Looking down on sinners

There is a line in decades-old movie where an officer in the armed forces of a violently oppressive regime – one that slaughters millions of people and commits all kinds of evil – speaks disapprovingly of bounty hunters, saying, “We don’t need their scum.”

We too can often look down on people, especially people who do sinful things that we find repugnant.

But we are all sinners.

That is not to say that we all might as well as be murderers and hedonists. We need to avoid all kinds of evil, especially matters that are more grave.

But we need to be careful about looking down on or judging the souls of other people, as St. Paul tells us in today’s first reading (Romans 14:7-12):

Why then do you judge your brother or sister?

Or you, why do you look down on your brother or sister?

For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God;
for it is written:

As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bend before me,
and every tongue shall give praise to God.

So then each of us shall give an account of himself to God.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, be merciful to me – a sinner.