In my Easter homily, I addressed briefly a concern that has been on my mind for some time. I mean the quality of speech in our society today and the attitudes that people express that range from anger to outright hatred. Pope Benedict on Holy Thursday said, “Do not let rancor become poison for the soul.” In his now customary genius to say profound things simply and clearly, he touched the heart of what has been disturbing me.

No one pretends that we live in easy times. We all are aware that modern society exercises pressures that seem to sap the spirit and deaden the soul. We are constantly being barraged by messages that are contradictory and at cross purposes. Our young people are particularly the target of a consumer society that offers one fleeting promise after another. The tenor of society and the tone of our rhetoric are loud, insistent and negative.

How often do we listen to local tragedies on television or read of them in the local press only to have them become the vehicles for one person’s rage or another person’s often vulgar and coarse excoriation of another with whom they disagree or whom they feel injured or insulted them? So long as one person disagrees with another, it seems that the media are more than happy to keep the rancor going. And if one person’s anger can fuel a second’s response, perhaps that can be widened and deepened to involve whole families and even a fair number of citizens in a community.

In my homily, I said, “There is too much hatred, too much giving and taking of offense in our society; too much foul language, from youth and adults, too much selfish self-aggrandizement and negative stereotyping of others. The media have done a very poor job in this area. All too often they seek to stir up hatred and emotional attacks that only coarsen life and leave people more and more polarized. Why can we not have a civil society in which we speak civilly to one another, listen to one another and not attribute base motives toward those with whom we disagree? Why can we not purify our own motives, forgive one another from the heart, wash one another’s feet as Jesus did His disciples and thus walk together toward the Lord in our pilgrimage of life?”

I know there is a great deal of stress and strain in human living. I know many — so many — carry tremendous personal burdens with great grace and dignity, that many bear sufferings with an acceptance of God’s will and a care for others that is truly grace-filled. I also know we all can slip on occasion and say something or do something that is not characteristic of one’s normal way of acting and reacting. No one is perfect, and I am painfully aware of my own imperfections, my own failures.

Yet all the excuses in the world and all the generous and gracious understanding of others together do not explain away or allow us to overlook certain facts I have just mentioned: our language is often coarse and vulgar; we do have an increasing tendency to condemn others; we are too often caught up in seeking revenge rather than reconciliation; we certainly are not noted for “turning the other cheek” or “forgiving the other from the heart.”

A little over 10 years ago, my good friend, Archbishop Donald Wuerl, then Bishop of Pittsburgh, wrote a pastoral letter, Speaking the Truth in Love: Christian Discourse Within the Church. His letter is aimed principally to members of the Church to clarify how we communicate with one another in the Church. Yet he has a great deal to say that applies to our communication within the wider communities, all of which could benefit from a deeper and more conscious awareness of our responsibility for civil discourse. Without repeating his whole, very persuasive, argument, let me mention some of the characteristics he calls upon us all to make our own.

Among the elements of civil discourse, he reflects on a commitment to the truth as the basic criterion. That commitment to truth needs to be buttressed by a pervading sense of mutual trust which, for us, is the fruit of our faithfulness to the love of Christ. Then he moves to something that is rarely found today: the need to set a good example. How many of us are conscious of how our language and our communication with others might influence positively or negatively those around us? How many adults, by word or action, send a message to young people that it is all right to curse and blaspheme; it is ok to denigrate women or minorities; it is just ‘being human’ to get revenge or harm another whom you do not like?
The opposite of this kind of language and action is a commitment to a profound respect for the other person as neighbor and with that, a respect for one another’s rights and responsibilities. Too often we want to vindicate our own “rights” without ever averting to the responsibilities we have not only for ourselves but for the good of other persons and the common good of the communities where we live. Such a positive attitude of accepting responsibilities with rights gives us all a longer perspective on our relationships and a willingness to work for the good of all, with respect for the truth which is binding on us all.

Thus in place of revenge, we might do better at seeking reconciliation; in place of coarse and vulgar language, we can use the language of mutual respect and understanding; in place of hatred, the attitude of mind and heart that always sees the other as neighbor. As Archbishop Wuerl wrote, “There is something refreshing and healthy about being able to put behind us any disagreement that has engendered anger or bitterness, especially violent actions that can harm a community. When there are lapses or failures, the Church in the name of Christ calls us to reconciliation.”