LICC - Word for the Week - Humility and wisdom

word for the week - humility and wisdom

Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you. Mockers resent correction; they will not consult the wise.
(Proverbs 9:8, 15:12)
There are two sorts of people described in the book of Proverbs - those who seek wisdom, and those who are fools and mockers. Pope John Paul II has often been the target of mockers. Authoritarian, rigid, conservative, out of touch, promoting cruel and destructive ethical doctrines - these terms have been used to describe him and Catholic teaching. But, to the surprise of many, including the mockers, his dying, lying in state and funeral have brought out the millions in prayerful respect.

John Paul has, through the long years of his papacy, rebuked and chided Catholics, other Christians and all humanity. He has rebuked us for the cheapening of sex, for making it simply personal pleasure and not part of larger, longer and more important commitments to marriage and to children. He has rebuked us for seeking easy ways out of uncomfortable burdens through abortion and euthanasia. He has demonstrated the acceptance of disciplines, such as celibacy, for a greater good. He has spoken for the world's poor and opposed the war against Iraq. He has accepted the terrible handicaps and public distress of Parkinson's and the ravages of old age with dignity, and probably without changing his mind about embryo stem cell research.

Personally I have deep disagreements at several points, and would take issue on the nature of authority, the theology of church, and the ambivalent view of sex demonstrated in the imposition of celibacy, and the opposition to birth control, and the attitude to women. The Pope was, like the rest of us, a flawed human being both ex and ad cathedra. But I do not want to be a mocker, who assumes all those who support a conservative agenda are being deliberately obtuse and ignorant. I will listen to his rebukes and consider whether I, along with many Catholic and non-Catholic Christians, may have sometimes thrown out part of the baby with the bathwater.

Margaret Killingray

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