Sunday, June 3, 2012

Celebrity Jesuit On Stumbling Blocks

The LCWR today charges that the CDF's report has itself caused both "scandal and pain."  Both the Vatican and the LCWR are saying that the other's actions are, literally, a "stumbling block" to the faith of others. In Greek, a skandalon was a stumbling block, and the word occurs several times in the New Testament.  It is a word Jesus reserves for some of his harshest critiques.  In Matthew 16, he uses the word to castigate Peter: "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." And later, in Matthew 18: "If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes!"
Link (here) to the full blog post by Fr. James Martin, S.J. at America Magazine's blog.

1 comment:

Art in Brookline said...

Be careful how you say things, Father M