Latest / The Catholic Current / The Therapeutic Erasure of Sin (John Melnikov) 8/4/26

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The Therapeutic Erasure of Sin (John Melnikov) 8/4/26 · The Catholic Current

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This is The Catholic Current with Father
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Robert McTeigue.
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You know, I mean, I can't help but recall that, you know, the story of
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the paralyzed man. He's on the pallet and his friends can't get him to the
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front door, so they tear a hole in the roof and they lower him down.
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And the first thing our Lord says is, your sins are forgiven.
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There's a man who can't walk, and the first thing on
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his mind is sin. What might a reasonable man infer
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from that? Their most serious problem is our sin.
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Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTeigue of the Society of
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Jesus, your daily host for the Catholic Current, where we bring Christ
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to the world and the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station
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of the Cross Studios, your local radio station, and the iCatholic Radio
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mobile app. We proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity
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and charity. As always, let's start with prayer. Name of the Father,
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Son, and the Holy Spirit. Almighty God, through the intercession of St.
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Ignatius Loyola, we ask that you pour forth your Holy Spirit upon us,
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a spirit of discernment that might hear your voice and obey your
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command. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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Amen. Well, friends, you know, I have great respect for the
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work of Fulton Sheen. His early writings deserve to be better known.
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And he wrote and spoke many times about how psychology
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and psychiatry and Freud and his offspring have
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replaced sacramental confession. And conversations
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with priests and spiritual directors, and not necessarily with
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much improvement or benefit. I think that his
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insight is not only spot on,
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apparently nobody listened to him because things are worse now than
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they were then. I've been thinking about this and writing about this
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and praying about it and preaching about it for a very long time,
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and then I happened upon an essay that really caught my eye. It's from Crisis
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magazine, and it's called The Therapeutic Erasure of
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Sin. I I was impressed with what was written. I liked the content.
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I said, I want to talk to the author. And it's one of the perks
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of the kind of work that I have is that more often than not,
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authors are willing to talk to me. So we have the author here. He's a
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high school theology teacher, a speaker. You can find his work in Crisis
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Magazine and Catholic Exchange and elsewhere.
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John Melnikoff, welcome to The Catholic Current. Thank you so much for having
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me on, Father. John, let's start with Fulton Sheen's observation that
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there has been an attempt, conscious, unconscious,
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but I think it's still well in place now,
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that sin, moral struggle,
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spiritual struggle, that can all be pushed aside
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and have a real good heart-to-heart with a practitioner
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of the social sciences. And, and you're not a sinner,
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you're just maladjusted. Because you're a victim.
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That seems to be the operative paradigm, not only in the world, but in church
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circles as well. What do you make of that? Well, I think
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it's— we were talking earlier, it actually is one of the things that I'm most
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fearful of. To be sure, therapy can be beneficial to people.
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There are virtuous clinicians and psychologists who want to do a good job,
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but psychology and the soft social sciences— and I call them the soft— I will
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say soft social science. They can't tell us whether some of our
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actions are disordered or if we're being sinful, nor can it reconcile
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us to God. It cannot forgive us of our sins. So, the language that we
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see now bleeding into the spiritual conversation about sin,
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mercy, and redemption has overtaken— I see
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it in my students especially— this idea
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of accountability and the truth needs
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to— and truth has to presuppose mercy. I'm seeing it more,
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and I think that we're all seeing it more within church circles.
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That's where, you know, the, the insidious nature starts
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to become more apparent. And again, it makes a lot of sense
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to want to use— I don't want to say flowery language necessarily,
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but to basically absolve ourselves by
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using language that doesn't necessarily point to us taking
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ownership of our actions. One day it'll the beginning
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of a confessionally, you know, bless me, Father, for I have an unprocessed
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and emotional experience I'm going through, rather than a— Well,
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there can be a lot of excuses. Now, again, there can
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be value to therapeutic interventions. That's not
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in dispute. It's just, you know, if all you have
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is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. And I speak very often
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on the air about the people who should really know better club. And especially the
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Catholic cadres of the people who should really know better club.
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You know, this is not a new thing. This goes back to St.
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Augustine in the Confessions where there can be
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just a delight in wickedness, a delight in malice.
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You know, when he was a boy, he stole the pears not because he was
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hungry, but because he delighted in the wickedness.
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Now, I do know working as a priest for almost 30 years now,
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there are people who shall we say, look for love in all the wrong places
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and turn to sin as a clumsy strategy
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for managing pain. But it's still sin.
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It still affects our soul, and it still offends
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God. And no amount of therapy can
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get us free from that. So when I talk about the Catholic Padres
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of the People Who Should Know Better Club, I mean, you've, you've been associated with
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the Catholic institutions. You work in a lot of Catholic circles. You work in
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education. What I hear is that the— I'll
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use the phrase, borrow the phrase— the triumph of the therapeutic
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has even intruded upon Catholic schools. You're right
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there at ground zero. What have you seen there? Well, I've been teaching
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now for 15 years, and I can say that
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within the last 5, I would say maybe 5 to
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7 years, there has been a major switch in the way students
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expect to discuss sin.
