The
recent kerfuffle over Paula Deen is an interesting opportunity to
explore the difference between Catholic teaching and the culture at
large. While not condoning whatever Ms. Deen might have said, in the
Catholic Church, we hold to the cliche that you should hate the sin and
love the sinner. After repentance and restitution, we must be willing
to forgive (even if we can't always forget). But in the culture's eyes,
the sin IS the sinner. There is no such thing in the world as a good
person doing something bad. Either the act is good because a good person
does it, or the person is bad because he did a bad thing.
Celebrities do go through a sort of purgatory: actors check into Betty
Ford, politicians become talking heads on cable news shows, but to me
that still seems to minimize the wrong done. In the Catholic Church
we're violently against sin, but also violently in favor of forgiveness.
It's a tough balancing act to get them both right.
