← The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Day 298: Respect for Others (2025)
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We have seen how harming ourselves or others physically is a violation of the fifth commandment, but how can causing harm to another’s virtue or integrity violate this commandment? Fr. Mike unpacks what scandal is and exactly how it is a violation of the fifth commandment. He emphasizes the gravity of scandal when it comes from those who, by nature, teach, and how vital it is for all of us, but especially teachers, to avoid contributing to scandal. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2284-2287.
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Hi, my name is Fr. Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in Scripture and passed down to the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a Year is brought to you by ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 298. We. We are reading paragraphs 2284 to 2287. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes a foundation of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You could also download your own Catechism in a Year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com ciy and you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. But you knew that already. Today is day 298. We're looking at this Respect for the dignity of persons. Now, again, always keeping this in mind, is that these last seven commandments, the first three, right, love of God, the last seven, love of neighbor, they are all based on the dignity of the human person. So one of those things, well, many of the things we've been talking about has been if I take the life like the. The actual physical life of another innocent human being, that's strictly prohibited. What about damaging someone's soul? What about damaging. It says here, respect for the souls of others. That's the subtitle of the subtitle, Respect for the Dignity of persons, right above paragraph 2 to 8 4. Respect for the souls of others. There's a way in which we can do even I don't say graver damage, but yeah, I'm going to say it, even graver damage. It's one thing to take the physical life, to end the physical life of someone. It is another thing to lead them into sin and to, by our example, by our counsel, to lead someone away from the Lord that their soul would be lost to God forever. And that's the sin of scandal. So today we're going to look at the sin of scandal and the fact that we're called to respect the souls of others, not just their physical life, but also their spiritual life. As we look into this, some of the things that can happen is just like for the last number of days. It seems like I'm a broken record today, or broken record for the last number of days has been the fact that a lot of these things, suicide, abortion, euthanasia, all these aspects are things that can be in our lives. Scandal is also another thing that we can look at our own selves and think, oh, my goodness, Lord, where have I. Where have I led someone to sin? Where is there anyone or maybe groups of people who have been led away from you because of my example, because of my teaching, because of what I've done or said? Sometimes that kind of self condemnation can be a heavy and difficult weight to bear. So we're going to ask the Lord to bring us truth, of course, but also for the Lord to fill us with his grace, so that we can hear the truth without self condemnation, with conviction, of course, with the conviction of the Holy Spirit, so that we can know, okay, if I need to repent of this, I want to repent of this fully, but without that self condemnation, without the voice of the accuser accusing us of sin and leaving us in despair as we hear these words from paragraph 2284 to 2287 about scandal. Just say, okay, God, convict me where I need to be convicted. Not only, of course, as we said before, not only of my sin, but also of your mercy and your ability to heal, your ability to make us whole again. So we pray for that right now, Father in heaven, we do. We call upon the name of your son, Jesus Christ, and ask you to send us your Holy Spirit to convict our hearts in the truth and to convict our hearts in the truth, not only of sin, but also of grace, not only of our weakness and brokenness, but also of your healing and your power to redeem. Lord God, if we are guilty of the sin of scandal, that because of our choices, because of our example, because of our words, we have led others away from you or led others away from your truth, that we have not borne witness to you in truth and in love. We repent of that. We ask that you please help those people. Help those people that we have led away. Help them now. Bring them home, oh God, in spite of us, because of your love, bring them home. Bring them back to you. Lord God, let our tears at being the cause of scandal, let our sorrow at being the cause of scandal touch your sacred heart. Move your sacred heart to bring them back to you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day 298. We're reading paragraphs 2284-2287. Respect for the dignity of persons respect for the souls of others. Scandal. Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue and integrity. He may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense. If by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense. Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. Jesus reproaches the scribes and Pharisees on this account. He likens them to wolves in sheep's clothing. Scandal can be provoked by laws or institutions, by fashion or opinion. Therefore they are guilty of scandal who establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice, or to social conditions that intentionally or not, make Christian conduct and obedience to the commandments difficult and practically impossible. This is also true of business leaders who make rules encouraging fraud, teachers who provoke their children to anger, or manipulators of public opinion who turn it away from moral values. Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or or indirectly encouraged. Jesus stated, temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to him by whom they come. Right again, continued. Difficult words, but good words for us to hear. Paragraphs 2284 to 2287. Scandal. This is again we said at the top of this episode, the recognition that there are ways in which we can hurt another's physical life. There are also ways in which we can do damage to another's soul. So scandal. It's defined here in paragraph 2 to 84. Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. Goes on to say, the person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue and integrity. He may even draw his brother into spiritual death. It's a grave offense. Here's the key. If by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense and wow. So what are we going to talk about? We're going to talk about a couple things. One is how you can add to the gravity of Scandal, you know, remember, we've talked about this, I think, a number of times. St. James, in the. In the letter of James, he says that many of you, not many of you, should aspire to be teachers, my brethren, because you'll be held to a higher judgment, more a stricter judgment. And that is completely true. Because if your job is to teach others, if your job is to lead others to the truth or lead other others to the Lord, then that is. That is a grave responsibility. And that's not just teachers. That is parents. That's not just teachers and parents. That's priests, that's religious. That's anyone who is willing to take up the name of Christian. And this is so important, anyone willing to take up the name of Christian. We recognize that. Okay, Remember, we're called to be martyrs. If you remember this, in Acts, chapter one, what does Jesus say? The apostles ask Jesus before he ascends to heaven. This is after the resurrection, before the ascension. The apostles say, lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? And Jesus responds, you know, it's not you to know the times or seasons. But he goes on to say, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And then you will be my witnesses here in Jerusalem throughout Judea and Samaria to the ends of the age. That word. You know this already. The word witness is what? Martyrs. So here every Christian is called to be a martyr. Every Christian is, de facto, by the very fact that you and I have been consecrated as a Christian, baptized in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, commissioned by the Holy Spirit, by the Church, by the very fact of that we are witnesses. Therefore, what we choose to do with our lives, we choose to do with our words. How we choose to live our lives in our. What we choose to say. We're bearing witness. So we're either bearing witness to the Lord Jesus, or we're bearing witness to the world, or even bearing witness to ourselves. This is one of the reasons why. Let's go back to this one example. I know we're not at chapter OR Commandment Number 6 or Commandment Number 9 yet on sexual ethics, but when it comes to something like, say, cohabitating, right, living together before a person's married, or even this, maybe not living together, but staying the night with one's. One's significant other, that they're not married yet, why, that is a grave sin for a number of reasons. But say, yeah, but we're not. We're not like, you know, doing anything. We're not sinning or not, you know, acting out sexually. We're just sleeping. Well, one thing is your roommates don't know that necessarily. You know, your niece and nephew who are coming to visit don't know that. Your little brother and sister who are coming to visit, they don't know that. And this gives grave scandal to those who say, oh, I know that couple. They're Catholic, and yet, oh, they are spending the night with each other. You have to keep that in mind. What does it say here? It says, the person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue and integrity. He may even draw his brother into spiritual death. I say, well, those Catholics, they do this thing. It must be fine. I see them going to Sunday mass, I see them going to daily mass, and yet they sometimes spend the night again. That is what is scandal. Scandal in many ways is calling good evil or evil good. So here is an evil. But that's fine because I do that. Or here is something that's. That's good and not doing it. Oh, okay. So I guess we can get away with that. I remember years ago, it was just. It was one of those situations where I'd gone to a wedding, and maybe I've shared this before. I'd gone to a wedding, and I didn't really. I didn't really think the couple was. I I w. I was troubled by their relationship. I'll say it like that. And I don't normally voice my opinion on that kind of thing because it's not my job to voice my opinion after they've already gotten married. And I was riding in the car with a couple people. One of them was just a very holy person. And as we're driving away from this wedding, driving back to our various homes, I was giving them a ride. I said it out loud. I was like, I don't want to say this, but I remember bringing this up, this piece of gossip up, like my opinion about this relationship, that already they're married. Now bringing it up, kind of test the waters to see are we going to gossip about this, this couple after their wedding, or not. And I remember that the person was very, very holy, very, very guarded with their words and very careful about trying to have words of charity for virtually every person. And I remember they kind of bit on this and said, yeah, I know. I don't see this, and just seems like not a lot of joy there, et cetera, et cetera. I remember being, like, relieved that, oh, they're willing to talk about this as well. But I realized in that moment I was the source of temptation in that moment. I was the one who had kind of put the feelers out there. Are we gonna. Are we free to gossip in this moment? Are we free to talk about this couple behind their back after the fact when there's nothing we can do to affect it? Right. This. There's a whole different kind of situation. If this is, you know, months before the wedding and it's one of those, should I say something or not about this? I need to process this out loud. This was simply kind of indulging in my hesitation or indulging, in my opinion, indulging in gossip. And I. In that case, this is. It was. It was so convicting. I remember. I don't even know if it was. By the end of the conversation, I had been so convicted and said, oh, my gosh, I am so. You guys in this car. I am so sorry. I brought up the gossip. And I was testing the. Why I led you all into gossip. And it was. I felt so badly, especially because the person, one of the other people I was mentioning, the person I'm mentioning was so holy and was so conscientious about being kind with their words, gracious with their words. And I had led them into that gossip. And I remember just. Yeah, just being very. You say, father, if that's the. That's the worst sin you can think of when it comes to scandal. It's not. It's the one I'm going to share, though. I'll say it like that, because think about this as well. Paragraph 2285 says what it says, scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. We recognize that the scandal that is. That can be passed on, that can be given again by parents, those who by nature are called, obliged to teach and educate, or by priests, religious, who by office are obliged to teach and educate others. It can becomes grave, and it's so, so difficult, so, so deadly. And we need to guard against this. I've