Editor’s note: This Keynote Address was given on October 10, 2022, following the Red Mass for the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana Saint Alphonsus Liguori Catholic Church, Zionsville, Indiana.
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Your Excellency, my brother Bishop, Most Reverend Timothy Doherty, Reverend Fathers and deacons, honorable judges, fellow attorneys, government officials, legal professionals, and my dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
It is good to be with you for this gathering following the Red Mass for the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana. I wish to begin by thanking my brother Bishop, Timothy Doherty, for the invitation to address this distinguished gathering. Bishop Doherty and I have known each other since before either of us became a bishop, when I was a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago and then-Father Doherty was a priest in the neighboring Diocese of Rockford in Illinois. In 1995, the late Bishop Thomas G. Doran of Rockford appointed him the diocesan ethicist for health care issues. Bishop Doran directed my doctoral dissertation in canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome when he served as a judge of the Roman Rota, so we both learned many valuable lessons from the same mentor! Bishop Doherty and I also served together as members of the board of the Illinois Catholic Health Association and on the Archdiocese of Chicago’s bioethics subcommittee until 2010, when I was appointed Bishop of Springfield in Illinois and he was appointed as your Bishop here in Lafayette in Indiana. Bishop Doherty, it is good to be collaborating with you again on a topic of mutual interest. Thank you for inviting me! I am honored to be here with all of you. Thank you all for sticking around after Mass for another talk. The title of my Keynote Address this evening asks a question: “Is the Great Commandment Still Great Enough? Navigating the Objective and Subjective Elements of the Moral Life.”
In popular culture today, the Catholic Church is often criticized for being overly obsessed with structure, doctrines, and rules. For example, when confronted with the hierarchy, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the Code of Canon Law, many people—especially non-Catholics—might see such realities as antithetical, or at least irrelevant—to a personal encounter with Jesus Christ and a life of discipleship. Some might argue that Jesus came to deliver us from the burdens of the law, and that the Church places those burdens back on people’s shoulders.
Nowhere is this negative judgment towards the Church’s teachings stronger than in regard to her moral teachings. The Church clearly stands athwart the popular culture on many moral issues, especially in the realm of sexual morality. Many people see the Church as obstinately clinging to outdated and arbitrary moral conventions, and in doing so, creating obstacles to the moral progress promised by the world.
There are, of course, many important ways in which the Church’s moral vision differs from that of the culture. But a central difference is the understanding of the relationship between individual freedom and conscience on the one hand, and objective moral truth and the law on the other hand.
It is crucial that we have a clear and correct understanding of objective moral truth because of its essentially consequential relationship to the law. In the law courses that I have taught at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Notre Dame Law School, I have often emphasized the maxim, law follows theology, that is, laws are not fabricated ex nihilo, out of nothing, but flow from our moral principles. Even for an atheist, law is not arbitrary, but flows from some firmly held value. In this sense, we say that law is downstream from culture, understanding that the word “culture” comes from the Latin cultus, which refers to the reverence or veneration we give to whomever or whatever we worship. People who do not worship the one true God tend to worship something else, whether it be power, money, sex, or the earth itself.
The Church understands individual freedom and conscience as essential to the moral life. However, freedom and conscience are necessarily related to objective truth; in fact, they are subordinate to truth.1 People are not morally autonomous; morality is inherently relational and lived out within communities.2 Conscience is the voice of reason, and ultimately, the voice of God sounding within the heart of each person. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the “morality of acts is defined by the relationship of man’s freedom with the authentic good. This good is established, as the eternal law, by Divine Wisdom, which orders every being towards its end: this eternal law is known both by man’s natural reason (hence it is ‘natural law’), and — in an integral and perfect way — by God’s supernatural Revelation (hence it is called ‘divine law’).”3
By contrast, the culture tends to disregard the idea of objective moral truth as incompatible with individual freedom and moral fulfillment. Likewise, the law is often considered a necessary evil at best and a limitation on human freedom. In order for people to be truly free, their own consciences must reign supreme and be limited only by the free choices of other people. Conscience for them does not refer to some objective truth that exists outside the person, but is simply an expression of the autonomous individual. Many today think that conscience makes not only judgments, but decisions.
