(Rorate thanks Roger McCaffrey for permission to publish this letter written to him in 1977 by his father Neil, a noted conservative publisher and political commentator, who for many years ran the Conservative Book Club and assisted with PR for National Review. Needless to say, the content of the letter is astonishingly timely, as we shiver our way through a second postconciliar winter.)
Dear Roger,
The problem of true charity is—the problem. Some random thoughts.
There can be no charity without justice, in this sense: charity may go beyond justice, but never at the expense of justice.
Von Hildebrand makes a useful distinction between injuries done to me and injuries done to God; the latter either directly or indirectly [because] to others. I cannot forgive an injury done to God, or to another.
We owe charity to our leaders in the Church, yes. But this does not extend to forgiving what in fact we cannot forgive, their offenses against God and the souls in their care. We should pray that they acquit themselves of these sins, but we do them no charity by pretending that their sins are virtues. Indeed, we do them the gravest disservice with such lies; and a worse disservice to those they harm.