Tolerance is a virtue, tolerating evil is a vice

By The Numbers for Week 8 of the Prep Football Season
October 28, 2015
Lafourche, Terrebone Halloweens moved to Friday
October 28, 2015
By The Numbers for Week 8 of the Prep Football Season
October 28, 2015
Lafourche, Terrebone Halloweens moved to Friday
October 28, 2015

In most gospels Jesus has made his third and most detailed prediction of his Passion and death. The Son of Man is going to be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and eventually they will condemn him to death. By now you would have thought the Apostles would begin to understand and accept this message.

Unfortunately, they didn’t. Jesus doesn’t get the words out of his mouth when James and John approach him and want special favors. They want positions of power. The only thing Jesus offers them is a share in his sufferings, to drink from the cup he will drink from and be baptized in his baptism of suffering. To any other fantasy they may have, Jesus responds with stern “no.”


Then, turning to the other Apostles, who are grumbling over the brothers’ boldness, Jesus insists that the ways of Non-Christians, lording it over others, are not the ways of his true disciples. They must be of service to others, just as Jesus served and even sacrificing his life for our salvation.

When you are trying to do a favor for someone, have they asked you the question, “What’s in it for you?” Some people think it’s unheard of to do a favor for someone without expecting some kind of payback.

As followers of Christ, we can answer that question is quite simple. I serve others though there’s nothing in it for me; and I serve others because there’s everything in it for me.


There’s nothing in it for me because often in our lives we decide to offer our service to others just because others need something from us. That something may be lending a hand such as helping a person move or paint their house, or wash the dishes, or take care of someone’s kids. We see someone in need, and we offer to help with no thought of gaining anything in return.

Yet, simultaneously, there’s everything in it for me, because when I serve others I have a unique opportunity to act as Christ acted. He tells us that he came not to be served, but to serve. When we choose to do the same, we are imitating Christ himself.

Jesus calls the entire Church to be a servant to the world. The essential mission of the Church is to carry out the task of evangelizing all people (proclaiming the Good News of God’s love for us). This is where the Church finds her deepest identity.


Jesus founded his Church so that we would announce the Gospel for all times and in all places. In bringing the unique and powerful message of the Gospel to the world, we serve the world in a deeply profound way. If we do not announce the Good News, we are not a Church.

We are to be the leaven in our world. Our work is to transform humanity from within and to make it new. We are not primarily a social club, or a group of like-minded individuals.

We are a radical believing community of hope, love and peace. We exist to renew the personal and collective consciences of people. We should bring a moral context for people’s everyday lives. We are called to upset humanity’s false values, to fight against misguided and dangerous thinking, to expose hazardous models of living and superficial lifestyles.


We have become a more tolerant community in the last forty or so years, but there is a danger that we are giving up our essential mission of transforming humanity. Tolerance is surely a virtue, but tolerating what is evil is surely a vice. Celebrating lifestyles and values that have the potential to destroy the goodness of family life and healthy relationships is never good.

May we, by our witness and our word, upset and transform the entire human race. •