Forgiveness and Redemption: Compare and Contrast

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.