Modern Secularism’s Triple Distortion of Divine Mercy

Chelsea - transfiguration

Chelsea - transfiguration

I continue to be amazed by how this secular society tries to twist Divine Mercy into blinking, happy-go-lucky acceptance of every behavior one can imagine. This warped and sinister reasoning follows a three-way distortion of logic, Church teaching, and Divine Mercy.

First, we are told that, since we are all created in God’s image, it therefore follows that we must be inherently good and, by extension, that everything we do is, at some point, inherently good. This twisted logic, of course, pretends that just because we are initially created in God’s image that, therefore, it follows that we are as infallible as God is.

It is the height of logical absurdity to say, for example, that since we are created in God’s image our actions are created in the image of God’s actions. God is all good, loving, merciful, just, and wise. Is anyone who has not been drinking heavily lately willing to argue that we are all good, loving, merciful, just, and wise?

Since we were initially created in God’s image, but somehow, along the way, have managed to mess that up to some degree, then it follows that we must be very capable of sin, distortion, confusion, and many other taints and stains on that initial beauty. In short, we may be created in God’s image, but that does not therefore mean that everything we do is inherently good, wise, or acceptable, as our distorted secular modernists would have us believe.

Following the above logic, if God is perfect and we are not and therefore fully capable of imperfection, then how can it be that such a God would then accept, embrace, and respect our imperfection? If perfection accepts imperfection, does not that perfection therefore become imperfect in the process, which in the case of God, is impossible?

Second, in order to cover up the twists and turns of the first distortion, a second distortion is put forth. Namely, that God accepts people as they are but that the Church is the one which has it all wrong, and has excluded, rejected, bullied, and abused anyone it deems different through the ages. Under this fable, we are supposed to believe that the Church is this evil institution whose main conduct over the ages has been to judge, reject, and persecute anyone who does not conform to its twisted view of what is right and wrong. This argument will focus on the clerical sexual abuse of children, the Spanish Inquisition, and anything else it can drag up to prove that the Church has been wrong a lot, and has hurt people a lot, simply because it has failed to protect and embrace the voiceless and marginalized in our society.

The problem with this second fable is that true history shows that, while the Church is imperfect because humans are imperfect, it has, by and large, done much more good than evil, and helped many more people than it has harmed over the course of history. Also, Church positions are grounded in clear, core Church teaching, and not fanciful notions created a few years ago. The argument contends that Church teaching which contradicts modern societal views is simply outdated, ancient, and narrow minded. Such contentions, of course, assume that current practices and values are somehow more enlightened, wise, and true to God’s original intent.

Again, we go back to the distortion that modern thinking and practices are somehow better than anything believed or practiced in the past, and that anyone contradicting modern thinking should be excluded, marginalized, rejected, and the like. It does not take a genius to see the absurdity of arguing that the Church has been guilty of excluding those who are different, while at the same time having no problem with excluding, rejecting, mocking, and ignoring those who are different from that very same proposition. If there is one trait which modernist secular thinking is fully versed in, it is hypocrisy!

Lastly, modern secular society confuses, either unintentionally or not, compassion with acceptance. According to this logical pretzel, the Good Samaritan’s actions mean that he was to fully accept, embrace, and welcome everything the injured man he helped practiced or believed! In other words, if the Good Samaritan happened to rescue a a thief, rapist, selfish lout, or atheist, then according to our learned secular modernists, the Good Samaritan would not really be “good” unless he “compassionately” embraced and accepted the theft, rape, selfishness, or disbelief in God exhibited by the man he rescued!

One can only hope that these people do not seriously believe that because one is compassionate, that means that one must therefore accept and embrace everything about the one assisted in one’s compassion! I can feed the hungry man who is a wife beater, for example, without embracing, accepting, promoting, and defending his abuse of his wife! Helping a dying thief does not mean that I embrace theft.

Jesus loved the sinner without accepting the sin, as He so clearly demonstrated by telling the woman caught in adultery to “sin no more”. The modern distorters would have us believe that true love ultimately equates with total acceptance and welcoming of everything about the one loved, lest we be practicing exclusion and not “welcoming” the “different” one.

Christ’s beautiful promise of Divine Mercy comes to those who reject their wrong and sincerely seek forgiveness in a spirit of genuine, trusting humility, obedience, and conformity to God’s Word and Will. Ultimately, Divine Mercy is an open invitation to humbly conform, not a get-out-of-jail card!

It is eerie and ironic that modern secularism’s twisted view of Divine Mercy is reflected in the typical public school classroom, where administrators and faculty are either afraid to point out incorrect behavior or attitudes, or have actually bought into the lie that wisdom and tolerance demand acceptance and even embracing dissident behavior. Modern secularism spews the fraud that differences are automatically to be celebrated, defended, embraced, accepted, and even promoted as opportunities for tolerance and rejection of intolerance and narrow-mindedness.

