A couple years ago I posted about the psychological abuse of priests and the resulting Moral Injury. It is good to review this concept occasionally, and consider it in light of what is going on in the Church today.
Moral injury applies to the laity as well. Think of what is being rammed down our little red lanes about “walking/woking together”.
This comes to mind today because I saw this tweet.
“When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to cooperate with evil, and in some small way… pic.twitter.com/sfcTwRiHpw
— Father V (@father_rmv) June 26, 2023
Loading ...
This is a great time to recall Vaclav Havel’s seminal “Power of the Powerless.” He wrote under a different set of circumstances, but the core of his message is very, very pertinent. We have to live in truth. He wasn’t even writing in a Christian context! (Although I guess he himself did have some kind of belief.) For a Christian, we are given the power to do this, even in situations of grave difficulty.
I SO encourage people to find a copy of this essay and read it! There are parts that are a bit dense, but I think anybody can get his basic message and see how it applies to our situation today.
A sort of cognizant dissonance. Reminds me of the old Soviet Union joke.
Comrade Brezhnev is visiting potato collective and asks commissar how large is potato harvest. So big if we make one big pile will touch the very chin of God. Brezhnev informs him in glorious workers paradise of Soviet Union they don’t believe in God. Good, potato pile no where big enough anyways.