Broadly speaking, we could identify two possible extremes in moral thought:
- First, there is a heteronomous extreme in which the moral law is regarded as totally external to the person (hetero meaning other and nomos meaning law – literally, “other-legislating”). The heteronomous extreme focuses entirely on the objective dimension of morality: laws, norms, rules, etc.
- Second, there is an autonomous extreme in which the moral law is regarded as totally internal to each person (auto meaning self and nomos meaning law: literally, “self-legislating”). The autonomous extreme focuses entirely on the subjective dimension of morality: individual desires, values, freedom, conscience, etc.
Heteronomous extreme
We can find examples of the heteronomous extreme in certain strands of Christian fundamentalism and also in Islam. These groups tend to have a voluntaristic understanding of good and evil, which means that an action is good or evil only because God said so: period—end of discussion What people personally desire or enjoy is totally irrelevant to morality. All that matters is obedience and submission to God’s will. God is all-powerful and judgment is coming, so you had better act right! There is a rationalistic element to this view. Moral goodness is measured against the unchanging and timely moral law. Little attention, if any, is given to the conscience and circumstances of each individual. The individual’s task is simply to conform.
Autonomous extreme
With the autonomous extreme, the individual and his desires and feelings are the most decisive factors for morality. The moral goodness of a person and his actions are not to be judged by how they measure against some objective and timeless law, standard, or norm which exists outside of the person. Instead, his moral goodness consists only in authenticity, self-actualization, and self-fulfillment. The words of Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet capture this view well: “This above all: to thine own self be true.” The modern-day equivalent of this would be the expression, “Live your truth.”
Many people today, especially non-Catholics, might look at these two extremes and categorize the Catholic Church’s moral teaching as the heteronomous extreme. They see the Church as harsh, judgmental, finger-wagging, and generally obsessed with rules and sin. More specifically, they may see the Church as failing to give sufficient attention to the individual persons and their intentions, needs, and circumstances.
While none of us in the Church is perfect and we inevitably fail at times to witness well to the Church’s teaching, this judgment is not accurate at all. In fact, I would propose that the Church’s moral teaching fully and beautifully embraces both the objective and subjective dimensions of morality, that is, both the eternal moral law and the concrete individual with all the complexities of his situation. By embracing both of these essential aspects of morality, the Church has navigated a “middle way” that avoids both the heteronomous and autonomous extremes. The Church recognizes, on the one hand, that God’s law is absolute and transcends our own reasoning. God is the ultimate Other. As we hear through the prophet Isaiah:
My thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts (Is 55:8-9).
At the same time, the Church also acknowledges the beautiful truth that God’s law is not the forceful imposition of something alien to our nature. As Moses said after giving the Israelites the Law: “This commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. […] the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it” (Deut. 30:11-14).
Similarly, the Prophet Jeremiah said: “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days — oracle of the LORD. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33). Together with Romans 13:10 — “Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law” — this is the basis of my episcopal motto, Lex cordis Caritas (“The Law of the heart is Love”).
We can find an especially compelling foundation for this “middle way” in the preaching and ministry of Christ himself. Jesus gave challenging and unambiguous commandments that applied to everyone universally, and yet he always met people as they were and tailored his message to their particular needs. One scene, found in the Gospel of Luke, is particularly relevant for us gathered after this Red Mass. It is relevant because it involves Jesus, a lawyer, and the most important question of all.
I am referring to the question of a lawyer which prompts Jesus to tell the beautiful parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). This is the scene:
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put [Jesus] to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”
And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
And he said to him, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”
But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Then follows the parable of the Good Samaritan, who proves himself to be the neighbor of the robbers’ victim by showing him mercy and caring for him.
