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Jennifer Henry

SRT265

Martino

October 5th, 2019

Ethical Analysis 3

St. Paul writes in his letters to the Corinthians that we are all one body of Christ (1

Corinthians 12:12). In the Body of Christ, every part is needed no matter how removable a part

may be. We, the Church, all function with one another. Edward Sri uses his book, Who Am I to

Judge, to comment on the issue of morality facing the church and how we are expected to

confront this problem. It is no doubt that in today’s modern society we are more able to see the

issue of morality, whether it be through social media or even just through statistics, like the

rising divorce rates. The Ecclesial community is presented with the issue of morality every

Sunday; divorced women in church, girls under 18 who had abortions, men who have cheated on

their wives, are all seated in the pews on Sunday morning. How do we pastorally handle the

morality issue at hand? Are we expected to kick them out? Provide care for the tragic experience

at work? If we are all truly “the Body of Christ”, how do we confront the parts of the body that

may be lacking in their part of the works? Sri uses his book to further address society’ moral

issues through an analysis our Catholic moral theology.

Humans are built on the fundamental of love, and out of love, was given free-will. Within

our free will, we were given then the freedom to live our lives to the best extent we could. Sri

explains that our goal as humans, whether we like it or not, is to find to the telos, or Greek for

end, purpose, or goal (26). We have this natural drive for more; we want more out of life, more

meaning, more love. Sri describes this desire for more as a search for our telos, because we don’t
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realize our telos is founded by God, through God, and in God. On page 24, Sri discusses this

further, by being created by God and like God, we thus have the desire to love like God (24). We

desire relationships and need virtues to complete these relationships. It is through love that we

find virtue, and vice versa. By having our end goal, or telos, we have a greater destination to

strive for, instead of just “living in the moment.” When we are more focused on our telos and

therefore our salvation through Christ, we are more likely to commit to a greater love for

relationships. Sri talks about how we are all called for this great love, but we do in fact need

assistance to get there, assistance that we call virtue (28). It is through acquiring and practicing

virtue that we are able to better form our own relationships as Christ had intended.

For example, most of my friends’ relationships are built from a physical, transactional

perspective. My catholic self does not have these same transactional values, since I grew up with

my mother shoving the church’s moral teachings in my face since I was able to talk. When we

base our relationships on this, they are not authentic. Our true relationships should be built as

Christ’s were built; on an unconditional love. Therefore, understanding the telos concept made a

lot of sense; if my telos for dating is to marry, I’m less likely to hook-up with random men from

a bar (not at all likely, in reality). My friends, who have lost the sacramentality approach to

marriage, do not have an end goal for dating, and let their actions play out with little

consequences. Without a telos, they are misguided in their approach and need an end goal to find

a sufficient relationship.

As stated before, Virtue is necessary for love, and thus necessary for good relationships.

When we have virtue; patience, humility, etc., we thus become better versions of ourselves ready

to give the love given to us by Christ. Sri points out that virtue “must be understood relationally”

(43). Being Virtuous is not simply just being a good person or doing the right thing, it is
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consciously making the decision to make live as God had intended you to be a better person for

those around you. We grow in virtue by 3 main categories as described by Sri, knowing virtue,

practicing perfect virtue, and asking for God’s grace in virtue (44-45). By simply knowing how

to live a virtuous life, we have accomplished step one of avoiding the ignorance of virtue.

Practicing perfect virtue includes understanding that there is not a time limit on our growth to

virtue. We are constantly forming ourselves deeper into Christ, and our virtue is no different.

Lastly, interceding to the Father for help; whether it be through prayer or receiving the

sacraments. The theme of the three main categories of growing in virtue retreats to our fallen

nature, that we are always prone to sin and in need of penance. It is through virtue that we can

hope to develop deeper into the everlasting mercy of God.

I really enjoyed the specific area of Sri’s discussion on growing in virtue for the reason

that we have this notion to complicate instead of simplifying. Sri lays out the foundational

developments of how to be a more virtuous catholic, he understands where the roadblocks will

be, how they’ll occur, and where it will take you, acknowledges our fault, and works to provide a

simple plan on living virtuously. The complication comes from identifying virtue as a practice

before a granted request. Practically, virtue comes from an area of self-improvement, much like a

diet. You can lose weight in 10 days because you ate more vegetables and avoided ice cream for

dessert, but often time you retreat back to your old habits because you do not make it a lifestyle.

