Moral Monsters and Forgiveness

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 14, 2026

Peter asks the Lord, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answers, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” A prominent Catholic friend with provocative, contrarian opinion pieces once quipped: “The trouble with Christianity is that you have to forgive too many enemies.”

Forgiveness does not mean surrendering to evil. It means fighting evil without becoming the evil we detest. We may defend ourselves. We may seek justice. We may impose punishment. We may demand restitution. We may guard ourselves against someone who harmed us. Forgiveness, trust, reconciliation, and association are distinct.

Forgiveness means renouncing hatred, but not just and proportionate anger. “Be angry, but sin not.” (Psalm 4:4; cf. Ephesians 4:26) I can recognize the evil that someone has done and still refuse to rejoice in his destruction. I can hope that he comes to his senses, repents, and restores relationships. I can pray for his conversion while taking measures to protect myself and others. I hope to remain open to his request for forgiveness without abandoning just punishment. In war, legitimate self-defense allows us to pull the trigger.

Trust depends upon evidence of trustworthiness. Forgiveness does not require me to trust someone who has proved himself untrustworthy. I can forgive you, hope for the best, and keep my guard up. “But Jesus did not trust himself to them.” (John 2:24)

Reconciliation is a meeting of the minds with goodwill. Reconciliation restores damaged relationships and requires a desire for truth, repentance, and a willingness to repair the damage. Reconciliation is the crown jewel of forgiveness (cf. The Parable of the Prodigal Son). But forgiveness can exist even when reconciliation is not possible.

Continued association is not obligatory. Forgiveness does not require me to remain your friend, business associate, confidant, or companion. Association itself may be an occasion of sin. Prudence may require distance. I can forgive you and decide that we should go our separate ways. The best I can hope for is your distance, and even irrelevance to my life. In Acts, Paul and Barnabas disagree over Mark joining them (cf. Acts 15). Yet later Paul writes: “Get Mark and bring him with you; for he is very useful in serving me.” (2 Timothy 4:11)

I recognize what you have done. I will not pretend it was harmless. I will protect myself and others. I may have to seek justice against you. I may even have to act firmly against you without becoming vindictive. But I will not hate you, and I will not seek your destruction.

If you come to your senses and ask forgiveness, I should be ready to grant it. If repentance makes reconciliation possible, I should not refuse it. And if circumstances permit, I may even choose mercy beyond what strict justice requires.

But forgiveness is not sentimentality. We are not required to call evil good, to ignore injustice, or to indulge those who do evil. Sometimes we must patiently bear with others’ faults. Sometimes justice requires punishment, restitution, self-defense, or separation. Forgiveness does not abolish justice.

Flannery O’Connor’s fictional A Good Man Is Hard to Find offers a disturbing lesson. The grandmother, after her conversation with the murderous Misfit, tells him, “Why you’re one of my babies.” He shoots her. When a partner in crime remarks that she was a good woman, the Misfit responds, “She would have been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

O’Connor does not ask us to indulge the Misfit. The Misfit is a monster. But his observation exposes something true about fallen human nature. Only when the grandmother was confronted with his violence did she seem to grasp the harsh reality of the evil that confronts her. The façade of goodness can be sentimental denial of reality. Elsewhere, O’Connor warned that tenderness detached from Christ “ends in forced-labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber.” The grandmother’s sentimental mercy does not erase the Misfit’s evil.

But we must also remember that, in conflicts, we are not Manicheans. We are not absolutely good. Our enemies are not absolutely evil. As we suffer injustices, we may ask ourselves, “Did I contribute to the hatred or greed that led to the injustice?” Perhaps not. But in every marriage, every family, and every community, moral blamelessness—as in the innocence of a child—is rare.

As we remember Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and the dangerous disagreements and altercations within our families, it is healthy to ask whether, in some way, we contributed to the injustice and whether pursuing a spirit of forgiveness might prevent us from becoming moral monsters. As we remember, we may pray for a firm resolve to restore justice. We also remember those lost. We pray for their souls, and pray for vigilance. But we must not cultivate hatred and grudges. We should pray for a spirit of justice, reconciliation, and righteous goodwill.

For evil can corrupt its victims as well as its perpetrators. We can become so consumed by an injustice that our hatred becomes an injustice of its own. We can become so determined to punish evil that we begin to enjoy the punishment. We can become moral monsters.

But forgiveness does not mean forgetting evil. It does not mean trusting the untrustworthy. It does not mean restoring a relationship that prudence says should remain broken. And it does not mean abandoning justice. Forgiveness means refusing to let evil triumph—not only over the offender, but over me.

Forgiving our enemies may be one of Christ’s most difficult demands. We need His reinforcing words: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:43-45)