Modern educational theory, for example, increasingly mirrors this trend toward seeing compassion in diluted, blurred, all-embracing acceptance and even promotion of rebellion, insolence, ignorant arrogance, and victimization. Consequently, we see schools paralyzed at the whim of bullying, cheating, disrespectful, ignorant, and arrogant rebels who believe that the institution has a duty to cater to individual whim and agendas no matter what.

Christ embodies loving compassion and mercy in the face of sincere contrition, genuine humility, and a true desire to change. This Divine Mercy, so profoundly exhibited in the writings of St. Faustina, is the true example of Heavenly tough love. In contrast, modern secularism’s version of such mercy, labeled as “compassion”, “tolerance”, “acceptance”, and a “welcoming” open-mindedness, is nothing but diluted rationalization wrapped in the false garb of compassion.

Anyone who sees an eerie similarity between such a diluted, feel good morality and Common Core education, for example, is not far off the mark. Many years ago, students were rewarded for getting correct answers, taught about absolute truths and principles which did not waver, and given tools for finding precision and clarity. Today, 2 + 2 can be 5 if you can explain why you feel that way, tell us the process you followed to get to that answer, or will be deeply offended or scarred for life should any teacher dare to point out your error.

At the end of the day, modern, secularist society is not so much looking for absolute, correct answers as for absolutely acceptable answers which avoid the sort of precision, accountability, personal responsibility, and clarity that can put the spotlight on incompetence, inconsistency, hypocrisy, or personal agendas. Ultimately, this society defines mercy as being at the mercy of the individual, not as the caring, firm, compassion of a loving God.

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16 thoughts on “Modern Secularism’s Triple Distortion of Divine Mercy”

  1. One can only hope that these people do not seriously believe that because one is compassionate, that means that one must therefore accept and embrace everything about the one assisted in one’s compassion!

    More straw-manning.

    Anyone who sees an eerie similarity between such a diluted, feel good morality and Common Core education, for example, is not far off the mark. Many years ago, students were rewarded for getting correct answers, taught about absolute truths and principles which did not waver, and given tools for finding precision and clarity. Today, 2 + 2 can be 5 if you can explain why you feel that way, tell us the process you followed to get to that answer, or will be deeply offended or scarred for life should any teacher dare to point out your error.

    Please show where the common core allows for 2+2=5 to be correct as long as “you explain why you feel that way.”

    1. Do you have kids in public school? I cannot believe you do, because it you did, you would not even try to ask that question. I am an educator, and I have kids in public school, and I have seen examples of the sorts of questions put in Common Core tests, heard the complaints of kids and parents, and even spoken to many teachers who agree. Questions are not phrased in absolutes, but focus more on the why and process of how one achieved an answer. Scores of critics online have argued this very point, so just search for “what is wrong with common core” and find out.

    2. Anecdotes are nice. Concrete examples are better.

      Also, it apparently needs to be pointed out that the Common Core is not a curriculum, but a series of benchmarks that outlines what children should know in a variety of areas upon completion of a certain K-12 grade. So, I ask again, can you show me anything in the Common Core that allows for 2+2=5 to be correct as long as “you explain why you feel that way.”

  2. First, we are told that, since we are all created in God’s image, it therefore follows that we must be inherently good and, by extension, that everything we do is, at some point, inherently good.

    Who has said this?

    1. Ok. This is simple logic. The only reason why anyone would justify what they believe and do by saying that they are created in God’s image is to imply that, since we believe the God is all good and we are created in His image, then we must therefore be all good. From that it also follows that, as logic would demand, believing that God is all good means what He does is all good ( since bad or defective actions cannot come from perfection) then the implication is that what we do must therefore also be inherently good, which ignores the fact that we can be created in God’s image yet mess that up with our human imperfection. As to who used the created in God’s image argument, there are loads of people, including a priest who recently used it to attack the Church’s stance against allowing homosexuals to work in Catholic schools.

    2. Let’s leave aside the silliness of claiming, as the OP does, that “secular society” is in the habit of excusing various behaviors on the grounds that “we’re all created in God’s image”.

      A refresher, my question was who out there is saying that “everything we do is, at some point, inherently good”.

      Ok. This is simple logic. The only reason why anyone would justify what they believe and do by saying that they are created in God’s image is to imply that, since we believe the God is all good and we are created in His image, then we must therefore be all good

      Nonsense. What you present isn’t simple logic, it’s bad logic (as you go on to point out). First, not everyone believes that God is good. Second, it doesn’t necessarily follow that being created in the image of something imparts the creation with all the properties of the original (as you say).

      Now, let’s take your example of a supposed priest arguing against Church policy re: hiring homosexuals to work in Catholic schools. To state the obvious, this is a bad example due to it’s limited scope – ie. Church policy re: homosexuals. The priest is not saying that everything we do is good. I mean, he thinks the Church policy towards gays is bad, right? Do you think he believes those responsible for the policy are not made in God’s image? Of course not. Your example of one priest’s argument against employment discrimination via appeal to shared human dignity does little to support the OP’s notion that secular society is in the business of telling people they can do no wrong b/c God’s image.

