The moral eco system of our human society has evolved during our lifetime, yet it lacks excellence—and probably always will.  For women and racial minorities, in particular, who experienced oppressive and alienating cultural norms half-a-century ago, we’ve made virtuous strides, though it is an arduous slow walk for many.  It is a similar trek for those who are divorced or gay or who suffer certain disabilities or addictions.  Because societal norms, beliefs, and standards of behavior happen organically, though influenced by activists and moralists, there is a push and pull rhythm to progress.  For example, in current culture, achievement and success are valued more than kindness and heartfelt understanding; they have a stronger tug.

Whether it’s our American system or Catholic culture, things are lost and things are gained with each generation’s turn at leadership.  Yet, a valuable moral code always directs us.  It goes back to the transcendental virtues introduced by ancient philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle: beauty, truth, and goodness, which ultimately reveal unity or oneness.  There are various levels of understanding and of advancing the moral ecology.  We can start with physical beauty or factual and accurate truth that serve as a first rung on a ladder which leads to higher knowledge and wisdom.  A boy might be attracted to a girl’s physical beauty but when he embraces her as a person, recognizes the inner beauty of her persona, personality, and personal being, he progresses in his love for her.  A person who reads the Bible and discovers, even with factual inaccuracies and contradictions, God’s true word and revelation reaches an elevated level of understanding truth.  One who realizes that a good life is not shielded from suffering, setbacks, or hardship comes to a deeper acknowledgment of what goodness is.

These philosophers can teach us much about our evolving moral ecology.  As we climb the hill of wisdom, we overcome our own sense of what is good or beautiful or true to recognize a greater truth that is real and universal.  Those who get there no longer operate out of a personal or tribal ideology but move to a level of justice—not “justice” in a twenty-first century legal or street sense of getting even but in a sacred sense of getting right.  We get right with ourselves, with one another, with creation, and with our Creator when we reach that level of the journey.  When we advance along the path of beauty, goodness, truth, justice, and unity, we want to bring our society to that place of divine wisdom that we glimpse, even touch. 

I encounter many Catholics (former Catholics, cultural Catholics, disenfranchised or hurt Catholics) who want to be part of the church but withdraw from oppressive and alienating sanctimony that drives them to the margins.  I remind them that our church is evolving in its moral ecology that pushes and pulls its way to progress; though we make virtuous strides, it will seem a slow walk.  I remind them that Jesus wants to accompany them as individuals and us as a community of faith; His time on earth suggests that we may never arrive at excellence here but can advance closer with each generation and get there in a world beyond.  Much as spiritualists inform us of the purgative, illuminative, and unitive stages of relating to God, so is our time here a climb on the ladder, a hike up the mountain, a struggle to realize beauty, truth, goodness, and justice not from our view (with its push and pull) but God’s view that is pure.  We are to sojourn onward and upward guided by virtues that will help our society transcend.