Notice that, in his response to the lawyer’s question about how to inherit eternal life, Jesus did not give him some new or original answer that departed from the Commandments God had already given. He did not give an answer that applied only to the lawyer who asked the question. Rather, he directed the lawyer precisely to the law, to what he already knew: “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”
The lawyer’s quick response might sound like some rote recitation of Scripture: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
This is actually an impressive synthesis of a few different passages. That the lawyer had this thoughtful answer ready at hand implies that he did not lack knowledge of the law, and in fact, that he had already given his own question much thought. But evidently, he did lack something. His follow-up question to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” reveals a deficiency in his heart. Luke even tells us that the man asked this because he desired “to justify himself.”
He knew the correct answer. He knew how to live so as to inherit eternal life. But he was not yet ready to accept all the implications of God’s commands. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the priest and the Levite who pass by the beaten and stranded victim also know God’s law very well. They know what they should do. But for whatever reason, they are unwilling or unable to act when the decisive moment comes. Their knowledge of right and wrong did not translate to moral action.
The question is, if they do not lack knowledge, then what do they lack? Love. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The lawyer included this in his answer and Jesus himself offers it elsewhere as part of the greatest commandment.
Colloquially, the commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself” is known as the Golden Rule. A common alternative version of it is: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” After the love of God, which is the first and greatest commandment, the Church has always followed Christ in teaching “Love your neighbor as yourself” as the foundation for the moral life. In fact, beyond the Catholic Church and even beyond Christianity, the Golden Rule has been widely recognized for millennia as the loftiest principle of morality. It is seen as an imperative that calls us to go outside of ourselves and recognize that others are just as important and valuable as us.
Today, however, the Golden Rule has some competition: the so-called “Platinum Rule.” Authors in fields such as psychology, sociology, and philosophy, and healthcare have proposed this new moral principle. One contemporary social philosopher argued for the Platinum Rule in the following way:
“The Golden Rule is not enough because we might end up treating people in a way that would suit ourselves but that could be wholly inappropriate from their perspective. We need to go beyond the Golden Rule and turn to what has become known as the Platinum Rule: ‘Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.’”4
The author goes on to say, “The Platinum Rule presents us with a greater imaginative challenge than its Golden cousin, for it asks us to resist the temptation of projecting our own experiences and views onto others.”5
Is this true? Is the Platinum Rule really an improvement over the Golden Rule? It is worth reflecting briefly on why many people today might think so. In order for the Platinum Rule to appear superior, one would have to accept several other moral propositions, at least implicitly. As I briefly explain these propositions, I think they will sound very familiar, given the popular culture’s moral sensibilities.
1). The human good is subjective, not objective
The Platinum Rule presupposes the autonomous extreme that I mentioned earlier, with its focus on what the individual wants and thinks. What is the problem with this? In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, following St. Thomas Aquinas and others, the Church defines love as “to will the good of another” (CCC 1766). But the good of another person means his objective good, which may or may not be what he himself regards as his good. People frequently want things that are not good for them. They are frequently confused about what is good for them. Every parent and teacher knows this very well. The difference between a child’s subjective good and what his parent knows to be his objective good is where we get the expression, “tough love.” Clearly, to truly desire someone’s authentic good and to work to bring it about requires more than doing unto others what they would have done unto them.
2). Tolerance and affirmation are exalted above all
This follows from the first point. Once one renounces the possibility of knowing the objective good of another person, all that remains is his subjective good, namely, his own desires, preferences, values, etc. As a result, any attempt to convince someone that something he considers good is not really good for him becomes an imposition, a manipulation; thinking that you know what is best for someone else is condemned as paternalistic and condescending. This leads to a hyper-individualistic moral landscape in which tolerating other people and affirming them in their choices is the highest expression of “love.” The old adage of St. Augustine, “Hate the sin, love the sinner,” no longer makes sense, because without an objective good, who can determine what sin is and who sinners are?
