The notion that you’re entitled to any opinion you wish is Protestant, and my mind isn’t Protestant, so of course I don’t think that. For instance, the premise that we are each a moral judge of other people’s crimes breeds the quite reasonable conclusion that we are each the executioner as well and, while you or I may possess the cowardice and hypocrisy not to act on it, others will do so, and our presumption creates the climate for *their* crimes. The catholic attitude is that morality is *not* the perview of any one individual, and condemnation is a dangerous force, so that when any of us presumes to wield it by appeals to direct congress with absolute sources of moral authority, he is committing the sin of prelest. My people have called this congress with demons, and it certainly produces demoniacal results, if you look around at all the killings of people with the “wrong” nationality.

— Asher's Maxim 589

Asher Black

Asher Black is a former literary and review editor who writes, thinks, reads, listens, and is interested in the interior darkness of the soul.

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