are intrinsically wrong: they cannot be done in a good way. Their object is evil, and therefore no matter what intention the person has in doing the action, or what circumstances surround it, it is sinful. Thus we can condemn and judge, as it were, certain sinful habits, most notably sexual sins. Even if a person commits them with a good intention in mind, they cannot be rendered good, and they certainly should not be praised in the public forum. What we cannot judge is their interior disposition; only God can know the full story behind their sinful choices, and he will mete out justice in accord with the truth. But a sensible society still condemns and punishes external actions which damage the common good, while at the same time reserving full judgment to God.

What Augustine warns against is pronouncing judgment when the action can be good but the intention is uncertain. The example Augustine gives is in regard to eating: someone may say he has a bad stomach or other issues and thus asks excuse from fasting. We are to suppose good intention rather than impute to them gluttony. Both moderation and fasting are good, and so if the reason why one does one is unknown, we should suppose the best. The other action Augustine criticizes is overextending an evil action to suppose an impossibility of amendment: a person sins gravely, and we jump to the conclusion that they can never change, but are surely condemned. What we can say is that the evil action, if persisted in, will lead to hell; but we cannot say that this person, because he or she sins in this way, will never be saved. That is a judgment we cannot make.

Aquinas adds some helpful points: he says that in doubtful matters, we do best to think well of others. To think ill of another without sufficient cause does an injury to the person in question, and to ourselves, since we malform ourselves and our minds by bad assessments and bad will. He even goes so far as to say that it is better to err frequently in judging an evil man to be good than to occasionally judge a good man to be evil. That is a strong saying worth thinking about. But the key to Aquinas’ idea of judgment is the issue of certainty: we are obliged to collect evidence for a just judgment, and we cannot condemn a man based on slight indications of evil; there must be sufficient cause, meaning instances that allow for no other interpretation, or many instances of insufficient cause. For instance, if you suspect me to be an Hegelian, and I deny it, but you find his complete works in German in my cell, and charts of his thought in my desk drawer, and every computer password I have includes the word ‘thesis,’ then you’ve found enough evidence to convict me. It is silly to say that those three evidences do not support a judgment. Could there be another possibility? Of course. But at some point it becomes as irrational as Hegel’s own thought.

St. Robert Bellarmine says that it is licit to resist a prelate who is destroying the Church and to prevent his will from being executed. What we cannot do is judge, punish or depose him, for we lack the authority. In resisting such a prelate, what we are in fact doing is protecting the deposit of faith, what we have received from Christ and the apostles. As Dom Gueranger once wrote, ‘in the treasure of revelation, there are essential doctrines which all Christians…are bound to know and defend…whether it be a question of belief or conduct, dogma or morals.’ We cannot judge those who compromise the treasure of revelation in the full sense which Aquinas outlines. But we can say with Augustine that there are certain actions of bishops that cannot be righted by a good intention, and we can say with Aquinas that enough insufficient evidence equals sufficient evidence. We do have the power of reason, and we don’t have to suspend its use to be Christians. But we must always remember that we are called to something greater, not the tit-for-tat of everyday life. As St. Peter says, ‘be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, being lovers of the brotherhood, merciful, modest, humble: Not rendering evil for evil, nor railing for railing, but contrariwise, blessing: for unto this are you called, that you may inherit a blessing.’

The question of judgment is a complex one, without an easy answer. What we can take from Augustine and Aquinas is that the proper understanding of this saying is not black and white; it is nuanced. We are to suppose the best of our neighbors, but there are times when a negative judgment is warranted and even necessary, either to admonish the sinner or to protect the good of society or the truths of the Faith, always with the hope and prayer that there will be a change of heart. And some day, through the mercy of God, we will come to that kingdom where all justice will be satisfied, and there will be no interior strife nor confusion, in the world to come, in the New Jerusalem.