      EDIT: a ‘r’ & ‘es’

  3. Many people have so different takes on mercy…..I particularly drawn to Francis’ take:

    “Newness often makes us fearful, including the newness God brings us, the newness God asks of us. We are like the apostles in the Gospel: often we would prefer to hold on to our own security, to stand in front of a tomb, to think about someone who has died, someone who ultimately lives on only as a memory, like the great historical figures from the past. We are afraid of God’s surprises.”
    ― Pope Francis, The Church of Mercy

    1. There is nothing wrong with newness, as long as it is not embraced for the sake of being new, or assuming that being new is somehow better just because it is new. God surprises us because He offers us His open arms despite the fact that we seemingly do everything possible to reject Him. That is basically what Divine Mercy is all about. It is a God Who does not follow our rules about “fairness” or forgiveness but only asks us to reach for Him in a desire to trust, love, obey, and follow Him. As the article notes, this is not enough for many people, who define mercy as carte blanche to do as we please. At the end of the day, many people act and believe as spoiled children who want to have it all their way on their terms, and delude themselves into thinking that they are the most “enlightened” generation ever, beyond the basic humility and sincerity from which sanctity is etched.

  4. “In contrast, modern secularism’s version of such mercy, labeled as “compassion”, “tolerance”, “acceptance”, and a “welcoming” open-mindedness, is nothing but diluted rationalization wrapped in the false garb of compassion.”

    There is nothing wrong with any of those qualities. The Catholic position is that we are born in Original Sin and need the mercy of a deity. Actually, now that we know that we were not created in the image of a deity and that we evolved becoming more civilized with each new generation, there is no time in the history of the human race when we would have fallen from grace. Overall, we are improving with time and do not need anyone’s “Divine Mercy”. What we need is to learn to respect our differences and embrace our individuality.

    1. Not sure where you get your conclusive statement that we were not created in the image of a deity ( since you avoid the saying God you reveal a lot about your views already). Also, you say that we have evolved and become more civilized so I assume you equate the Catholic position with primitive view or perhaps tree swinging primates? The Catholic position is that we fell from grace and were redeemed by Jesus Christ, and we do indeed need Our Lord’s Divine Mercy lest we end up in eternal perdition. I agree that we need to respect differences and even embrace individuality, but not to the point of diluting and selling out the faith we claim to follow. If one rejects core and traditional Catholic teaching, no problem. Just do not pretend to be Catholic while only practicing a diluted, lukewarm, personalized and rationalized version of it. I wrote a while back that you can claim all you want that you are a vegetarian, but if you eat meat you are not vegetarian, and only look foolish, arrogant, or both pretending so. There is nothing inherently wrong with compassion, tolerance, acceptance, and welcoming, just as long as you are not using these concepts to contradict, twist, dilute, or betray the core teachings of the faith you claim to follow. I do not get it. People reject 70% of Catholicism, yet insist on being called Catholics under their own subjective, “enlightened” version of Catholicism. If that is not the definition of arrogance I do not know what is. Yes, let me demand tolerance while twisting your faith into a shape that suits me regardless of what you think, and then shove it down your throat to boot….profound.

    2. ” The Catholic position is that we fell from grace and were redeemed by Jesus Christ, and we do indeed need Our Lord’s Divine Mercy lest we end up in eternal perdition. ”

      That is such a bizarre and extreme way to look at this life. It really has nothing to do with who we are as humans and where we came from. The “Fall from Grace” never happened at any time in our evolution from apes to humans. A baby is born innocent and is in no need of any baptism. There is no one keeping track of our good and bad deeds. There is nothing when we die, just as it is for every living being. The whole thing is bs.

    3. I think the commenter to whom you replied has made an admirable demonstration of your point, though he/she probably didn’t intend to and likely won’t recognize that he/she did. (Having read further now, I would like to expand this to include some of the other comments as well.) Great article, btw. God bless you!

  5. Wonderfully written and beautifully logical! Thank you for saying what I have been thinking and trying to put into words!
    I have some acquaintances who are a man and woman living together. He has children and is not yet divorced from his first wife; she is divorced and has a child by a previous marriage. The children are, of course, beautiful and I always welcome them with open arms. I treat the parents kindly and respectfully. Because of this, I had to be frank with them when they asked my opinion (I had not offered it previously) as to the best way for them to teach their children Catholic values as they were preparing for First Holy Communion. It was not what they wanted to hear, but in the end, they know that I care for them, and I know that I was honest with them.
    Love is not pretending that wrong does not exist; love is recognizing the wrong in a compassionate, honest manner, from one sinner to another.

    1. It seems bizarre that this couple would ask for advice. What advice were they thinking you would give ?.

    2. Thank you, Cynthia. Unfortunately, most people today would not see logic if it hit them in the contrapositive. I wish I had a penny for each time I see a good, solid, logical argument online attacked by dopes whose drivel is mind numbing. I am never as afraid for the future of this society as when I read the comments of 80% of the people responding to articles they do not agree with. This nation is truly entering an intellectual oblivion.

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