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Now, granted, it's easy to run through the Ten Commandments, and it's
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easy to point out that murder is wrong. That's— I'm
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not talking about that necessarily. I'm talking about they are looking at
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their motivations for the things that they do, and then explaining
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that away through social conditioning, past trauma,
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trying to, you know, living one's truth, which is a statement
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that I think cries out Um, but I'm seeing it insofar
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as that they will, they will acknowledge that the things that they
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have done or are doing, continue to do, are disordered,
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are sinful. However, the, the, uh,
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motivation to stop isn't there because there's always
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an explanation which has come from someone in a position of authority.
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And oftentimes, especially again within the last 5 to
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7 years, Um, you're seeing a lot more kids going to therapy. And again,
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I think therapy can be very, very beneficial for a lot of folks.
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Sure, sure. But therapy can also be something
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that sometimes is thrown at someone simply because
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well-meaning people who, you know, who care about the person have run out of answers
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and like, well, they should just go and get some therapy. So they're parroting
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what therapists are telling them. And to just peel
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the onion back one more layer, in discussions with some students about
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their therapy. They're very open. It seems to me, and I'm not laying this as
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motivation at the feet of— at the foot of feet, I'm sorry, of every,
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every psychologist, psychiatrist, but it also, it's to me
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that a lot of people in therapy in positions of authority, especially over teens,
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are trying to validate them and what they're doing
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rather than have them look at themselves honestly
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and ask important questions. And I don't necessarily
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think that there's any motivation beyond, you know what,
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if I have a lot of people coming to me because I'm telling them what
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they want to hear, and I'm in a way absolving them of their sinfulness
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by saying it's not your fault, this is just the world that you live in,
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they're going to want to come back. And returning customers,
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returning patients, customers, however you want to throw it, are, you know,
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those are copays right there. Again, that's, that's an audacious
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claim to make, but I'm willing to make it because I've seen enough in young
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folks that it really irks me. Because kids
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who are otherwise willing to examine themselves in a,
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in a truthful manner, which will bring about great spiritual,
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mental, emotional, physical benefits in their lives, aren't doing
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it because they're going and they're getting their, their once-a-week hit
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of everything's-okay juice from their from their therapists
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or from the medications that they're on. You know, you picked up on something earlier,
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Father, and just a little light bulb went off in my head.
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This idea we keep turning to sin because it's pleasurable. When you mentioned Saint Augustine,
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I'm seeing it now, and it's sort of synthesizing itself. Our sinful
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actions plus students and people within Catholic
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circles, as you, you so rightly pointed out, people who ought to know better,
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is the sin is becoming It's a drug. And as, as anyone
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who's ever been around someone who's addicted to something can tell you, there is no
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therapy or pill in the world that's going to get someone to stop using the
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drug. They have to stop. It's a willful choice to stop using the drug
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or whatever they are addicted to. And that can only happen if there's a breakthrough
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of truth first. And if we're not allowing that breakthrough,
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if we're not welcoming that breakthrough of truth because we're turning
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to people who just tell us things that we like to hear, it sounds nice.
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There's never going to be true conversion back to Christ.
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That, that, that element of truth is really decisive.
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And, you know, the precision I would add is that what
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the therapists are offering isn't so much absolution as exculpation.
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And I've had many people tell me, I can't wait till I
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get my diagnosis of XYZ because
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that'll be my excuse and I can tell people to back off.
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And this is, you know, and we used to see this. I have friends who
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work in Alcoholics Anonymous, and the joke is, pour me,
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pour me, pour me another drink. You know, if you had a wife like mine,
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you'd drink too, you know. And I think that youngsters
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in particular, they're geniuses for
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figuring the easy way out. And if you can wave your diagnosis
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at someone, then you'd have— you don't have to own your stuff.
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And I think that's really, uh,
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irresistible to people who are morally and emotionally mature.
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Friends, we come back and continue our conversation about the therapeutic erasure
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of sin. My guest today is author John and teacher,
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uh, John Melkinoff. Remember, a rallying cry here
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at The Catholic Current is Christus Mundo, Mundus Christo— bringing Christ to
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Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of
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of the Cross Catholic Media Network. By subscribing to iCatholic Mobile,
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you help fund programs that defend our Catholic faith. We're talking
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about the therapeutic erasure of sin My
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guest today is author and teacher John Melkinoff.
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John, part of my concern is, again, legitimacy of therapeutic
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interventions, etc., is that we go from understanding bad
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behavior to excusing it. Let me give you an example.
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Years ago, I was a chaplain at a level 1 trauma
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center in a major northeastern city, and I would do 72-hour
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shifts on weekends. And on Sunday night— excuse me,
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Saturday night, a woman was brought in,
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just in her 50s, beaten to a pulp by
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her husband, who was happily in police custody.
