The Responsibility for Innocence

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matthew 18:6)

Oh, what a powerful statement, and from the lips of the same loving Lord who said that we were not to judge, but rather to forgive all sinners. However, it’s not really a condemnation, but rather a prophecy of the ultimate fate of anybody who would twist an innocent child’s mind and cause him or her to sin. This includes the obviously notorious who fit the pattern, such as the Nazi physician at Auschwitz, Dr. Mengele, who performed cruel experiments on children that caused them painful deaths, or tyrants like Pol Pot, or Genghis Khan, who cautioned his warriors not to feel compassion towards the children of those they were to murder on their forays westward.

I recall the news story of the past year about a thirty four year-old father who in a rage of anger stormed outdoors to his nine year-old daughter and attacked her as she was playing. The girl’s friend tried to help and was murdered along with the first child. Add to these the thousands of pedophile victims. Countless children abused by unfit parents. The many preteen girls of Southeast Asia sold into slavery or prostitution by their fathers. Each of these sins cries out to heaven—but it’s not God who must answer how it happens that of all creatures He brought into existence only humans mistreat their offspring in ways that no animal would consider.

No greater atrocity can be imagined than child abuse. At each baptism my prayer is that the newly inaugurated Christian will be able to proceed through childhood innocent and free of cruelty, brutality, and humiliation, and continue through adulthood bereft of all emotional scars on his or her soul. Lord, let them know only what will make them happy, confident, uplifted and secure in the awareness that they are surrounded by persons who adore and respect them fully as human beings, despite their frailty and naiveté. Regardless of their confrontations with insensitive, boorish and rude persons that one is forced to deal with in a culture that no longer encourages courtesy and civility to reign supreme, nevertheless, let them always feel beautiful and optimistic within and without. May the Spirit within help them with self-affirmation and purity of soul.

St. Paul Florensky wrote: “Everything is beautiful in a person when he turns to God, and everything is ugly when he turns away from God.” Assuming that statement is not overblown but accurate, do you see what a great responsibility that places on the shoulders of us all: clergy, parents, teachers and fellow communicants especially? Even as it happens that conflicts arise in the home, misunderstandings and worse between parents, discourteous neighbors, insensitive teachers, nevertheless, every child must be made to feel that at least in the church everything is beautiful in every way. Read again the above admonition from the Lord Jesus: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in Me to sin—” refers to the place par excellence where a child shall experience belief in Christ. The church is the location where a youngster must always be made to feel welcome, loved, supported and affirmed in a world that all too often demonstrates rudeness, caustic criticism, humiliation and put-downs. We have no control over the neighborhoods, playgrounds, schools or even homes; but we shall always make the church an arena of love, courtesy and acceptance. Whatever else the church may not provide, it must always express the love of a perfect mother, the compassion of the heavenly Father in the eyes of each one of us, and the spirit of trust in one another, along with the faith in their own children that will support them and encourage them to reach for their highest potential intellectually, creatively, and most of all, spiritually.