Catholic Polemics: Are we just “Bitter” and “Full of Venom”? Can We Ever Attack a Person and not just an Argument?

Catholic Debate and Personal Polemics:
Are we just full of “Bitter Zeal” and “Venom”? Can We Only Attack an Argument and Never a Person?

Some readers of our web site, though happy with the content in general, may be somewhat displeased with our rhetorical and polemical style, or our personal rebukes of certain individuals, specifically (our favorite targets) members of the bogus Vatican II hierarchy, but also subscribers to the false “recognize-and-resist” opposition, including Michael Voris, John Vennari, Michael Matt, John Salza, and Christopher Ferrara. As of late, it seems to have become fashionable to object on certain blogs and forums that Novus Ordo Watch is just full of “venom” and “bitter zeal” — a rather convenient excuse not to have to deal with the facts presented.

The unfortunate reality is that so many people today, at least in our American-European-Western society, have become so conditioned by the feminized culture around them that they tend to equate charity with niceness, and conversely, criticism and rebukes with “hate”. This attitude has been instilled in us by the culture around us, and it affects all of us, but we must work to overcome it. This is one reason why we do not mince words: Error and evil must be denounced charitably but forcefully, and one way to do that is to counter the let’s-not-offend-anyone society by being willing to offend, not needlessly, but needfully. For offense is not necessarily wrong. Sometimes we all must be whacked over the head. We must be rebuked, criticized, humiliated, for our own good. The mother who yells at a child who is about to put his hand on the hot stove does not mind that the child will be “offended” by her harsh words — she has the child’s good in view and realizes that, at the moment, only a harsh rebuke will obtain that end.

Some, while conceding that error and evil must be denounced, will argue that although we may and must do this, nevertheless we cannot ever attack the person, only the false or dangerous views held by him.

But is this so? Is it ever permissible — perhaps even necessary — to criticize people and not just their views? What is the traditional Catholic attitude in this regard?

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the epitome of piety, zeal, charity, and perfection. He is Charity Incarnate, but this divine and perfect charity did not always express itself in “nice” words. He certainly rebuked the Pharisees by calling them very “offensive” names and accused them of being children of the devil. Imagine if we did such a thing on this blog!

These holy words of our Blessed Lord are very charitable, because He cannot fail in His perfect charity, but they are not “nice.” Secular society’s equating of love with niceness is nothing but a tool to suppress inconvenient truth. People are supposed to be intimidated into keeping silence about that which is evil, and this is to be done by accusing them of “hate”, “bitterness”, and “venom” if they should denounce that which must be denounced.

Of course, this does not mean that we can just go around insulting people willy-nilly (cf. Mt 5:22). Insults and mockery against others — the term in moral theology is “contumely” — are certainly sinful if they are done gratuitously, that is, without a justifying reason. But that’s just it: It is the unjust violation of the honor of another that is sinful, not the dishonoring of him per se.

As the Catholic moral theologian Fr. Heribert Jone notes in his succinct handbook on morality:

So, again, an essential condition of the sinfulness of contumely is that the dishonoring of the other be unjust.

In Sacred Scripture, we see a good example of a saint mocking his opponents and drawing dishonor down upon them in the presence of all:

So, we see that St. Elias the prophet mocked the pagans — he used sarcasm — and his doing so was not unjust.

Furthermore, Holy Scripture also affirms explicitly that it’s not wise always to just be “nice” in one’s speech: “…if the speech be always nicely framed, it will not be grateful to the readers” (2 Mach 15:40).

Finally, specifically with regard to the question of attacking a person in the course of polemical discourse — what is known in logic as an ad hominem attack (“against the person”) —, we would like to quote a substantial excerpt from the great Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany’s 1886 book Liberalism is a Sin. This work was endorsed and praised by the Vatican’s Sacred Congregation of the Index under Pope Leo XIII, and we too cannot recommend it highly enough. In fact, one may say that this book completely destroys many fundamental ideas of the bogus Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and the new religion it engendered (which we call the Novus Ordo religion). The excerpt below is Chapter 21 of the book, which specifically addresses the objection that while it is licit to attack and refute a person’s argument, it is forbidden to also attack the person who makes the argument. Not so, as Fr. Sarda explains with eloquence and persuasiveness.

[Begin Excerpt]

CHAPTER 21 Personal Polemics and Liberalism

“It is all well enough to make war on abstract doctrines” some may say, “but in combating error, be it ever so evident, is it so proper to make an attack upon the persons of those who uphold it?” We reply that very often it is, and not only proper, but at times even indispensable and meritorious before God and men. 

