“Not Corrected With Words” (Day 14 of the Holy Rule)

"...mingling gentleness with severity, as the occasion may call for, let him show the severity of the master and the loving affection of a father."

""Let him not shut his eyes to the sins of evil-doers; but on their first appearance let him do his utmost to cut them out from the root at once, mindful of the fate of Heli, the priest of Silo. The well-disposed and those of good understanding, let him correct at the first and second admonition only with words; but let him chastise the wicked and the hard of heart, and the proud and disobedient at the very first offense with stripes and other bodily punishments, knowing that it is written: “The fool is not corrected with words.” And again: “Strike thy son with the rod, and thou shalt deliver his soul from death.”"

This day’s reading has the hardest lesson: sometimes one must be severe— indeed, quite severe— but only in realistic proportion to a genuine threat.

There is a class of threats that are so devastating even at their beginning that they must be cut out at the root. No tolerance should be given to certain things (And here, must it be noted that the man who tolerates everything does an injustice to the victims of what he tolerates?  If you overlook your son's bullying on small matters now, will you have the strength to stop the oppressor exploiting others as an adult?)

Violence, whether physical or otherwise, is often misunderstood as a necessarily bad thing.  For a liberal age that sees "harm" divorced from context, let us unpack this traditional notion since it is evidently news to the world:

While this is often the case in practice, especially in times like our own where alternatives to violent recourse exist in more abundance, violence is not wrong in principle anymore than eating is wrong in principle. But, similar to eating, violence is wrong only on its misapplication.

There is an important distinction here that depends upon the virtue of prudence that I will explore by analogy with eating and the glutton's sin:

One can eat the wrong things. One can eat too much. One can eat too little. It is the same with violence— it depends on the why, the how, the how much, and the to whom, the by whom and all those questions.

A policeman who shoots a rogue gunman to protect an innocent civilian from bring fired upon is not the same as the gunman himself. They are not on the same moral level qua their equal use of firearms. That reductionism is ridiculous. In the eyes of the law, there is a world of difference between self-defense and murder.  There is a world of difference too between two bad things: murder and manslaughter.  To say the murderer is worse than the manslaughterer is to suggest more is involved in the deed than the deed itself.  Intent matters.  Premeditation of the act matters.  Malice behind the act matters.

The details matter immensely in determining whether the violent act is reprehensible, neutral, or laudable. And any one who appreciates the men who died on Normandy beach have to say that violence at the very least does have its day of necessity and indeed relationship with valor.

This is what we mean when we say that violence is not in principle wrong.

An important observation must be made about the Rule as it pivots on questions of authority: Benedict believes that a saint must get his hands dirty when he needs to. The abbot is not by default a heavy handed man, but he has the right to be when the good of another demands it.

Monasteries are generally known for their stillness and the preservation of peace. Peace is a good. But so is justice. They cannot and should not exist at each other’s expense.

These are the hardest lessons of the rule: Peace has its premium.  The abbot, who is a father above all, is the one who pays it.  Either up front in installments or later down the road as a lump sum with hefty fees, all fathers pay for it.  Don't be a coward in the face of unpleasantness of reality, which will not change for you or anybody else.  In weakness, do not tell yourself to withdraw from your duties over another simply because you don't want to transact in the muck for the salvation of another.  

That is a sin of omission.  And like sins of commission-- they are still sins just the same.

One can read St. John Bosco's "Preventative System"-- and indeed, all fathers should abide that wholesome son of Francis de Sales!  But even that gentlest of educators of the 19th century will admit that discipline in its rawest forms, which Father Benedict is unqueasy about, are permisible when all else fails.  To admit that much is essentially saying that avoidance of pain is not the highest good (pace Epicurus, pace Bertrand Russel, and pace Modern Man).  

To modern parents, let me ask:
If you believe otherwise, are you saying life is pain?  Is the implication to have less life then?  If so, and be honest: How is that not mere cowardice?  How is that not ingratitude?  And before God who is Truth itself: How is that not rotten deep down to believe that pain is the most intolerable thing there is?  Answer these questions and then you can have your peace.