Bishop Fulton Sheen on Compassion(Part III)

[MaxxTheMerciless]

The whole point of laws is not so much to protect individuals, but to protect society. The individual victimized by the perpetrator has already become a victim. The point is to prevent others from being victimized by the same perp. What you often see in cases of false compassion is pride at work; trying to show off his liberalism by being magnanimous when he must seek justice.

[mytruepower2]

I think that Bishop Sheen was being optimistic when he said that the US would revive bull-fighting. What the United States has done is far worse. It has allied itself so thoroughly with criminals, with the depraved and with those who seek illicit pleasures, even over the common good, that they will do anything to discredit the church, to try to make their self-wounded consciences feel better. This video was a real eye-opener.

[joshgun12]

@mytruepower2 Bull fighting may not have been revived, but look at what is now happening. We have MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) where two men go into a ring and beat on each other untill they are all bloody and someone is knocked out. And there are ten thousand people in the stadium getting a "high" off the experience. We also have persecution of the church like you mentioned.

[mytruepower2]

@joshgun12

Yes indeed. Although, on some level, I can understand the value of martial arts demonstrations as an art form, or for practical uses (like in wartime,) we shouldn't turn them into a colloseum sport. Human beings were designed to have more dignity than that.

[baguazhang77]

@mytruepower2 I basically agree with you. I have been training in martial arts for 19+ years, and strongly feel they are for SELF DEFENSE ONLY. Fighting is not for entertainment, and thus I cannot watch or support MMA or boxing. Moreover, I no longer agree with tournaments/demonstrations. They have terribly cheapened the arts, where many people now get into them just to put on a flashy show for people by mimicking but not really learning an art. The state of martial arts today is a disgrace.

[mytruepower2]

@baguazhang77

Well, there have always been people like that, who made a living mimicking the martial arts. We wouldn't have most action movies without them.

However, I don't see anything wrong with fake-fighting on camera, provided nobody really gets hurt. It's just that if you're going to have two people fighting one another for real, it should be over something important.

[jorgeperazzauno]

No bull fighting!! But we have UFC remember when boxing was violent.

Bishop sheen was a prophet...

[xxdonaldqxx]

Bishop Sheen would be a hate criminal today.People should listen to his message and THINK!!!!!!!!!!!!

[CecilBeaDeVil]

Fulton Sheen's condemnatory speech in this piece is contradicted by a story he shares in "Blessed John XXIII" about Pope John's visit to a prison and his act of reaching out in compassion to a murderer: "Young man, I've never been married: but if I had been, I might have killed my wife, too." Sheen gets almost misty-eyed with admiration as he relates the account; despite the fact that, when measured against the tone of the lecture in THIS video, Pope John was guilty of "false compassion".

[baguazhang77]

It might seem like that at first, but at the end of this video he reminds us that we must "hate the sin, but love the sinner." That corresponds with what John XXIII did in the other video you referenced.

I think Bishop Sheen's point was that it is more compassionate for us (as a society) to help people to NOT comit the types of transgressions he mentioned, or at the very least to not commit them again if they have already taken place, than just giving them clemency afterward.

[Paulkazey1]

Not necessarily. John XXIII didn't ask for the murderer to be released early, he merely showed specultive empathy. This is a story of humanity. It is not about false compassion because it isn't about making the sentence lighter.

[Biniou7]

@CecilBeaDeVil

Visiting prisoners is one of the Corporal Works of Mercy.

Trying to get those prisoners released from prison is emphatically not.

[gweedough85]

Jesus is Lord, Bishop Sheen has so much wisdom!

[HiaslPan]

Bishops Sheen's perspectives of 50 years ago are even more frightenly true today. God Bless him. If he appeals to you, listen to Father John Corapi.

[mustang071]

this dude is soo cool need more videos of him :)

[Jitpring]

Most prophetic.

[TenkaiStar108]

The good Archbishop's words in this and the last two parts really apply to our society today. If only many would listen, but instead we have false compassion infecting courts like the plague.

[Jacobitess]

"Some are not made for books" That is so utterly true! Our country is so full of intellectual snobbery that it thinks if you don't have a degree, you can't work a job. So many of my cousins are practically intelligent people who are good with their hands, but have always gotten low grades. The politics of degrees and jobs discounts anyone who a) can't handle college, b) hasn't the money or c) doesn't see the worth of the useless education coupled with the crushing debt afterwards.

[jpwjr1199]

I don't think "intellectual snobbery" has anything to do with that attitude you describe above. Our own capitalistic system creates this societial neccessity of having to go to school and the creation of debtors this way is an obvious by-product, which is systemic. Intellectuals, most of whom are servants of the state (MUCH LIKE FULTON SHEEN btw), shouldn't be blamed for that. However, I think that Sheen's spiritual message of having a Godly purpose/mission for ones life is a timeless one.

[Jitpring]

Yes, the egalitarian push to open college to everyone is an example of false compassion. Many would be better off without college.

[baguazhang77]

Let's also not forget that colleges have in many cases just become money making institutions these days. Look at all these diploma mills offering online degrees. The value of a "degree" is being diminished more and more every year. Real degrees are not easy to get. I know mine weren't!!!! And yes, I agree college is not for everyone. But people who do not go to college are not any less intelligent than people who do. They have just chosen a different, but no less respectable path.

[Jitpring]

"But people who do not go to college are not any less intelligent than people who do."

Too sweeping. Rather, some people who do not go to college are not any less intelligent, while others are indeed less intelligent.

[MaxxTheMerciless]

@Jitpring No, the Archbishop was right. To qualify his statement would be to undermine it. Intelligence is not always the same with everybody, and people learn in all kinds of ways. Experience is the greatest teacher, and often what you learn in school has no serious bearing on the real world. It is the hubris of the academic who believes he is smarter than those who don't have diplomas, and it is a conceit that drives him to believe he can run a company, or a nation, better than others.

[Jitpring]

@MaxxTheMerciless I'm reminded of this line, by whom I don't know: "Only the fool MUST learn by experience."

[MaxxTheMerciless]

@Jitpring Ever heard of something called Consequential Knowledge? It's practical knowledge derived from experience and performance, something that college is rather insulated from because college is more about the academic rather than the practical, and it's meant to be so that you learn without hurting yourself or causing too much damage. A person spending too long in this environment ends up like Jimmy Stewart's character Rupert Cadell in the Alfred Hitchcock film Rope.

[Jitpring]

@MaxxTheMerciless Interesting. I shall have to watch that movie again. 

[TheMedievalMan]

@baguazhang77 Credentialism is destroying society.

[bette4ever]

Really good stuff. Please post more of Bishop Fulton Sheen's sermons. Thanks for sharing.