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And I never got to talk to her because she was in surgery
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and then unconscious and so on. So, on Sunday evening, when the
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next chaplain comes in and I'm explaining to her what happened
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and what the cases were, And I mentioned to her how upset I was with
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this battered woman, 'cause violence against women, to use therapeutic
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language, I find that triggering. And I said,
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I'm glad that the husband has been arrested. And she immediately said,
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I'd like to talk to her husband. I really
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want to hear his story. And I said,
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I cannot imagine any story anyone
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can tell that rightly ends with, and that's why I
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had to beat my wife to a pulp,
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and she accused me of the sin against the Holy Spirit,
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the unforgivable sin. She said I was insensitive.
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What do you make of all that? I— that— well, first of all,
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as a happily married man who also is a father to daughters, when I
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hear stories of men beating women, I too,
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to use therapeutic language, get quite triggered. Um,
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look, you know that Father, and you, you, you see it all
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the time, and we all do. And it's something that we seem to
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turn a blind eye to the truth, and we just go to the explanation.
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Explanation versus excuse. I mean, an explanation— even
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listening to someone's side of the story can help us understand what may have happened.
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But this, it becomes an excuse, and it shows that,
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well, because this happened, or why this happened,
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you're no longer responsible for what happened because
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you're just simply acting within a specific set of parameters
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that were set down for you by other folks. And, you know, you're just dealing
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with the best that you can. You know, therapy, psychology,
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this idea of trying to get to the bottom of something— again, there's nothing
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wrong with that, but, you know, it can only go so far. Therapy and
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this sort of therapeutic language asks what happened
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to you. Or often asks, you know, how did we get here? How did you
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get here? But the Gospel asks us, okay, well, where do we go
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from here? Right. Given what happened to you, how are you now called
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to live? And that, I think, is being lost
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so profoundly in this idea that, you know, it's not an explanation,
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it's an excuse, and therefore your actions are excused.
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Right. And there's not much discussion of, you know,
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What does your disordered behavior do to you and
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your soul? What does it do, in this case, to that poor woman who was
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a victim? What does it do to the community that you live in? And what
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does it do to your relationship with God?
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All of that seems to go away or is dismissed
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as moralizing, and I just find
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that infuriating. I was going to say triggering,
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but I try to avoid their language whenever I can. So,
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So let's begin to make a shift. We can agree
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that there can be legitimate value and use to
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therapeutic intervention. I do think
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that there is an overconfidence in the
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social scientists and that there is an inclination
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to overshadow or even dismiss
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the moral, not to mention the spiritual dimensions.
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What happens to individuals and communities
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and institutions if we let all that go unchallenged?
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They completely crumble. Um, I, I— we've seen
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this throughout history when disordered actions end
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up becoming, uh, excused or are overlooked because,
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you know, there is something seemingly much more pressing that we have to discuss.
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Whether it's socially, politically, economically,
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and the true important questions are pushed to
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the back, then people will begin acting individually
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in horrifically disordered ways. Individuals form
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the collective, and then the community itself breaks down because there is no more moral
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language which we can all at least agree upon. Right.
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Saint John Paul II— I didn't include the quote in
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the piece, but I wish I had— but he wrote, The greatest sin today is
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that men have begun to lose the sense of sin, right? And that loss
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of that sense of sin, when it bleeds into our language,
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it creates a situation in which we're no longer
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honest with each other. And then we can even convince ourselves
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that, again, you know, if we just keep using specific
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language to discuss moral decay, let's say, but you don't frame
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it that way. You just frame it as the dysfunction of social conditioning
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and, you know, castigate it as just an aspect
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of moral modern— I mean, of modern life in the Western world rather than what
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it is, you know, and our basic broken human nature yearning
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for Christ, yearning for reconciliation. That can be lost within
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the self if we're not talking about it amongst the people that we can at
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least have those conversations with, or we should be able to. Within our families
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and our friend circles and our church communities, we're not going to be— it's
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not going to become part of our inner monologue anymore. Right, right. I'm going to
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draw an analogy for you. When I work with seminarians, I said,
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you know, if you want to be a good confessor,
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you have to start by being a good penitent.
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You have to know your desperate need for sacramental
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grace, and you need to know the liberation and healing
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that it can bring you. And that experience will give you
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the generosity and compassion you need to be a good confessor yourself.
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And my experience in working with priests is that
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if they're not generous about making themselves available
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for sacramental confession, odds are they're not going to confession
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themselves. I want to suggest that by analogy,
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that people who have responsibility for the formation of
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others— educators, for example— if they absolutely
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swallow whole and entire the great big therapeutic pill,
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pun intended, uh, and make no mention of the moral
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life or confession, that's at least
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suggestive that they're probably not regular penitents
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themselves, with all that implies. What do you think of that as an analogy?