mentioned this, I think a number of times. One of the best classes in seminary was a class on moral theology by Dr. Chris Thompson at the St. Paul Seminary. And we were talking about these serious. The serious sin of scandal. And he was very. He was very conscious of the fact that working at a seminary, he was responsible for the formation of men who would go out into the world as Christ's representative in Persona Christi capitis, right? So that we would be representing Jesus and representing the church wherever we went. And so he took that incredible. Not that he was the only one who took it seriously, but he took it very, very seriously. He's the father of a number of children and he basically. He took our formation so personally. It was one of those situations of, at some point, my kids, my grandkids, will be shaped and formed by you. And so my job is to shape and form you as best I can so that you can be the priests of Jesus Christ who give witness to Jesus and the church whenever you. Wherever you go from here. And I remember at one point he was talking about the sin of scandal, talking about the need, the need, absolute necessity of us to do everything we can by our own will and by God's grace, to live out the faith we profess and to avoid sin as as much as possible. And he said, men, you are going to go out into this world and if you cause others to sin because you are unwilling to teach them what they need to know, or because the way you live bears false witness to the truth of Christ and the truth of the Gospel, the truth of the Church, he says, I have one word for you men, and that word is millstones. Remember, that was 23 years ago, however long ago it was. And I still can hear his voice saying, I have one word for you. That word is millstones. That's the word of Jesus. Here again, paragraph 2285, quoting Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, so important for us to never Forget. Now, paragraph 2286 highlights this. It says, scandal can be provoked by laws or institutions, by fashion or opinion. And so this is pretty remarkable. It says this. It says, therefore they are guilty of scandal to establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice or to social conditions that intentionally or not, make Christian conduct and obedience to the commandments difficult and practically impossible. Remember, we have a responsibility to the people around us, whatever our role is. So I've been talking about the role of teachers, of parents, of priests, of religious, but also those people who establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice. What might some of those things be? Well, you know, a couple days ago we talked about abortion and how abortion has become in some ways kind of the norm that up until a couple decades ago, abortion, even if people had recourse to abortion, it was still seen as something horrible. It was still seen as a sin. It was still seen as, this is regrettable that this person has seen abortion as their only option. And yet now what do we have? We have A culture that says, celebrate your abortion. So here is a law that has led to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice. It makes Christian conduct and obedience to the Commandments difficult, practically impossible. There are three examples that are given in paragraph 286. It says it's also true of business leaders who make rules encouraging fraud, or teachers who provoke their children to anger, or manipulators of public opinion who turn it away from moral values. Made me think of like influencers at this point, we're just, we all have, in some ways, we all have some kind of influence that might be big or small, but the recognition of here's a business leader make rules encouraging fraud like this is just how we do it here. Or a business owner who forces their employees to work on Sunday. That would be the corruption of religious practice that make it difficult for someone to have Christian conduct or obedience to the Commandments. Teachers who provoke their children to anger. And that, that's a, it's a real thing, say priests who provoke their, their congregants, parishioners to anger, manipulators of public opinion to turn away from moral values. This is so important. Paragraph 2, 8, 7 kind of summarizes all of this and puts it very pointedly. Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. And that's the summary of the whole thing. I said this at the very beginning. We might be convicted by this. Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. It was one of the reasons why we just asked the Lord to guard our speech. We asked the Lord to guard our actions and that we asked the Lord, God, help me to be a good witness, a faithful witness, a true witness, because we've all been given some degree of power, we've all been given some degree of influence. So we have to use that power at our disposal in such a way that it leads others to the truth that leads others to the Lord. And if we do this, we use these gifts that God has given us in such a way that it leads others to do wrong, become guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. You know, this is the harsh words of the prophets, harsh words of St. Augustine and the prophets. St. Augustine, echoing the prophets, talks about, okay, pastors, those who are leading God's people. If you do not tell the people of God the truth so, so that they have the opportunity to be converted and turn back to him, then they'll die in their sins. But you'll be responsible for that. No, if you do tell the truth, if you do convict them and to bring them back so they can turn their lives around and bring them back to the Lord, and they don't, but, well, they might die in their sin, but then you'll be. You're not guilty for that. That's this recognition that if I do not use the influence, the power, whatever that is at my disposal, if you don't use the influence, the power at your disposal in such a way that it leads others to the Lord, but instead lead others to do wrong, leads others to do wrong, we become guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that we have indirectly or directly encouraged. Again, that's what the prayer at the beginning of this day was. God help me. Help me. Help me not to succumb to self condemnation, but allow myself to be convicted so that I can. So that all of us can be convicted and be led back by God's grace to his heart. And so this is an opportunity for repentance that maybe even today we can pray. God, if there's anyone that I've led away the word or example led away from you, please, please. I repent in the name of Jesus. And I ask you, I ask you to care for them, bring them back to you in spite of me and because of your love. That's our prayer for today. Let's pray for each other. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.