- Feb 5, 2002
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Among Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s saintly insights and wisdom to keep us on the right path are his teachings on the mistaken notions of mercy.
From his television and radio shows to his many writings, Archbishop Futon Sheen shared one prophetic insight after another into the way faith relates to life.
He explained the time-bound in terms of the timeless. He did that in a convincing, direct way. Consider the subject of mercy.
“As the world grows soft, it uses more and more the word mercy,” he wrote back in 1949. The good bishop found this a “praiseworthy characteristic” on a particular condition: “if mercy were understood aright.”
Yet 70 years ago he was already seeing something amiss because “too often by mercy is meant letting off anyone who breaks the natural or the Divine law, or who betrays his country. Such mercy is an emotion, not a virtue,” he insisted. He gave the example of mercy as the excuse to justify “the killing by a son of his father because he is ‘too old.’” To avoid acknowledging and assigning any guilt to this act, the descriptions get reassigned language — “what is actually a murder is called euthanasia.” Sheen saw the writing on the wall long before the big push to legalize such “mercy.”
Continued below.
www.ncregister.com
From his television and radio shows to his many writings, Archbishop Futon Sheen shared one prophetic insight after another into the way faith relates to life.
He explained the time-bound in terms of the timeless. He did that in a convincing, direct way. Consider the subject of mercy.
“As the world grows soft, it uses more and more the word mercy,” he wrote back in 1949. The good bishop found this a “praiseworthy characteristic” on a particular condition: “if mercy were understood aright.”
Yet 70 years ago he was already seeing something amiss because “too often by mercy is meant letting off anyone who breaks the natural or the Divine law, or who betrays his country. Such mercy is an emotion, not a virtue,” he insisted. He gave the example of mercy as the excuse to justify “the killing by a son of his father because he is ‘too old.’” To avoid acknowledging and assigning any guilt to this act, the descriptions get reassigned language — “what is actually a murder is called euthanasia.” Sheen saw the writing on the wall long before the big push to legalize such “mercy.”
Continued below.
How to Recognize False Mercy, According to Ven. Fulton Sheen
Among Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s saintly insights and wisdom to keep us on the right path are his teachings on the mistaken notions of mercy.
