Complacency

Murray in is blog series Blogging Dante in Lent 2009 comes to Canto XVI, where Dante is speaking of the Wrathful. In his commentary Murray writes:

Now, we can stray from a virtue in various directions, and usually humans stray in one direction more than others (so that, for example, we most commonly divert from virtuous use of food and drink by over-indulgence, rather than by eating insufficient to meet our needs). In the case of anger, however, deviations from virtue in contrasting directions are seen more often. We commonly fall into ira, by ranting, saying things we later regret and so on. But there are also times when we are not angry, although we should be. St Thomas is clear that to fail to be angry when injustice should prompt us to be angry is a failure in living the good life. Anger has its proper place, it should move us to act against whatever injustice causes it. If our emotional capacity for anger has been blunted so that we see injustice, and are passive about it, then we need repentance and detachment from our complacency. The black fog of Dante’s poem is not just an image of irrational violent ira, but also of the darkness we have wrapped ourselves in when we are not moved to proper anger at injustice.

This is something that bothers me over and over - our complacency when in fact we should be shouting our objections to injustices especially when it comes to the issue of the defense for life. There are times when is is right and proper to show our anger. It should cause us to act; to write our legislators, to protest, to learn about the issue, and in common conversations to let others know our objections and the reasons for our position.

But for too many Catholics and Christians we turn our backs against these injustices and go about our lives without saying a word, without any action. As my masthead quotes Burke "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."