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I think that's perfect. I think it's spot on. So each, each school
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year, just to use an example of my own personal observation,
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each school year We have, during the penitential
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seasons of Advent and Lent, we have confession campaigns where one
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week is designated as this is our confession week, and we have a number of
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diocesan priests who come in. We have a very beautiful chapel at St.
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Joseph High School in Trumbull, and we bring our religion
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classes down throughout the course of the week and just offer confession.
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Now confession is always offered at school as well by our school
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chaplain, usually on Wednesday afternoon, so it's available. And one of the
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bits of feedback that I normally get from my students, especially those who are more
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trepidatious, they haven't gone in a long time, or,
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you know, they've done something particularly egregious, at least in their own minds,
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and they're afraid of the priest's response to that. A lot of the feedback
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I get on the way back to class, we sit down, is those who have
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gone to confession have this— just, you can see,
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at least for the moment, that they're more relaxed. It's this this emotional,
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spiritual, you know, exhale. Just, oh, okay,
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I feel better now. But those who have, uh, you know,
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had a couple of interesting incidents within the confessional,
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you have to— they'll tell me, you know, the priest said this or that.
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I always stop and say, look, it's really none of my business. But they want,
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you know, they're teenagers, they want to, they, they want to broadcast their entire lives
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up to and including what they said to them in the confessional.
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And there have been a couple of times when, you know, I've kind of paused
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and sort of turned my head a bit and said, I wonder where that came
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from, from Father, you know, so-and-so. You can tell those
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who go to confession regularly simply
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by the way they speak about confession. And I'm, you know, Father, you can
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speak to this much better than I can because as a priest yourself and,
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you know, around other priests, I'm sure that you're
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very, very capable of picking out who you think would be a great confessor
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considering, you know, how people talk to each other.
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This needs to be something that's practiced obviously by the laity, but I
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think the clergy as well. The unbelievable transformative
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power of a good confession oftentimes not only
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hinges on our own ability to unburden
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ourselves emotionally, spiritually in the confessional,
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but by the response of the priest, of the
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one who's acting in persona Christi. Sitting across from you.
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A very quick story. Years ago, I went back to confession. I was in my
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late teens and I hadn't been in a long time. And I, I told the
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father, I told the priest, I said, you know, forgive me. He ended up becoming
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a friend of mine. I said, you know, bless me, Father, for I've sinned.
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It's been Lord knows since my last confession. And after the
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confession, I could hear him sort of shaking his fist as I'm
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like, yeah, we did it. And he said, praise God, welcome home. And that's all
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it took. Amen. That's all it took, and I became addicted
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at that moment to that feeling. And, you know,
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it's really— you can tell who goes and
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receives the sacrament and really feels it by, uh,
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you know, I know there are people say, well, you know, it's been X amount
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of years, etc., etc. And I always start with welcome home.
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I told the story often on the air. When I was a new priest,
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I was preaching a parish mission, and it was time for confessions,
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and this woman came to me outside and said, well, you know, Father,
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I haven't been to confession in 17 years. And I'm thinking, this is going to
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take a while. And she said, but, but it's okay because I'm basically a nice
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person. And I thought to myself, you know, I, I can't imagine Padre
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Pio saying that, or, you know, certainly not Saint Ignatius Loyola
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or Pius XII. But, you know, she— I don't know
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how robust her examination of conscience was, but I'm really confident
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that her self-esteem was fully charged most
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of the time. And there's actually more to life than just
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simply feeling good about oneself,
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especially when there are times when, when we've got very good reasons to feel really
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lousy about ourselves. And we've certainly lost
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sight of the fact that our goal in life is to
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be in right relationship with God, to enjoy him forever in heaven.
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And we have seen, it seems to me that we've become unduly
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coy about that. For some reason we
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don't want to say that out loud. And I think
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that's very, very bad for souls and
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we really need to up our game in that regard as well.
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Friends, when we come back, we're going to continue our conversation about therapy
25:00
attempting to erase a sense of sin. Uh, guest today
25:05
is author and teacher John Melkinroff. After the broadcast today,
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go to thestationofthecross.com, get our resources list,
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download our audios, podcasts. Wherever you can find audio,
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26:00
This is the Catholic Current from the Station of the Cross Catholic
26:04
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26:19
Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTaggart of the Society of Jesus,
26:23
your daily host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and
26:27
the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios,
26:29
your local radio station, the iCatholic Radio mobile app, and we
26:32
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26:36
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26:41
Here on The Catholic Current, we engage issues seriously and faithfully,
26:45
and that intellectual freedom exists because we are listener-funded.
