A Leaven In The World… Sin Is Personal Before It Is Social Or “Systemic”
By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
One would have to be blind or dishonest to deny that George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin. Reaction against the outrage was nearly as universal as it was immediate.
Others are writing very well about the hijacking of this tragic death by Marxist and anarchist revolutionaries to overthrow the hated American system. ”The Issue Is Never the Issue — The Real Issue Is the Revolution” in the June 8, 2020 issue of TFP by James R. Bascom is a good example.
The riots which overwhelmed the many peaceful protesters we now know were opportunistic invasions by revolutionary and terrorist factions such as BLM and antifa.
Police abuse of power does happen as in the case of George Floyd and others. This does not change the fact that there are at the same time many good police officers who should not be “painted with the same brush” as those who break the law.
One of the tactics of the revolution is to go after the “system” and, thus, one of the demands of the revolutionaries is to “defund the police.” If the whole system is corrupt, then throw it out.
Except it isn’t.
As in the case of Nineveh in the Bible, if the prophet can prove that if even only a few good men live in the city, God will not wipe out the whole populace as evil.
Evil is personal before it is systemic, as a Pope John Paul II pointed out. In order to eliminate evil, therefore, one must begin at the beginning and deal with the personal nature of evil and the persons who commit it.
“Sin, in the proper sense, is always a personal act, since it is an act of freedom on the part of an individual person and not properly of a group or community. This individual may be conditioned, incited and influenced by numerous and powerful external factors. He may also be subjected to tendencies, defects and habits linked with his personal condition. In not a few cases such external and internal factors may attenuate, to a greater or lesser degree, the person’s freedom and therefore his responsibility and guilt.
“But it is a truth of faith, also confirmed by our experience and reason, that the human person is free. This truth cannot be disregarded in order to place the blame for individuals’ sins on external factors such as structures, systems or other people. Above all, this would be to deny the person’s dignity and freedom, which are manifested — even though in a negative and disastrous way — also in this responsibility for sin committed. Hence there is nothing so personal and un-transferable in each individual as merit for virtue or responsibility for sin” (Reconciliation and Penance, n. 16).
It all depends on one’s perspective. If there is one good man in a police department then the whole department is not systemically evil.
In a system of justice we are all innocent until proven guilty. The hard work of rooting out wrongdoers is part of our American “system.”
Also playing a role in our philosophy is the Christian concept of good and evil. We believe that good exists because of the presence of grace, the human means of sharing in God’s justice and love.
Increasingly torn from our Christian roots, we see the result in reporters who badger our leaders with the constant question, “Do you agree that racism is systemic?” whether among police or in America as a whole.
Those who refuse to bend the knee to the revolution by responding with assent are then branded as part of the unjust system.
We could on the other hand respond yes, however, but then we would have to quickly add, “But so is goodness.”
Both goodness and evil are “systemic” among those who cooperate for either good or evil purposes. The human project, sadly, always offers examples of the latter.
Our Christian faith explains well both the presence of good and evil, as well as providing the answer to the problem of sin.
It is evil to see only evil in others. That is the reason why racism is a sin.
Cain murders Abel every time one man takes unjustly the life of another. We are one human race of many ethnicities and thus we are brothers. Sins, including racism, are never systemic without also at the same time being personal.
The human glass is always half full if it can be said to be half empty. Good people do good deeds every day in the police force and among strangers on the street. Good people are right now cleaning up the streets after the riots and joining together to rebuild the stores and other structures burned and looted by evil men.
Those who want to tear down the system will continue to claim that racism is systemic because Chauvin, a white man, killed George Floyd, a black man, by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Statues are being toppled in a purge of our history, a cultural “cleansing” which will replace these cultural icons with Black Lives Matter monuments. For example, left-wing vandals attacked statues honoring Christopher Columbus on Wednesday, June 10, in St. Paul, Minn., Richmond, Va., and Boston.
But the primary explanation for what happened to Floyd was sin. It is unreasonable to make a judgment of racism without proof. It is profoundly reasonable to condemn this act as murder no matter the motive.
It may indeed come out in trial that Chauvin killed Floyd because he hates all black people. What is more likely to be proven is that Chauvin hated Floyd with an animus that was personal in nature and in an abuse of power took his life unjustly.
As in the case of every other sin, however, racism is personal before it is social or systemic.
This being the case, the only way to wipe it out forever is to do the hard work of teaching every member of the human race to reject judgments based on appearances and to encounter and build up goodness in others as well as in oneself.
The Christian faith always sees goodness in the human person because we take in the love of God for every human person as part of that faith. Grace includes loving our neighbors as we love ourselves and faith rejects the falsehood that love of God can coexist with anything less than love of neighbor.
This is the answer to eliminating racism, as it is for all sin or injustice.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
(Visit my blog at APriestLife.blogspot.com and get reflections on the Scriptures for holy Mass at mcitl.blogspot.com@gmail.com.)
