I am a Good Person

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio - articles - email ) | Jun 23, 2025

“As he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments…. And [the rich man] said to him, ‘Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.’” (Mk. 10:17-21) In the grand scheme of things, the rich young man was a good person.

I’m a good person, too. My viewpoints reveal the quality of my moral timber. I follow the science and oppose abortion. At the annual March for Life in January, we see street posters of happy children and the mangled remains of unborn babies, victims of abortion. Thou shalt not murder.

Some object to the graphic depictions as excessive. As a good person, I have come to agree. Show mothers ultrasound images of their unborn babies so they have an appealing idea of their baby’s humanity. I write checks that support various pro-life causes. I feel good about myself.

Occasionally, I feel bad about myself. The sense usually comes with flashes of stinging correctives. As a young man, I read the documents of Vatican II, including: “Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation.” (GS 80)

Dad was a Navy man in the South Pacific during World War II. The atomic bomb ended the war and may have saved his life. I am an American. I am pro-life. I am conservative. I am a good person. Would I remain a good person without objecting to the indiscriminate attack on the Japanese with the bomb—or, for that matter, the fire-bombing of Tokyo and Dresden, among other population centers?

I know good people often disagree in politics. However, my desire to be a good person tugged at my standard pro-American, ‘we had to drop the bomb to win the war’ argument. I studied Veritatis Splendor. Some actions, such as murder, are intrinsically evil. Doing evil to attain good is immoral. Catholic martyrs accepted death before committing evil acts. How could I continue to favor the bombings and remain a good person? The tension was too much for me, so I surrendered to the demands of Catholic logic. I freely express my opposition to the indiscriminate destruction of population centers as gravely evil. I’ve risked friendships, but I’ve restored my self-esteem.

In the 3rd grade, the elderly Sister Cecilia announced to the class that the Jews did not kill Jesus. Every sinner killed Jesus. Sister didn’t need to convince me. Every schoolboy in Catholic catechism class knew that our sins—my sins—put Jesus to death. With every disobedient and nasty remark and every time I fought with my brother and sister, I scourged and crucified my loving Savior. The Stations of the Cross during Lent reinforced my convictions. Every time I repent for my sins, I become a better person and stop persecuting Jesus.

It took me into adulthood to understand Sister Cecilia’s incongruous insistence. After the war, the horror of the Holocaust sank into the consciousness of many Catholics. The mass murder of six million Jews and another six million Gentiles gave Catholics a gnawing sense of collective guilt of anti-Semitism. Communist intelligence agencies exploited the sentiment. In 1963, the East German play “The Deputy” depicted Pope Pius XII as “Hitler’s Pope.” It was sheer Communist propaganda.

Many Catholics collaborated with (or were indifferent to) the Nazis. But Pius wasn’t among them. Pius worked diligently behind the scenes, hiding Jews and other refugees at Castel Gandolfo, the summer papal palace outside Rome (where Jewish graffiti in the caverns remains). Yet, many of the fake charges stuck: Catholics are probably secret anti-Semites. We must convince the world we are good people. So Western Catholics rarely publicly criticize Israel for any reason whatsoever.

Israel became the most reliable US ally in the Middle East during the Cold War. Most of the Arab world entered the Soviet camp. Aligned with the Communists, with Leninism influencing radical Islam, the Arabs were anti-American and anti-Israel. In the name of Cold War national security, LBJ and McNamara covered up the deliberate Israeli attack on the USS Liberty spy ship during the 1967 Six-Day War. Today, sailors who suffered through that ignominious day are accused of anti-Semitism. Politically conservative pro-life Catholics continue to fear the “anti-Semite” epithet. In private conversation, everyone knows a conservative Catholic who publicly opposes any Israeli policy may lose his good standing.

The Middle East is again in flames. Estimates suggest over 50,000 Gazans—men, women, and children—have been killed in the Israeli response to the Hamas terror attack of October 7. Many good conservative pro-life Catholics blame Hamas for the killings. If the Gazans allow Hamas to use them as human shields, what choice does Israel have? Don’t the Palestinians want to drive Israel from the river to the sea? Collateral damage on a large scale is unavoidable. Tribalism is familiar. We insisted Japan was a nation of combatants, including men, women, and children. Dehumanize a population before exterminating it.

In 2024, Pope Francis called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s attacks in Gaza constituted genocide. Vatican officials also met with the Palestinian president to discuss Gaza’s “very serious” needs. A few Catholic writers wrestle with the meaning of genocide.

But genocide as a moral distinction may be unnecessary because “[any] act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation.” The now-unavoidable images of mangled and starving bodies in Gaza call into question whether we who support the killings are good people.

I am a Catholic. I am struggling to be a better Catholic. Thou shalt not murder.