Why scandals are inevitable – and are especially evil in the clergy
No-one should be more afraid of causing scandal than those in Holy Orders, Fr Coleridge says.
No-one should be more afraid of causing scandal than those in Holy Orders, Fr Coleridge says.
Editor’s Notes
In this part, Fr Coleridge tells us…
How Christ’s disciples must guard others from spiritual harm by their every word and deed
That scandal and unforgiveness are deadly sins, even in the holiest of lives
Why our example to others may weigh more heavily than we dare to imagine.
He shows us that the Christian must never cease forgiving others, nor ever cause another to fall.
For more context on the events discussed in this mini-series, see Part 0.
Various Teachings and Counsels
The Preaching of the Cross, Vol. III
Chapter I
St Luke xvii. 1–19
Story of the Gospels, § 117, 118
Burns and Oates, London, 1888
Headings and some line breaks added.
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Words about scandal
‘And He said to His disciples, It is impossible that scandals should not come, but woe to him through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hung about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves.
‘If thy brother sin against thee, reprove him, and if he do penance, forgive him. And if he sin against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day be converted unto thee, saying I repent, forgive him.’
What is here related is almost a repetition of what had already been said in Galilee, as is reported by St. Matthew. These words here, as there, are addressed to the disciples, that is, as it seems, to the Apostles. There is therefore some breach of direct continuity between this paragraph and that which immediately precedes it, for the last recorded discourse was addressed to the Pharisees.
On both the former occasions on which our Lord had spoken of the danger of scandal, His words had been connected with others in which he had spoken of the little ones of the flock, who are always in more danger than any others of learning evil or taking offence from what they see and hear.
St. Mark tells us that the words about scandal followed immediately on others in which our Lord had dwelt on the greatness of the reward of those who give a cup of cold water in His Name to one of the little ones. And the same Evangelist continues his report by adding several sentences about the hand or the eye or the foot, which may be an occasion of scandal, and which are rather to be plucked out or cut off than cause us to incur the punishments of Hell, where their worm dies not, and their fire is not quenched.
Comparison with St Matthew
St. Matthew in like manner speaks of the hand or foot or eye which are to be sacrificed under such circumstances, and he makes the whole teaching about scandal follow on the words about receiving little children in the Name of our Lord.
St. Luke, speaking of other occasions, does not mark the connection, except by the simple mention of the scandal to little ones. What immediately precedes this teaching in his Gospel, as we see, is the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The subject of scandal may indeed be connected with that story, inasmuch as the rich man may have given scandal to his brethren, and may have been liable to greater punishments in the next world on that account. This, however, is not said in the story.
Again, the doctrine of fraternal correction and of forgiveness is laid down more fully by St. Matthew than by St. Luke, and with some little differences which are worth noting. In the first place, St. Matthew gives the three stages, so to speak, of the correction, which are omitted by St. Luke. In St. Matthew the disciples are told first to remonstrate with the offending brother, then, if that is fruitless, to take two or three witnesses, and then in the last resort to tell the complaint to the Church.
St. Luke therefore relates an occasion on which our Lord delivered the same doctrine in a more summary and concise manner, as might be natural when He was mainly speaking of matters of private and personal guidance, and not legislating for the whole community. The seven times a day that forgiveness is to be practised, and which signify that the forgiveness is never to be denied, are a reminiscence of the question which had been asked in Galilee by St. Peter, to which our Lord had then answered that they were to forgive their brethren unto seventy times seven.
The reference would wake up in the minds of the Apostles the words spoken on the former occasion, and the parable of the Unmerciful Servant, which was then added by our Lord.
To whom their instructions were addressed?
If we consider these instructions in their connection with others which precede them in this part of the Gospel of St. Luke, forming a series which has been to some extent interrupted by the parables of which we have lately had to speak—those of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Groat, the Prodigal Son, the Unjust Steward, and the Rich Man and Lazarus,—we can hardly avoid the thought that they were mainly addressed to the same class of hearers as that to which, after a short interval of time, our Lord was to deliver the sublime teaching concerning what we call the great counsels of perfection, of poverty, of chastity, of obedience, and of the renunciation not only in heart, but in deed also, of all earthly property.
If this is the case, we might find something to surprise us in the fact that Apostles and Apostolical men were so earnestly warned against the sin of scandal, against unforgivingness, and the like.
It is indeed true that we find among the characteristic virtues of the saints the most careful avoidance of anything that may cause scandal, and also great forgivingness. It has been said that among those who have been considered as great servants of God there may be found, here and there, almost every defect in some small degree, some in one, and others in others, but that the defect of an unforgiving temper is altogether inconsistent with any high degree of virtue.
