COMMENTARY
tvc.dsj.org | May 23, 2017
13
Moral Theology: Despair as Weakness Rather than Sin
By Rev. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Theologian, teacher, award-winning
author, and President of the Oblate
School of Theology in San Antonio, TX
Classically, both in the world and in our churches,
we have seen despair as the ultimate, unforgivable sin.
The simple notion was that neither God, nor anyone
else, can save you if you simply give up, despair, make
yourself impossible to reach. Most often in the popular
mind this was applied to suicide. To die by your own
hand was seen as despair, as putting yourself outside
of God’s mercy.
But understanding despair in this way is wrong and
misguided, however sincere our intent. What’s despair?
How might it be understood?
The common dictionary defi nition invariably runs
something like this: Despair means to no longer have any
hope or belief that a situation will improve or change. The
Catechism of the Catholic Church, which sees despair as
a sin against the First Commandment, defi nes it this
way: “By despair, man ceases to hope for his personal
salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the
forgiveness of his sins. Despair is contrary to God’s
goodness, to his justice – for the Lord is faithful to his
promises – and to his mercy.”
But there’s something absolutely critical to be dis-
tinguished here: There are two reasons why someone
might cease to hope for personal salvation from God
and give up hope in having his or her sins forgiven. It
can be that the person doubts the goodness and mercy
of God or, and I believe that this is normally the case,
the person is too crushed, too weak, too broken inside,
to believe that he or she is lovable and redeemable. But
being so beaten and crushed in spirit so as to believe
that nothing further can exist for you except pain
and darkness is normally not an indication of sin but
more a symptom of having been fatally victimized by
circumstance, of having to undergo, in the poignant
words of Fantine in Les Miserables, storms that you
cannot weather.
And before positing such a person outside of God’s
mercy, we need to ask ourselves: What kind of God
would condemn a person who is so crushed by the
circumstances of her life so as to be unable to believe
that she is loveable? What kind of God would condemn
someone for her brokenness? Such a God would cer-
tainly be utterly foreign to Jesus who incarnated and
revealed God’s love as being preferential for the weak,
the crushed, the broken-hearted, for those despairing
of mercy. To believe and teach that God withholds
mercy from those who are most broken in spirit be-
trays a profound misunderstanding of the nature and
mercy of God who sends Jesus into the world, not for
the healthy but for those who need a physician.
Likewise this too betrays a profound misunder-
standing of human nature and the human heart. Why
would a person deem herself so unlovable that she
voluntarily and hopelessly excludes herself from the
circle of life? It can only be because of a deep, profound
wound to the soul (which no doubt is not self-infl icted).
Obviously, unless it is a case of some clinical illness,
this person has been deeply wounded and has never
had an experience of unconditional love or indeed of
faithful human love. We are facile and naïve when,
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
• Response to letter on Immigration
The April 25 issue of The Valley Catholic included a letter
on immigration which I believe fails to adequately represent
Catholic thinking on this subject. The Gospel and Catholic
Social Teaching are two places where we should begin. We
are all made in the “image and likeness” of God.” People are
not legal or illegal. We are all brothers and sisters made by the
same Creator.
The U.S. Bishops tell us “people have a right to migrate to
support themselves, and refugees and asylum seekers should
be aff orded protection.” We also know that nations have bor-
ders and laws to protect their sovereign interests. Just as Jesus
did, however, we must distinguish which guidelines to follow,
especially in these days of erratic and changing immigration
rules. While we render to Cesar what is his, we are called to
make prudent, personal judgments about what is right and just.
Pope John Paul II tells us, “In the Church, no one is a stranger,
and the Church is not foreign to anyone, anywhere.”
The native people of our nation greeted each other, “The God
in me, greets the God in you.” Oh, that we could witness that
spirit now! Let us all “Welcome and accompany the stranger!”
S tan Fitzgerald
San Jose
Letters to the Editor are always welcome. The deadline for the next
edition is June 6. Letters may be emailed to [email protected].
Letters are subject to editing and will be published at the discretion of
the editor. More information can be found at tvc.dsj.org/submissions.
because we ourselves have been undeservedly loved,
we cannot understand how someone else can be so
crushed and broken so as to believe himself or herself
to be, in essence, unlovable. To paraphrase a painful
question in the song, The Rose: Are love, and heaven,
really only for the lucky and strong? Our common un-
derstanding of despair, secular and religious, would
seem to think so.
But, nobody goes to hell out of weakness, out of a
broken heart, out of a crushed spirit, out of the mis-
fortune and unfairness of never having had the sense
of being truly loved. Hell is for the strong, for those
with a spirit so arrogant that it cannot be crushed or
broken, and so is unable to surrender. Hell is never a
bitter surprise waiting for a happy person, and neither
is it the sad fulfi llment of the expectation of someone
who is too broken to believe that he or she is worthy
to be part of the circle of life.
We owe it to God to be more empathic. We also
owe this to those who are broken of heart and of spirit.
Moreover, we have a Christian doctrine, expressed
inside of our very creed that challenges us to know
better: He descended into hell. What Jesus revealed in
his life and in his death is that there’s no place inside
of tragedy, brokenness, sadness, or resignation, into
which God cannot and will not descend and breathe
out peace.
God is all-understanding. That’s why we’re assured
that “a bruised reed he will not break, and a smolder-
ing wick he will not snuff out.” You can bet your life
on that. You can bet your faith on that. And you can
also live in deeper empathy and deeper consolation
because of that.