You can also lose weight, and keep the weight off, by having a regular habit of going the gym

and eating more balanced meals. Virtue is a similar practice, that needs to be reinforced every

day, even in the small little things of life, such as acknowledging the need for virtue in your life.

We have been given this misconception to our humanity since the beginning of time.

Adam and Eve were granted free-will out of God’s own love, but this free-will comes with the
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freedom to abandon God as well. Sri describes that there are two natures to freedom, true

freedom found in Christ, and “negative freedom,” which was the freedom granted to us after the

Fall in Genesis chapter 3. Our true freedom, which is founded on the promise of virtue, allows us

to love God and our neighbors freely and wholly just as Christ has loved us (51). Our “negative

freedom,” is when we believe that we can do anything we want, because we are free; this is the

opposite of freedom, because we end up becoming slaves to the interests of the world around us

(52). By channeling all of our energy into the material possessions of the world, we lose the

ability to focus that energy into our relationships, thus becoming what Sri calls “slaves” to

freedom. These two forms of freedom juxtaposed place us in an uncomfortable position; how do

we know when we are experiencing true freedom versus the negative freedom? We have this fear

that if we give into the true freedom, we are not truly exercising freedom because then we have

rules, or virtutes, to follow to obtain such freedom. It would be much simpler to just do as I

would please. Sri discourages this mindset, saying that our true freedom lies in giving to another

person, because you gain so much more (58). By doing this, we are exemplifying the love shown

for us by Christ’s death on the cross for our salvation, the ultimate freedom.

Sri provides excellent points for pastoral consideration: How do we handle brokenness

among individuals in the church? He starts out by pointing out two pillars of mercy; forgiveness

and healing. (92). The bottom line is simple, we are all humans, we all have feelings, we all have

emotion, we are all sensitive. We should be praising those coming fourth for their wrong doings,

because they admitted to their wrong and are taking the initiative to come back to Christ. By

forgiving and healing, we are caressing our church back into order. We are making them feel

welcome. My favorite subsection was “Getting to the Heart of the Gospels” because it connected

the ecumenical community to the ecclesiological community so beautifully. Yes, we are a church
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founded on tradition and magisterium. But we are also a church founded on the teachings of

Jesus Christ, who went out of his way to care for the marginalized members of society; tax

collectors, prostitutes, widows, etc. Too often, we are obsessed with shoving the catechism down

people’s throats, when we should be focusing on shoving the purgative love and mercy of Jesus

Christ down people’s throats. A compelling argument Sri makes is “They may not know how

much God wants to heal them of whatever burdens they may be carrying,” (86). This is a

pastoral sense that I feel many have forgotten. I think this quote could go both ways, I think that

clergy and laity have also forgotten how much God wants to heal the broken members of our

church. We need to be more pastorally sensitive; we need to go down into the mud and pull the

marginalized members of our church out, just as Christ did. We need to go back to the root of

our teachings from the Son of Man rather than focusing on dogmatic or apologetic theology.

Similarly, I found the key on “Taking on the Heart of Christ” interesting. I am guilty

especially of this, of recognizing the sin instead of the sinner. I have a lot of families in my faith

formation program who do not make it to mass on Sundays. Obviously, as a catechist and faith

formation director, this upset and angers me. “They could easily make one hour of their Sunday

aside for church!” I always tell my pastor. It wasn’t until recently that I had compassion for this,

when a mom of 4 came to tell me they struggle to get to mass with only one family car and all

the sports team practices. She reassured me they always go to mass once a week, it might just not

always be on Sunday, sometimes it’s on a Tuesday night for their family. Sri’s comment that “If

we tend to respond to other’s fault with condemnation, it may be because we ourselves have a

moral problem,” really struck me the most (149). Out of my own refusal to acknowledge my sin,

I put the blame on others, which is much easier to do. Instead, we must change our accountability

and assist those who need us most. Sri calls us to “be merciful” and acknowledge our “fellow
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sufferers” like Christ does, and this is incredibly true for the pastoral community (148-149). It is

through the love of Christ that we are able to find ourselves back to where he wants us; united in

the body of Christ.