Danger of scandal in Apostolical men
And it may be thought that Apostolical persons are frequently in danger of giving some scandal to the weak, if not to others, because they are so carefully watched and scrutinized, and because a small defect in the way of laxity in them does so much more harm than greater defects in others.
Human nature is wonderfully quick in seeing the small faults of character, or of negligence, which are sometimes to be found in those to whom men are accustomed to look for a high example, and who have the office of preaching to others the lofty and perfect morality of the Gospel. Men detect their inconsistencies, they set them down as hypocrites when they show themselves no better than their neighbours in matters of self-restraint and unworldliness, and it will perhaps be found at the last day that many of those who have been most seriously injured by scandalous examples, have seen what has given them offence in the lives of priests and others specially bound to hold up the highest standard in every respect.
As the lives and examples of the saints of God have been of the greatest power in advancing the growth of the Kingdom, and the stability and perseverance of its children, so, almost more powerfully than any other influence on the side of evil, has the general laxity and indifference of the majority of Christians worked, generation after generation, on the side of the enemies of the Church.
Its great mischief in our time
Wherever access to heathen populations is open to all nations, the missionary efforts of the Church are half paralyzed by the lives of Christians, and by the multitude of various sects who call themselves the authorized ministers of the Gospel. This is the effect of the example, set all over the world, of indifference to the law of unity, and to the divine authority set up for the purpose of maintaining that law.
The standard among many Christians, even those who are faithful to the law of unity, is deplorably low in many matters of morality, and in the great sin of worldliness, and this again is an effect of the scandal of the example of so many who pass for loyal children of the Church. The great declension of manners all over Europe which led on to the severe calamity of the revolt of the sixteenth century, cannot be fairly separated by the historical student from certain great and widely spread scandals among the clergy.
Every man lives two lives, one in his own heart of which God is the witness, and another in the eyes of his fellow-men with whom he has to deal in the course of his daily occupations. His whole demeanour and carriage, and all his words and works, must either edify his neighbours unto good, or confirm them in what is low and worldly, and he may even positively help on the downward course of their lives.
Thus we find the saints in religious communities often asking pardon on their death-beds for the bad example which they have given, for they are conscious that every little act of indifference to their holy rule and its requirements, as well as every indulgence of the merely human spirit, and the like, may have been counted against them in the book of God as having done some injury to the souls of their brethren.
‘Necessity’ of scandal
When our Blessed Lord says that it is impossible that scandal should not come, and says these words once and again to His own chosen Apostles, He cannot mean that there is any divine law by which scandal must be given. He means that, considering the state in which men live together in society, and the great power of example, it is inevitable that the lessons which we learn from one another must often be lessons of lesser good or of positive evil.
And this truth holds good universally, even among the servants of God themselves, until the time comes when all possibility of evil is removed in the happy homes of eternity. Blessed indeed are they who so walk with God and with man that their lives may have been one continual lesson of edification! And our Lord seems to wish us to help ourselves in this practice by the consideration of the severe judgments which are to be inflicted on those who are in any way the authors of spiritual ruin to others, or of injury to their souls, even in a slight degree, as if He meant us to understand that it would be very easy indeed to do this, and that a very strict account would be exacted of us in this matter.
If this be so, it is not difficult to trace a connection between the warning against giving offence to others and that to take heed in the matter of forgiveness of others. Our Lord has taught us to pray, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them who trespass against us. And thus the natural method of cancelling the debts which we incur daily to the justice of God, is the continual practice of the forgiveness of those who in any way incur debts to us. Men may trespass against us even without intending it or knowing it, as well as deliberately and consciously, and we have in the course of a day in which we have mixed much with our brethren, a score of occasions in which they become in some way our debtors, or in which we may become debtors to them.
The habit of perpetual and ready forgiveness is thus the natural counterpart to the habit of giving offence, consciously or unconsciously, of which we can never hope to be perfectly free. For we may give offence in the sight of God and do harm to our neighbour even by silence, when a word was due from us in defence of truth and right, and by abstaining from or hiding a good action which might have saved a weak soul from the influence of evil all around him.
Thus universal charity in thought, in our interpretations of what is done or said by our brethren, as well as prompt forgiveness when there has been actual wrong done to ourselves, is a most precious safeguard against the danger we so constantly incur of doing evil to them by our example. The words of our Lord indeed do not in themselves go beyond the occasions when there is conscious offence and actual petition for pardon. But the spirit which animates the conduct which He enjoins will certainly reach beyond the strict limit of His words.
Various Teachings and Counsels
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