Why Can’t You Just Be “More Loving”? by Dr. Jeff Mirus

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, April 16, 2021

For the past two generations or so, Catholics have been exhorted not only by the larger secular culture but by many of their own priests and bishops to “be more loving”. Properly intended, this is always good advice. But in the most common context, the point seems to be to discourage people from calling evil practices sinful or from opposing these practices.

Of course, the catalog of evils which rate the admonition to “be more loving” is highly selective. Those who display any racial prejudice or environmental carelessness are, of course, roundly condemned as beyond the pale. A failure to denounce such sins at every turn is a grave omission which raises questions about our very humanity. But those who oppose culturally-accepted sin—especially the sexual sins which undermine personal integrity, destroy the family, and lead directly to the murder of the unborn—are considered “haters” who must learn to “be more loving”. …