3). Empathy takes the place of charity
Empathy has become something of a buzz word today. One of my young priests, Father Christopher Trummer, whom I had the privilege of ordaining last year, wrote his thesis for the Licentiate in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome (a/k/a Santa Croce) on the topic, “Your Neighbor As Yourself: The Relationship between Empathy and Morality.”6 As I like to keep learning, I read it, and his scholarly reflections have provided much food for thought, which serve as the basis for these reflections that I am sharing with you this evening.
Father Trummer notes that many people, including many scholars, see the lack of empathy in the world as the cause of virtually all problems, and they propose the restoration of empathy as the solution, a kind of moral panacea. Empathy is generally defined as feeling or experiencing what other people feel or experience. It involves taking the perspective of another person. Empathy is undoubtedly an important psychological and social capacity that enriches our experiences and relationships. However, what does it mean when a society starts to treat empathy as the highest form of charity? Again, this implies that as human beings we cannot know what is objectively good for other people, what they need in order to be happier and flourish. It implies that the good of each person is so subjective and individualized that to love people in a way that challenges and encourages them to change is a wrongful imposition.
It may be helpful here to give some practical examples of these somewhat abstract principles. Certainly, the lack of empathy may have contributed to the evils of the Holocaust, mass homicides, and other egregious crimes, but the role of empathy is less apparent in assessing the morality of an intrinsic evil such as abortion. While opposition to abortion may indeed be based on the Golden Rule, i.e., “I would not want to have been aborted, so I should treat an unborn baby the way I would want to have been treated,” but we would not call that “empathy” since an adult cannot truly empathize with a fetus.
In contrast, many heterosexual people empathize with people who have same-sex attraction, and since our culture considers it impossible to live without frequent sexual activity, the thinking seems to be that homosexual activity should be morally acceptable because the thought of continence and chaste living is just unimaginable to many, if not, most people these days. Catholic teaching on the immorality of sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman is based on immutable objective norms rather than on subjective feelings of empathy. But that is a difficult argument to make in our contemporary culture where actions are commonly driven more by emotion than right reason.
The modern-day emphasis on the individual is not wholly misguided or damaging. It is true that each person has a unique story, perspective, and experience, and that we need to try to understand these subjective elements in order to reach them more effectively. There is not a “one-size-fits-all” solution when it comes to ministry and evangelization. However, we must also stand against the hyper-individualization that is rampant today, as well as the autonomous extreme of morality that seeks to oppose the good of the individual person and God’s loving design.
In one of the most cited lines of the Second Vatican Council, from Gaudium et spes, n. 22, the Church teaches that “only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light,” and that “Christ…fully reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling clear” (GS 22).
Both the objective good of the person and his subjective good are fully revealed in Christ, the Perfect Man. As his disciples and those who uphold and defend the law—whether human or divine—we can have confidence that the same Gospel and way of discipleship that liberated, formed, and sanctified men and women for millennia remains the answer to the questions and desires of people today. We can trust that Jesus’ Great Commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” really is the path to moral excellence and happiness for others and ourselves.
After all, how do we want others to love us and treat us? We certainly hope that, like Christ, others will meet us where we are at, that they will empathize with our personal situation and circumstances. But we should also hope that, like Christ, they will love us enough to seek our true good, our objective good, and not abandon us by substituting charity for mere tolerance and affirmation. As one popular expression of this says, we hope that others will “love us as we are, but love us too much to leave us that way.” So, to answer the question that I posed at the outset, “Is the Great Commandment Still Great Enough?”, the answer is a resounding, YES!
Since we desire to be loved this way, we can love our neighbor as ourselves and know that we are willing his ultimate good in every sense of the word. With the grace of the Holy Spirit, we can even live out Jesus’ otherwise impossible teaching: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
May God give us this grace. Amen.