The accusation of indulging in personalities is not spared to Catholic apologists, and when Liberals and those tainted with Liberalism have hurled it at our heads, they imagine that we are overwhelmed by the charge. But they deceive themselves. We are not so easily thrust into the background. We have reason–and substantial reason–on our side. In order to combat and discredit false ideas, we must inspire contempt and horror in the hearts of the multitude for those who seek to seduce and debauch them. A disease is inseparable from the persons of the diseased. 

The cholera threatening a country comes in the persons of the infected. If we wish to exclude it, we must exclude them. Now ideas do not in any case go about in the abstract; they neither spread nor propagate of themselves. Left to themselves–if it be possible to imagine them apart from those who conceive them–they would never produce all the evil from which society suffers. It is only in the concrete that they are effective, when they are the personal product of those who conceive them. They are like the arrows and the balls which would hurt no one if they were not shot from the bow or the gun. It is the archer and the gunner to whom we should give our first attention; save for them, the fire would not be murderous. Any other method of warfare might be Liberal, if you please, but it would not be common sense. 

The authors and propagators of heretical doctrines are soldiers with poisoned weapons in their bands. Their arms are the book, the journal, the lecture, their personal influence. Is it sufficient to dodge their blows? Not at all; the first thing necessary is to demolish the combatant himself. When he is hors de combat [“out of the fight”], he can do no more mischief. 

It is therefore perfectly proper not only to discredit any book, journal or discourse of the enemy, but it is also proper, in certain cases, even to discredit his person; for in warfare, beyond question, the principal element is the person engaged, as the gunner is the principal factor in an artillery fight and not the cannon, the powder, and the bomb. It is thus lawful, in certain cases, to expose the infamy of a Liberal opponent, to bring his habits into contempt and to drag his name in the mire. Yes, this is permissible, permissible in prose, in verse, in caricature, in a serious vein or in badinage, by every means and method within reach. The only restriction is not to employ a lie in the service of justice. This never. Under no pretext may we sully the truth, even to the dotting of an “i.” As a French writer says: “Truth is the only charity allowed in history,” and, we may add, in the defense of religion and society. 

The Fathers of the Church support this thesis. The very titles of their works clearly show that, in their contests with heresy, their first blows were at the heresiarchs. The works of St. Augustine almost always bear the name of the author of the heresy against which they are written: Contra Fortunatum Manichoeum, Adversus Adamanctum, Contra Felicem, Contra Secundinum, Quis fuerit Petiamus, De gestis Pelagii, Quis fuerit julianus, etc. Thus, the greater part of the polemics of this great Father and Doctor of the Church was personal, aggressive, biographical, as well as doctrinal–a hand-to-hand struggle with heretics, as well as with heresy. What we here say of St. Augustine we can say of the other Fathers. 

Whence do the Liberals derive their power to impose upon us the new obligation of fighting error only in the abstract and of lavishing smiles and flattery upon them? We, the Ultramontanes, will fight our battles according to Christian tradition and defend the Faith as it has always been defended in the Church of God. When it strikes, let the sword of the Catholic polemist wound, and when it wounds, wound mortally. This is the only real and efficacious means of waging war.

[End of Excerpt – bold print added for emphasis, with slight adaptations.]
[Source: http://www.sedevacantist.com/liberalism.htm]

Thus, we can see here that it is a favorite tactic of the Liberals (Modernists and those who are tainted by them) to try to silence their Catholic-conservative opponents by accusing them of being “hateful” or “venomous.” While an ad hominem attack is logically fallacious, it nevertheless can have a very important function, if used with justice and prudence, in polemical discourse.

It is time to stop being “offended” at every turn and actually focus on the substance of criticism, rather than the tone. Let us be zealous in giving as well as accepting just criticism, lest we one day have to hear the words: “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25:41) — words that are certainly not very “nice”.

See Also:

• Liberalism Is a Sin: The Complete Text Online (Imprimatur, 1899)
• Liberalism is a Sin: Buy a paperback or electronic copy of the book
• “Who are YOU to say who’s a Heretic?” Fr. Sarda blasts another favorite liberal objection
• Important Catholic Quotes against Liberalism and Other Errors
• Auctorem Fidei: Pope Pius VI condemns Ambiguity in Documents, which allows for teaching error with plausible deniability

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