Charity Does Not Justify Compromise

"While Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them.

"While He called to Himself in order to convert them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. While He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. While His heart overflowed with gentleness to the souls of good will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them.

"He was strong as He was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lesson and by His example, He traced the path of happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross."

Pope St. Pius XEncyclical Our Apostolic Mandate, (Hawthorne, Vic., Australia: Tenet Books, 1974), pp.21-22