Originally published at The Catholic Thing
I have consistently found that the most intolerant people I meet are those who have the word “tolerance” on their lips all the time. We should not take this as hypocrisy. It is not what the Pharisees do, who blow a trumpet before them when they are giving alms. That is to turn charity into a stage-play, so that they can earn the praise of men, and if that is what they want, that is what they will get. “Fit retribution,” says Milton, “empty as their deeds.”
It is rather, I think, a condition most peculiar to our age, and it has to do with an urgent desire not to feel the prickling of the sins we approve. Those who regularly and honestly engage in examining their consciences will not like what they find there. That is because we are all sinners, and we all fall short of the glory of God.
The saint is more assured of God’s mercy than the ordinary sinner is, but he is also more careful not to offend, and more abashed when he does offend. He does not need a slogan from politicized arms of the Church to instruct him in tolerance. His own
