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Jacques's avatar

“…according to St. Thomas Aquinas (one of only 37 Doctor of the Catholic Church) there are at least 64 virtues and tolerance is not one of them. But what does he know after all?).”

It is true that Aquinas does not list tolerance among the virtues, but that does not mean he didn’t address matters that pertain to what we consider tolerance today. For example, Aquinas does discuss the related virtues of patience, meekness and charity. These virtues address the capacity to endure difficulties, including the imperfections or faults of others, which is closely aligned with modern understandings of tolerance.

• Patience (patientia): Aquinas describes patience as the virtue by which a person endures suffering or adversity without losing inner peace or becoming excessively angry. This can involve enduring the actions or words of others, a key aspect of what we often mean by tolerance today.

• Meekness (mansuetudo): This virtue moderates anger and promotes a gentle and forgiving attitude, which can contribute to a tolerant disposition when dealing with difficult people or situations.

• Charity (caritas): As one of the theological virtues, charity requires love of neighbour and respect for others, even when their behaviour is challenging. It motivates a kind of tolerance rooted in love and the desire for the good of the other person.

These virtues foster a mindset that allows for a form of tolerance grounded in patience, charity, and a controlled temper.

Lastly, it should be noted that for Aquinas, and the Medieval Church, tolerance would be bounded by the demands of justice and truth. These would play out in a particular context within a society. It is quite possible to have these applied in one way at one time and in another way at another time. An example can be seen in the fact that Aquinas favoured the tolerance of prostitution, not as a good, but for the greater good of society (so much more could be said about this point on prostitution but this is not the place). The point is that current context is an important determinant of how the Church and society might tolerate certain things at certain times. Even in terms of doctrinal development, or even just theological discussion and difference, Aquinas takes a position that would be vehemently opposed by St. John Chrysostom in the patristic age and by the Doctor or Reform, St. Peter Damian, just a century and a half before his own time.

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Jacques's avatar

“But hasn’t mental gymnastics, creative semantics and a fluid relationship with truth and reality become the way we practice our Catholicism in the age of Pope Francis?)”

Can’t speak for others here, but no, not as far as I am concerned. As a young Catholic, just 11 years this Easter, I’m still learning a lot about the Church, her life and teachings. Whenever I’ve encountered anything from the Pope or the Vatican that I’m struggling to square with my own sense of things, I embark on a new adventure of discovery, in which the normal thing that happens is that I learn something new about the history and Tradition of the Church that I didn’t know before.

These investigations and discoveries have left me feeling generally stable and secure in the knowledge that the Holy Spirit is still protecting and guiding Christ’s Church, even when I read startling headlines that, thus far, have usually turned out to be making a lot about nothing, or building mountains out of molehills.

Now, in saying that, I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that Catholic world news doesn’t at times concern me and cause frustration and despair – it does. But that’s always because the Church really does house unrepented sinners and heretics (along with those righteous through grace and faith), and their false wares are frequently on show, seeking someone to buy into their fake goods.

When if comes to the Pope himself, the thing that frustrates and concerns me most frequently is not what he says, but rather with the company he keeps. The thing is, Jesus faced the same criticism. We could say, “yes, but with Jesus the context was different”, except we don’t actually have the full context of many of these meetings and meals. We get glimpses into a few of them, and snippets of conversations, but not enough to know for sure how Jesus handled every encounter with a sinner or groups of sinners.

I’m not saying here that concerned Catholics have nothing to worry about, as though I have some divine prophetic insight into whether, in the near future, a report out of the Vatican will actually turn out to be more than frustrating. But if that were the case it seems Catholicism, and thereby it’s adherents (whether conservative, traditional or anything else) would have bigger problems than those being discussed in the above article.

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