26:49
Support us at thestationofthecross.com. We're talking
26:53
about the therapeutic erasure of sin. My guest is author
26:56
and teacher John Melkonoff. Uh, John, I think
27:00
we've done a, a good diagnosis that,
27:03
uh, therapeutic interventions, which have a value, which can
27:07
be a tool, a temporary crutch,
27:10
has become a foundation, has become
27:15
a seedbed for generating excuses,
27:19
and the spiritual dimension, the moral dimension,
27:22
and the eternal dimension is overshadowed. And I think
27:26
what alarms both you and me is that the Catholic cadres
27:29
of the people who should really know better club are on board
27:33
with all this. If you had a captive audience of
27:37
bishops and pastors and school administrators and principals
27:42
What would you say to them to say, yeah, but what would you
27:45
say next? I would remind them that
27:50
their, their job, our job, anyone who is in a position of authority,
27:54
especially, um, dealing with, with, with broken souls who
27:58
need to come home, I would say remind them, look, the remedy for
28:02
all of this is no more— it's not to throw more
28:06
guilt and to let people know what they're doing is wrong and saying you got
28:09
this wrong. There are ways to do that, but you have to understand First and
28:13
foremost, instead of all that, we need to reestablish
28:18
an excitement and confidence in God's
28:22
mercy. People are only going to be honest about their sins and
28:25
name them and number them if they believe that there's a Father waiting
28:29
to forgive them. So that has to be hammered
28:34
home in a very, very meaningful, transformative way,
28:37
especially from the clergy. Right. And that needs
28:42
to be reiterated in a very profound way
28:45
in the domestic church. It all starts at home. And if that
28:49
message of, look, your broken nature is your broken nature, it doesn't
28:53
mean that you are a bad person. It doesn't mean that you are unforgivable.
28:58
What it means is you are called to be honest
29:02
with yourself. You are called to enter into a deeper relationship with our
29:06
Lord. But it's going to take some real soul-searching. It's going to
29:09
take some, some moments which may be uncomfortable, but that's
29:13
all right because the Father is there to hold you and to carry you in
29:17
those moments, that you are not alone. That needs to be the message going
29:21
forward before we can actually start to, you know, peel apart
29:24
some of the, uh, the ersatz language of moral authority
29:28
that we're seeing in therapy today. Oh no, I'm,
29:31
I'm in full agreement, and I would say, uh,
29:35
borrowing a line from C.S. Lewis in his essay, The Weight of Glory, he says,
29:39
we're far too easily pleased. I mean,
29:42
we're settling for self-esteem when
29:46
the Christ of God offers us a share in his victory, his joy,
29:50
and his glory. So, let's do that.
29:54
And, you know, I think the most credible witnesses
29:59
are going to be those who have been living that
30:03
struggle. You know, I want— I mean, I want to hear from preachers
30:07
who really believe what St. Paul says, you know, woe to me
30:11
if I do not preach the Gospel. Tell the seminarians, when you go to
30:15
the pulpit, have something to say rather than go to the pulpit because you have
30:18
to say something. Go to the confessional as a priest,
30:22
not just because it's Saturday at 3 o'clock and that's what we've
30:26
we've done since Moses was a boy. You know,
30:30
there are souls to save and lives to save and God's
30:34
glory to be promoted. So part of what we need
30:38
to offer is a witness that there is a joy in
30:41
living a full-hearted,
30:44
full-headed, full-throated Catholic life,
30:49
that the cult of self-esteem can't possibly
30:53
begin to offer. How would we begin to make that case?
30:57
Just something you said a moment ago reminded me of one of my favorite lines
31:01
of Saint Francis of Assisi: Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary,
31:04
use words. It has to be what
31:08
you just said. A fully lived, robust Catholic life is
31:12
a life that will show others that we're not
31:15
simply walking around as penitents during, you know,
31:19
the plague and whipping ourselves, because of
31:22
our sinful nature. What we're doing is we're walking around with true joy,
31:27
knowing that our sinful nature no longer has the last word.
31:31
And then if someone— if we are, I suppose,
31:35
charismatic enough, or if we are compelling enough, even within
31:39
our own homes, the questions will naturally come. You know, you're a joyous
31:43
person. Where is this coming from? This is— I'd like to get me some of
31:47
that as well. Right, that's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, it comes
31:51
down to, you know, Catholics, unfortunately, you know,
31:54
we exist within a secular world, and we're tucked
31:59
away within our parishes for an hour on a Sunday, and then we're sent back
32:02
out into that world. And oftentimes the light that burns so bright,
32:06
it gets extinguished rather quickly. And even Catholics begin to examine
32:10
how they feel more than their conscience. You know, the question is, how do
32:13
I feel right now? Or how did I feel after I did X,
32:16
Y, or Z? It's not, did I love today
32:20
in an adequate way that would make my Lord proud? Did I show enough
32:24
charity in my words and my thoughts? Did I do any of that?
32:28
That is taking a backseat to, well, how do I feel right now? Because if
32:32
I feel okay, then what I did can't be too bad, right? And that's
32:37
very, very dangerous, especially to a church where
32:41
our Lord has commissioned us to go out and preach.
