Living with the Gray

As I was ironing my gray flannel shirt this morning, it occured to me that gray is not a color that some Catholics are very comfortable with. Oh, I know... gray isn't actually a "color" ... it's a shade, which is perhaps a better word to use in making this point. Like so many things in life, the choices we make are rarely between that which is "clearly good" and that which is "clearly evil." More often than not, the choices are between varying shades of gray.

I thought of this as I read some recent letters to the editor of The Pilot in response to the recent resignations of some members of the Boston Catholic Charities' Board of Trustees. These trustees resigned over Catholic Charities' decision to get out of the adoption business altogether, rather than to follow the Commonwealth's anti-discrimination law forbidding the exclusion of gays and same-sex couples as possible adoptive parents on the grounds of sexual orientation. One particular letter to the editor even went so far as to question the faith of these former Board members, calling them "false friends of Jesus Christ."

Taking a cue from the title of Benedict XVI's first encyclical, perhaps we should all recall, especially in this Lenten season ... "In all things, charity."