I was trying to explain to someone the other day that a person's sin is no reason to discount their theology.
These two men were both great Christian thinkers and witnesses, and yes, there is substantial evidence that both of them had mistresses / cheated on their wives.
If only I could find a picture of these two with Fr. Karl Rahner (though apparently he was technically a fornicator, and his mistress was an adulteress), then we'd have all 3 of them.
The great other exception is of course St. Augustine, who had multiple concubines, once for over a decade.
Of course, we are not good, because of our righteousness, but because of Christ. After all, concerning the so-called "free" will, St. Augustine wrote:
"Behold what damage the disobedience of the will has inflicted on man's nature! Let him be permitted to pray that he may be healed! Why need he [Pelagius] presume so much on the capacity of his nature? It is wounded, hurt, damaged, destroyed. It is a true confession of its weakness, not a false defence of its capacity, that it stands in need of." - St. Augustine (On Nature and Grace, 62.)
And as the very traditional Catholic legend goes, the saints rejoice in Heaven over their sins, because they were opportunities for the abundance of God's grace to shine through.
Giussani's article doesn't mention Augustine at all. It's addressed to the reader:
ReplyDelete"This is the radical point. This is what keeps you away from Confession– not desiring the good, not accepting to ask for the good; only this. It is not the fact that you foresee that without a miracle you will go wrong again, because a miracle can happen, and you have to ask for it if you really want the good, if you want the “something more,” if you want to be true. The miracle could happen in twenty years’ time, when your concubine dies. It doesn’t matter. I’m not for one moment encouraging systematic adultery, but I want to center, to focus on the heart of the matter, in its ultimate truth, in its essence."
http://www.traces-cl.com/oct05/eucharist.html