Principles and Practices - November 3

The Folly of Human Respect

God has established in your breast the sacred tribunal of conscience, by whose dictates you are bound to decide. But in yielding to human respect, you act the part of a temporizing judge like Pilate, who pronounced sentence, not in accordance with the evidence before him, but in obedience to the clamours of the multitude. You sacrifice principle to expediency, you subordinate the voice of God to the voice of man, you sur­render your Christian liberty and manly indepen­dence, and you become the slave of a fellow-creature. You are guilty of treason to your conscience, and that is the basest kind of treason.

-Cardinal Gibbons.
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From Principles and Practices
Compiled by Rev. J. Hogan of The Catholic Missionary Society
Published by Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., Publishers To The Holy See
Nihil Obstat; Eduardus J. Mahoney, S.T.D. Censor deputatus.
Imprimatur; Edm. Can. Surmont, Vicarius generalis.
First printed in 1930