Endnotes:
1“Certainly, in order to have a ‘good conscience’ (1 Tim 1:5), man must seek the truth and must make judgments in accordance with that same truth. … Conscience is not an infallible judge; it can make mistakes. However, error of conscience can be the result of an invincible ignorance, an ignorance of which the subject is not aware and which he is unable to overcome by himself. … In any event, it is always from the truth that the dignity of conscience derives. In the case of the correct conscience, it is a question of the objective truth received by man; in the case of the erroneous conscience, it is a question of what man, mistakenly, subjectively considers to be true. It is never acceptable to confuse a ‘subjective’ error about moral good with the ‘objective’ truth rationally proposed to man in virtue of his end, or to make the moral value of an act performed with a true and correct conscience equivalent to the moral value of an act performed by following the judgment of an erroneous conscience. It is possible that the evil done as the result of invincible ignorance or a non-culpable error of judgment may not be imputable to the agent; but even in this case it does not cease to be an evil, a disorder in relation to the truth about the good.” Pope St. John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, August 6, 1993, nn. 62-63.
2Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, “Doing as I Please or Pleasing as I Do: Constructive and Destructive Autonomy in Relation to Conscience, Freedom and Obligation,” public lecture given at the International Symposium on Privacy and Autonomy in Medical Law and Ethics, sponsored by the Anscombe Bioethics Centre at Blackfriars Hall in the University of Oxford on June 25, 2019; published in Catholic World Report, September 22, 2019.
3Pope St. John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, August 6, 1993, n. 72.
4Roman Krznaric, Empathy (Penguin Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2014), p. 58.
5Krznaric, Empathy, p. 59.
6Rev. Christopher Trummer, “Your Neighbor As Yourself: The Relationship between Empathy and Morality” (STL Thesis, Pontificia Universitas Sanctæ Crucis, Facultas Theologiæ, 2022).
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If cloning human persons were moral (and it is not), I’d advocate cloning this bishop so that there were enough of him to occupy every chair at that infamous Synod on Synodality. But there is something greater than cloning; it is the power of the Holy Spirit to convert minds and hearts. Then, and only then, will God’s name be praised.
Well said Deacon. Yes. Would that the Church had more like him. Bishop Paprocki has intellectual depth and strong faith.
A Golden Rule or Roman Krznaric’s Platinum Rule. Krznaric’s more phenomenological projection seeks to satisfy the needs of the victim [the other] rather than one’s own self satisfaction. Whereas, Christ complete’s the Golden Rule that we love the other [victim] as he has loved us.
Krznaric mistakenly perceives the ultimate good in our perception of the other’s expressed needs, rather than that determined by the Author of life. Our Golden Rule is situated in our ordained human nature and natural law, completed in charity in the humanness of Christ’s divinized human nature [Bishop Paprocki’s Endnote on conscientious priority requires adherence, not to reason’s measure of the good, rather to the rule, which is the good of Christ as revealed to us] in which we find our perfection and true good.
My endnote is perfect charity is more a matter of faith than reason.
This is, of course, a very well-presented discussion of moral law. However, I think that in the fourth paragraph from the end, the idea that the Golden Rule is “Christ’s Great Commandment,” requires an addendum. Although in the Sermon on the Mount, at Mt 7.12, Christ taught that the Golden Rule “is the law and the prophets,” at Mt 22.37,38 and at Mk 12.29,3O he taught that the Greatest Commandment is to love God Almighty. And at Mt 23.23 he described “the weightier things of the law: judgment, and mercy, and faith.” This latter passage reflects the importance of the anagogic interpretation of Scripture — the spiritual, mystical interpretation. For that, one must see that the love of God is the Greatest Good. The emphasis, therefore, ought to be on the teaching that the love of God is the Greatest Commandment, and that Christians ought to seek to “know God.” (Jer 31.31-34; Lk 22.2O)
How can you love someone if you do not know them and know them as they really are? I think it is this failure to know the other person that causes the tension between the Golden Rule and the Platinum Rule. I can know objectively what is good for another person. I can give them what is objectively good for them (advice, material aid), but if I do not know them in their actual situation then, far from helping them in truth, what I give them may well be only adding to their difficulties.
It takes time to know another person, time and openness and humility. I have never found any difficulty in relating the objective good and the subjective good of someone when helping them.. What I have found difficult is having the patience to get to know them so as to know truly how to help them. Far too often we want to solve their problem too quickly.
