This post is not about Yiannopoulos’s statements on pederasty, disgusting as those statements are, nor particularly about the man himself. This is about the treatment afforded to him by his supporters on the political Right (or the alt-Right? whichever you prefer) who call for a show of supernatural mercy toward him. Such an instinct is, if authentic, laudable. However, the way it has been commonly demonstrated is not without some severe difficulties.

Milo Yiannopoulos, when asked why he is both a practicing Catholic and a sexually active homosexual, said,

“We have this thing called original sin. We go to Church because we know we’re not good. And for me at least, certainly living the lifestyle that I do, that’s a more honest approach to theology than other sorts of Christianity have to offer. . . . Progressives will demand all manner of complex and weird acknowledgements for themselves. . . . But what they can’t understand is other people asking for the same acknowledgment that life is messy and complicated and that sometimes things aren’t fully recognized or realized or pulled together in your own mind. Sometimes it takes a lifetime of study and prayer…”

I grant all of that. I have no issue with it.

Anyone who has talked with me about the subject knows I am a blatant advocate for allowing the “bad Catholics,” the folks that want to be a part of the Church and believe the Church, yet in major ways live a life that is divergent from the Faith. Some don’t seem to want these folks to be allowed any participation in the Church. I think that if you don’t give these folks room to believe and fall short, however, you will only drive them away from Christ and eliminate any chance of spiritual growth.

Despite this agreement, I have a problem with the reception of this quote I have seen by many conservative Catholics. My worry with their response is not that it is too gregarious toward Milo– it is that it seems endemic of a refusal by conservative Catholics to be this gregarious toward everybody else. I worry that Milo is afforded a certain (and certainly wide) leeway not because what he has said is true, but because he is considered politically useful and agreeable.

But the Gospel of Mercy, as the Pope likes to call it, does not refer only to those whom we find likable or who contribute to our valued causes. The Gospel of Mercy applies to everyone, however they vote, whatever they do.

If any number of politically left-wing Catholics had said something like this, would they be so warmly embraced by their right-wing counterparts? Or would they be given the usual trope of, “No mercy without justice! no salvation without repentance! no cherry-picking moral truth”? Imagine if, when asked why certain of his positions or parts of his personal life contradicted Church teaching (and flagrantly so), a liberal Catholic like Stephen Colbert had said,

“Life is messy and complicated and sometimes things aren’t fully recognized or realized or pulled together in your own mind. Sometimes it takes a lifetime of prayer and study.”

Would he have been cut this kind of slack? Would right-wing Christians have said, “He’s right: that is how it is; he may not be a good Catholic, but we should welcome him as a true Catholic nonetheless.” Wouldn’t someone say something about “ambiguity” and “commandments not ideals” and all the rest we’ve had to endure over the past few years?

Wouldn’t somebody say the words “not really a Catholic”?

After all, that seems to be the Protestantized “no true Scotsman” dialectic we have been attracted to as Catholic Americans. Please do not make the mistake of thinking that I am speaking of people who, knowing the Church’s teaching, seek to change that teaching or simply refuse to believe in it. I mean the large portions of Catholics who, knowing the Church’s teachings on contraception, abortion, gay marriage, divorce and remarriage, and not denying their reality, live in open contradiction to them anyway while still going to Mass and praying.

Or what if the Pope had said this sort of thing? Imagine it: on one of his infamous in-flight interviews, the Holy Father is asked about Catholics who go to church but don’t live according to Church teaching, and he replies,

“Life is messy and complicated and sometimes things aren’t fully recognized or realized or pulled together in your own mind. Sometimes it takes a lifetime of prayer and study.”

Wouldn’t the blogosphere be full of reprisals: “Ugh! That Pope Bergoglio and his ambiguities! His intentional vagaries! We need clarity in the Church, not this nonsense about messes and complications and moral truths left unrealized! No mercy without justice! No salvation without repentance! Commandments are not ideals!”

Is this just the gratis granted out of political kinship? Because this is so flatly different from so many treatments I see with regularity of similar Catholic individuals on the left of American politics. Instead of a round of amens and thank-you-Jesuses, a left-wing Catholic who had said this would be greeted with jeers. He would be accused of being a modernist, of twisting the Church’s teaching on forgiveness, or of copping out of his moral responsibility to change his life. Wouldn’t his intentions and desires be immediately suspect as diabolical? Wouldn’t he be labeled a phony and told that he can’t have it both ways?

I think that it is patently silly to dispute that American Catholics, like any other demographic group, seem to have serious difficulty distinguishing their political party (whether Republican or Democrat) from their Faith, and we tend to color our belief in the Church according to our preference at the ballot box. Catholics falling passionately in line with either Trump or Clinton this past year have exemplified this tendency of ours. In my mind, this is a small example of just how far we will allow “our guys” to falter and remain in our good graces, while the same situation in the lives of the “other guys” becomes a reason for condemnation.

Of course, I believe what Milo said. What he said is true, and it is one of the ten thousand reasons I became a Catholic. What Milo expressed is precisely my only hope: that, despite my own abject (and sometimes flaunted) failures to live up to what the Church proposes, she remains a home for me to come to for solace and grace. I only wish that my fellow Catholics would grant this for everyone who violently and publicly struggles with Church teaching, and not simply the ones that they happen to like. And when looking at the “bad Catholics,” keep in mind then that when we see a contradiction between what they say and what the Church says, we don’t pick the former over the latter because of personal taste.

The Catholic Church is home for all people who want to be there, regardless of their own “level” of sinfulness. The Church must never stop presenting the ideal human life offered to us by Christ, and spurring us on by means of the commandments. Neither can she ever throw out of her doors those who continually live in sin yet believe the Gospel. This openness should be extended to everyone, not just those we like or who think politically the way we do. As Catholics, we need to be able to balance the bold proclamation of the unedited Gospel and hospitality, understanding, and charity toward those who believe it but haven’t yet embraced it. If we do one or the other in isolation, we really do neither.

And the Spirit and the bride say: Come. And he that heareth, let him say: Come. And he that thirsteth, let him come: and he that will, let him take the water of life, freely. (Revelation 22:17)

But thou hast mercy upon all, because thou canst do all things, and overlookest the sins of men for the sake of repentance. (Wisdom 11:24)

If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)