32:44
You can't do it if you're, if you're so concerned about how you feel in
32:47
the moment that, that, that overshadows everything else,
32:50
right? I, I think there is, is, is an ascendancy
32:54
of, of emotion that doesn't, doesn't serve us
32:58
well. I, I could give you entirely too many stories about
33:01
that, but I, but I want to stay focused on, uh, on remedy.
33:05
You know, when I, I would— when I would teach, um, homiletics as seminarians,
33:09
I said at the end of it all, you don't want people to limply shake
33:13
your hand as you walk out the door and say, nice sermon, Father, as they
33:17
look longingly at the parking lot where the escape vehicle is.
33:21
You want people to say, wow, what the heck got into him?
33:25
Can I get some of that too? And you only get that if
33:28
you pray. And I think part of, uh, the, the testimony
33:33
of, you know, battle-scarred veterans who know the
33:37
struggle of spiritual warfare. You know, C.S. Lewis said, you don't
33:41
really know how hard it is to be good until you've tried really hard to
33:46
be good. I've been thinking more about the role of
33:50
literature for expanding the
33:54
moral imagination, and I think that's better for the
33:59
formation of conscience than constantly taking your emotional
34:03
pulse. Now, I know that involves reading books, which apparently the cool kids
34:07
don't do anymore, but I'm wondering what you thought about that approach.
34:12
Well, it's just— I wouldn't know what the cool kids do now because
34:15
I didn't know what they did then when I was— when I was young.
34:19
Yeah, but I never sat at that table either. I wasn't in
34:22
that circle. I think that when we look
34:27
to figure out remedies that we can turn to Um,
34:31
being more literary. I mean, I, I tend to read a ton,
34:34
so I— you've got my vote there. Getting teenagers,
34:38
getting people today to have, uh, an attention
34:42
span beyond what a tweet would be, which is— I, I think it was,
34:45
I believe it's what, 120? I mean, I'm sure it's longer now, I don't know.
34:48
But I remember when I first opened my first Twitter account, on now X,
34:51
I think it was like 120 characters or something, right? But getting anyone
34:55
to hold attention longer than reading a line is a gargantuan
34:59
task, and I see that all the time in my professional life.
35:03
I would say what we can do as individuals and
35:07
what we can do collectively as a church is remind people that one
35:11
of the wonderful aspects of our faith is,
35:14
as Catholics, we have a wealth of history. We have
35:18
a wealth of saints we can turn to, different prayers,
35:21
sacramentals, and we design our own spiritual
35:26
therapies that work for us. So for instance,
35:29
if you're more active, um, if you're a more active person,
35:33
designing a spiritual course of therapy where you, you know,
35:36
I'm going to say the rosary while I work out or something like that,
35:39
all that can be very, very, very beneficial to
35:43
the individual. And I think that it has to start within the person,
35:47
but the person has to be motivated to want to examine
35:51
their conscience, examine who they are, examine their relationship with our Lord
35:55
first. They're going to have to want to do that, and there needs to be
35:59
someone there who has invited them to do that. And I don't think
36:03
that the, the words of a fantastic
36:07
homily or a fantastic video online by, you know, by someone
36:10
who really knows their stuff— you walk away from that feeling
36:14
10 feet tall, and then you analyze I tell
36:18
my children, when we read the Bible together, we read Bible stories, I say,
36:21
one of the great things about Jesus's parables is thinking about people on the way
36:25
home arguing with each other. Well, I think he meant this. Well, I think he
36:29
meant that. But they were engaging their minds, and I don't want to
36:33
say necessarily in an academic sense, but in a way that engaged
36:38
their souls as well. And that right there is just so Wonderful.
36:43
And there are ways that we can do that today as modern people, regardless of
36:47
how busy we are, regardless of what we've got going on, how dynamic
36:52
our lives are. We can still find ways because of
36:55
the wealth of graces that flow from heaven through
36:59
our beautiful church that we can figure that out. It's not like
37:03
we are a lost cause. Even with our broken nature,
37:06
our broken nature As I don't think sin is good,
37:10
but I always tell my students, it's because you have a sinful
37:14
nature that you have a Savior who loves you as much as he does.
37:18
And your broken nature is what is calling you
37:21
into a relationship with our Lord, which is more profound
37:25
than anything you will be able to comprehend in this life. You know, I would—
37:30
I've told people often, you know, my elevator pitch for
37:34
the faith would be to walk up to anyone without hesitation and say, I know
37:36
you're miserable. I, I know you're miserable. We live in a sick and sickening
37:40
culture, and you've been lied to constantly. And I also know
37:44
that you're made for God and you're not connected with him right now, and that's
37:48
why you're miserable. And I can help you,
37:52
uh, with that. And, um, I can't imagine anyone
37:56
saying, no, really, I'm actually sublimely, peacefully,
37:59
blissfully happy. So do you think
38:03
a strategy might be say, look, I know you're not satisfied,
38:06
but there's an alternative. What do you think about that? I think that's
38:10
perfect, Father. I think the church should be the one place where
38:14
people don't have to pretend that everything's fine. The church
38:18
should be the place that we can come and we can be affirmed in
38:22
our brokenness, and we're not crushed with guilt and wracked with
38:26
guilt because of what society or our friends or
38:30
whomever expects of us. We can go to be our authentic
38:34
selves, as broken as we are, and proclaim that in Christ
38:38
our brokenness can transform us
38:42
into saints. Our sins can become something that motivates
38:46
us to go to confession, to amend ourselves,
38:50
to change our lives in a profound way that changes the trajectory
38:55
of our lives. And that ought to be what church is.
38:58
Strip away all of the therapeutic language of, trust me,
39:02
everything's fine. You're doing exactly what you're supposed to do. You can't be blamed.
39:05
It's, you know, somebody else's fault. Strip that away. Let church
39:08
be a place where people can be openly broken and then rebuilt
39:12
and built back up within the love of Christ,
39:15
especially in the reception of Christ. And I think, you know,
39:19
we embrace that. We can't be stopped. Right. I believe
39:23
that we have to tell people You're
39:27
made for so much more.
39:30
Don't settle for this world and this life only.
39:35
And God has so much to offer you than merely self-esteem.
39:41
John Melkinoff, thank you for a fascinating conversation.
39:44
God bless you. Very good work. And I do look forward to next time.
39:47
Thank you very much, Father. It was wonderful speaking with you. I'm Jesuit Father Robert
39:51
McTeigue, your host every day here at The Catholic Current. You want to stay with
39:54
us for the rest of the hour. Coming up next, you know what it means.
39:56
Today's a Timely Tuesday. Next is Timely Thoughts,
40:00
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That's gab.com. The channel is The Catholic Current,
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We'll be back in just 2 minutes. Please do stay with us.
41:01
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41:04
Want to suggest a guest or a future topic? Go to
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41:12
And help influence the conversation.
41:20
Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of Jesus,
41:24
your daily host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and
41:27
the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios,
41:30
your local radio station, the iCatholic Radio mobile app, and we proclaim
41:33
the fullness of truth with clarity and charity. Well,
41:37
here we are. It is the end of a Timely Tuesday. You know what that
41:41
means? You and me sharing timely thoughts, reflecting on what we've heard today.
41:44
My guest was John Melnikoff, and we're talking about the therapeutic
41:49
erasure of sin. Now, it can be true that
41:54
practitioners of the social sciences, counselors,
41:57
therapists, and the like, can be helpful,
42:01
right? That's not in dispute. But what I've seen,
42:04
certainly in my lifetime, is that
42:09
therapy can become the replacement of theology
42:14
so that you have the tyranny of feelings.
42:17
I've had many instances in theological religious
42:22
context. Well, how do you think it's going to make so-and-so feel? I said,
42:25
well, I don't know, but we still have to do the right thing.
42:28
A couple of cases in point. I remember when I was
42:32
newly ordained and I wanted to concelebrate the daily Mass at the university
42:36
chapel. Because it was the anniversary of Roe v.
42:40
Wade, and I thought it was important for the students to see priests
42:44
praying together on such an important day. And we're getting vested in the sacristy,
42:47
and the presiding priest says to me, well, you know, when it comes time
42:51
to distribute Holy Communion, you can sit down because it's a Tuesday and it's Sally's
42:55
day to give out communion on Tuesdays. And I said, well, the short
42:59
answer is, um, no, she isn't
43:03
an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion. I am an
43:07
ordinary minister of Holy Communion, and I have the right
43:10
to distribute the Eucharist that I've confected. So there is no
43:14
need for an extraordinary minister today. So silly Sally can just sit
43:19
down. And I said, well, how do you think that's going to make her feel?
43:21
And I said, I don't know. I've never met Sally. I do know that if
43:25
she was trained properly by you, she'll feel just fine.
43:29
And if she doesn't feel just fine, that's because you didn't train her properly,
43:33
and the church shouldn't have to pay her emotional bills because you were a lousy
43:37
teacher. And that's why I'm not invited to sit at the cool
43:41
kids' table. Similar case in point, I was in a
43:46
course on ecclesiology, and I was making a presentation based
43:49
on an interview with the novelist Walker Percy, and someone
43:53
said, hey, you know, you've been alive a long time, been a Catholic a long
43:55
time. Why do you stick with the Catholic Church? And he said, what else is
43:59
there? And then Sister pulled me by the ear after class and
44:02
said, well, you know, Hans is from Germany and he's Lutheran. How do you think
44:06
that'll make him feel? And I said, I don't know, hasn't told me. And,
44:10
you know, if he's interested in the truth, then he'll ask me to tell him
44:13
more. I can't make him be interested in the truth, but I can
44:17
certainly make the truth available to him. And then, of course,
44:20
in a variety of contexts— and I've seen this especially when religious
44:25
men and women get together in mixed and large groups and sit in
44:28
circles, and somebody announces inevitably,
44:32
I have to speak my truth! And I thought to myself,
44:37
how does that differ from, I have to announce my favorite flavor
44:41
of ice cream, or, I have to announce my favorite pizza
44:45
topping? And, you know, I don't care what you put on pizza as long
44:49
as it's not pineapples, because that's against nature. It's,
44:52
it's in Leviticus. You can see it. Um, my point is this:
44:57
God our Lord, the eternal Word of the
45:00
Father, the Word made flesh, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God
45:04
and Son of Mary, the Christ of God, who is himself
45:08
the way, the truth, and the life,
45:12
entrusted the deposit of faith to the one church
45:17
he founded. He gave the church the power of binding
45:20
and loosing and gave it the absolute obligation to tell the truth.
45:24
Now, as I record this, I'm mindful of the fact that it is
45:28
the Feast of Saint Dominic, the founder
45:32
of the Order of Preachers. And Saint Dominic was known
45:36
for many things, rightly so. Among them,
45:40
he founded the Order of Preachers, a great champion of the,
45:44
uh, of the rosary, etc., and also
45:48
a man of great fraternal charity. And he was known to keep vigil interceding,
45:52
and people would hear him cry out for souls. Lord, what will
45:56
become of sinners? Well,
45:59
sinners won't come to a good end if they're not taught
46:03
properly, if they're not informed. Sinners won't come to
46:07
a good end if the potential good in them isn't actualized
46:11
and realized. So if they're not formed—
46:16
and sinners won't come to a good end if what is wrong in them isn't
46:19
corrected, if it's not transformed. So, you know, in my book Real Philosophy
46:23
for Real People, I say that 3 of the functions of education include
46:28
information, formation, and transformation.
46:33
And if you have the triumph of
46:37
the therapeutic if you have the tyranny of emotions,
46:43
then there is not a primacy of truth.
46:48
And remember, truth isn't a concept.
46:52
It's not an assertion. It's not an abstraction.
46:56
It is the person of Christ.
47:01
So when we talk about truth, We're playing
47:04
a high-stakes game. Now, when Saint Dominic
47:09
says, Lord, what will become of sinners? I'm very interested in the answer to that
47:13
question because, you know, I'm a sinner. Make no mistake,
47:16
I am a sinner. And like Saint Paul, I have
47:20
to work out my salvation in fear and trembling every day.
47:24
And because I preach, I want to adapt Saint
47:29
Dominic, who said, you know, what will become of sinners, and ask, what will become
47:32
of preachers? Because in what Paul wrote to Saint Timothy,
47:37
it's really clear that the audience of a preacher
47:41
isn't just the congregation. It's God
47:45
Almighty, and he will confront
47:50
each preacher and say, did you hand on faithfully
47:54
and intact the
47:58
truth that I entrusted to the church I founded?
48:01
And I, as a sinner, already have enough to answer for. I already have more
48:06
than enough to make reparation for. But I do want
48:10
to have at least that conversation and say, Lord, what you handed
48:13
on to me, I handed on to others for love of
48:17
you and love of neighbor. I want that to be true of
48:20
me, because the pulpit is not
48:24
my blog, and a sermon is not an editorial.
48:29
I try to hand on the living word that I myself received
48:32
from the church. And sometimes therapists,
48:37
counselors, etc., can help with that,
48:41
can help work out the emotional blockages from
48:45
mind and heart that can keep people from receiving
48:48
the saving truth. And that's
48:52
mostly a lot of what the social sciences
48:56
does, and it works with feelings, and that's fine, and there's a place for
48:59
that. But I will reject the tyranny or
49:03
the primacy of emotions.
49:07
Saint Paul told Saint Timothy, preach the
49:11
gospel in season and out of season.
49:15
What that means is very often where the word is
49:18
most needed is also where it is most
49:23
unwelcome. Ask my Jesuit brothers who are
49:26
martyrs about that. Ask Edmund Campion,
49:30
for example, about that. Ask Miguel Pro about
49:35
that. Ask Alfred Delp about that. Great Jesuits who
49:39
preached the gospel in season and out
49:43
of season. So friends, let's, let's pray for sinners. I'm certainly
49:47
one of them. Let's pray for practitioners of the social sciences
49:51
that they do that work well. And let's pray for
49:56
preachers, because preachers, according to Scripture, are going to
50:00
face a very terrible judgment. I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTeague,
50:04
your host here every day of The Catholic Current. Join us tomorrow for another episode
50:08
of The Catholic Current. Uh, great topic, great guest, great conversation, because that's
50:12
how we roll here at the the Catholic Current and at the Station of the
50:15
Cross, where we are committed to being so very much more than
50:19
just merely relevant. After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com,
50:24
get our resources list, download our audio podcast. Wherever you can find audio,
50:28
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50:32
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50:36
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50:39
Together we'll take it to the whole world. Through the intercession of Our Lady of
50:42
Mount Carmel, may Almighty God bless you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Go in peace,
50:46
and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.