You’re correct Sr. To an extent. Empathy is always a dynamic by which we’re drawn to care for someone [Edith Stein, later St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross OCD whom I’m sure you’re aware, wrote a classic The Problem of Empathy in which we emotively, spiritually identify with another. Knowledge she describes as sui generis and transcendent]. Faith, when lived, doesn’t omit empathy, similarly a faith inspired love doesn’t succumb to a sentimentality that omits what’s required for that person’s salvation.
Father, here is an example from the Life of St. Teresa that shows the need of knowing the person you are trying to help:
“In this way I arranged that the priest I said was such a servant of God would come to speak to me. This gentleman was a great friend of that priest whom I thought I could take as my confessor and master. When he brought him to speak to me, I was most embarrassed to find myself in the presence of so holy a man, and I gave him an account of my soul and my prayer; but I didn’t want him to hear my confession. I told him I was very busy — and that was true. He began with a holy determination to guide me as though I were a strong person — for by rights I should have been so because of the prayer he observed I was experiencing — in order that I might in no way offend God. When I saw him at once so determined about little things that, as I say, I didn’t have the fortitude to give up immediately and so perfectly, I was afflicted. Since I saw he was taking my soul’s attachments as something I would have to die to all at once, I realized there was need for much more caution.
In sum, I understood that the means he gave me were not the ones by which I could remedy my situation, because they were suited to a more perfect soul. As for myself, even though I was advanced in receiving favors from God, I was very much at the beginning with regard to virtues and mortification. Certainly, if I were to have had no one else but him to speak to, I believe my soul would never have improved. For the affliction I felt in seeing that I did not do — nor did it seem I could do — that which he told me would have been enough to make me lose hope and give up everything.” (Life, 23, 8-9)
St. Teresa continues thus: “…it was not God’s will that he should understand my soul….I see that this was all for my good….”
(See Romans 8:28).
NB: The Penguin classics edition translation differs from the one from which you take your quote. Rather than St. Teresa being too busy to confess, the Penguin classic translation has: “…he would not take my confession. He said that he was very busy, and indeed he was.”
The Spanish text has “dile parte de mi alma y oración, que confesarme no quiso: dijo que era muy ocupado, y era así.” I followed the Kavenaugh-Rodruiguez translation. The Penguin edition apparently follows the Alison Peers translation.
Whichever translation you choose, they both show that Fr. Daza did not have or take the time to get to know Teresa and so he was not able to help her. In fact, he made her situation more painful. Providentially, God provided more patient confessors who did help her.
Bishop Paprocki writes: “But we should also hope that, like Christ, they will love us enough to seek our true good, our objective good, and not abandon us by substituting charity for mere tolerance and affirmation.”
We are reminded that when the new Catechism was initially being formulated (1985-92), some clericalist termites were reportedly intent on displacing the Ten Commandments with the Beatitudes, rather than including both (today’s four sections reliably reflect the outline of the Trent Catechism: Faith, Sacraments, Life in Christ, Prayer).
The Platinum Rule well have been labeled the Alchemist Rule, that of preaching mercy without truth, and of transforming (transgendering?) gold back into lead–or misled.
“Love your neighbor as yourself” is known as the Golden Rule.
The Platinum Rule: ‘Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.’
A murderer is murdering children on a playground. The murderer yells the “Platinum Rule” over to the police “Don’t shoot me!”, while he continues murdering children. The police officer responds, Bang! I go with Jesus’ Golden Rule. If I were murdering children on a playground, I would want a faithful, obedient to Jesus, police officer to love me, by ‘not standing by idle while my neighbor’s life is at stake’, and kill me out of love and protection for these innocent children.
Leviticus 19:16
nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor’s life is at stake. I am the LORD. You shall not hate any of your kindred in your heart. Reprove your neighbor openly so that you do not incur sin because of that person. Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your own people. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
Matthew 19:19
‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself’