Before we go on about the phony brand of non-judgmentalness, which is another way of dodging the 
issues of truth and falsehood, good and evil, let us look at what is meant when the Lord indeed warns us not to judge (Matthew 7:1ff and elsewhere). A necessary distinction must be made between judging persons and judging behaviors. We are forbidden to judge persons simply because we are incapable of accurately doing so, and hence do damage if we try. Only God has the full knowledge of a person’s inner life, history, sufferings, motivations, influences, intentions, struggles, etc. Even if we could know all these facts, they are still far too complex to rightly interpret and hence to judge the person. Therefore God reserves judgment of persons to Himself. At times we may be correct if we judge a person to be evil, but God does not allow us even to make that attempt. Our task is to forgive and to invite to repentance the person who does evil. God will judge. Be sure of that.
There’s a major difference between saying “You are an evil person” and “You have done an evil thing,” that is, between judging persons and judging behaviors. We may not do the former but we are actually told by Jesus to do the latter. The One who said “Judge not” also said “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault” (Matthew 18:15). St Paul says the same thing in even stronger terms when speaking of “immoral persons” (lit. “fornicators”) within the Christian community. Not only does he encourage the faithful to pass judgment on their behavior, he urges them to drive out the wicked ones from their midst (1Corinthians 5:11-13). Not to judge here is to fail to carry out the word of God. (I think we may assume in such a case that the offender has refused the invitation to repent before he is cast out.)
Back to the Lord Jesus. One of his classic sayings on the topic is: “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment” (John 7:24). Thus He teaches that there is a wrong way and a right way to judge. The wrong way is “by appearances,” i.e., by a superficial or rash assessment, without sufficient knowledge or understanding. In this way the Pharisees misjudged Him for healing a paralytic on the Sabbath. (This does in fact happen all too much by today’s “Pharisees,” in whatever religion they are found.) But if they had judged the situation with “right judgment,” i.e., with wisdom, a prayerful approach, and a better understanding of who He was and hence the deeper truth of the situation, they would have met with his approval. If we’re not supposed to judge at all, Jesus wouldn’t have told us about “right judgment” and directed us to use it.
We do know, or should know (yes, I did say “should”), right from wrong, good from evil, and so we may point out an act that is objectively evil, though we are incapable of knowing the subjective guilt or culpability that applies to the one who committed it. We have to be vigilant, wise, and aware in this world. If we fail (or refuse) to recognize evil as such, we will be deceived and seduced by it, and we will eventually lose all capacity for true, inspired judgment. Here is where we need the Spirit of Truth. Note that the Holy Spirit is never called the Spirit of Subjective Preference or the Spirit of Non-Judgmentalness.
But what is happening in the Church today? In the all-holy name of universal tolerance and non-judgmentalness, anything that even smacks of making a judgment with an appeal to objective truth, the word of God, or the teachings of the Church, is instantly rejected as self-righteous, uncompassionate dogmatism, or as rigid fundamentalism. (Oh, by the way, according to these champions of subjective preference, even God is not allowed to judge. They’ve already discarded judgment and Hell from the list of “last things.” Well, they can take it up with Him on, uh, Judgment Day.)
“Judgment” has become a dirty word because of the connotations they attach to it. They seem to identify judgment with negative, unenlightened criticism, or even with malicious denigration. I’m sure there are people who do judge that way. Yet too many babies have been thrown out with the bathwater. In the Bible, the term “judgment” is a translation of the Greek krisis, which refers to decision-making in a situation that requires it. Another form of the same word (diakrisis) actually means discernment: enlightened understanding, clear vision, and wise judgment. To judge in wisdom, that is, in the Spirit of Truth, is a precious and noble virtue. And some, though not all, are obliged not only to judge rightly but to correct wrongs as well.
Why then the insistence on non-judgmentalness? What’s behind this dogmatic rejection of dogmatism, this intolerance practiced by the tolerant, this judgment passed upon those by whom they “feel judged”? Well, think about it. If you were to remove objective truth as a criterion of acceptability for one’s acts or lifestyle, and if you were also to remove all infallible doctrines and moral absolutes, what would be left? Just what our author in the beginning was promoting: personal opinions based on subjective preference and experience. Which means what? No right or wrong, good or bad, should or shouldn’t, and no use of such archaic, judgmental terms at all! If it feels good do it, your truth, my truth, whatever works for you, live and let live, sin and let sin, I’m OK, you’re OK, all is one, all is nothing, nothing is all. The result when this mentality is popularly adopted in the Catholic Church? A crisis of faith and morals, of course!
There’s the word, krisis! It’s time to make a decision. It’s time to make a wise judgment about this silly form of non-judgmentalness that people use as a smokescreen for disobedience, dissent, self-indulgence, and the promotion of personal and ecclesiastical agendas. How indignant the “non-judgers” become when we make the assertion that their subjective preference for sexual promiscuity, abortion, homosexual behavior, religious indifferentism, or whatever, is less valid than the decision to be faithful to the teachings of the Gospel and the Church!
Yet they themselves are vicious in their judgment of, say, clerical child-molesters (who do, of course, deserve punishment, but read on). Suddenly, their non-judgmentalness is out the window! But according to the logic of non-judgmentalness, the pedophiles’ personal preferences are no less valid than their own. Why is it in this case OK to express moral outrage? It is partly because they will support anything that contributes to the humiliation of the institutional Church. The situation we just described above is all part of the same agenda to dismantle and “re-invent” the Catholic Church. See, they’re not hard on homosexual priests in general because “gay rights” fits in with their agenda, and the proliferation of such priests will help destroy the Church from within. But raising a public outcry against the miniscule percentage of actual child-abusers will turn public opinion against the Church as such, and will therefore keep media-ingratiating bishops hurrying to implement the “new church” agenda.
Please, let’s not be non-judgmental about evil! We must not be cowed into thinking that we have to somehow “respect” it, simply because it is someone else’s preference. Wherever evil is found, be it among fallen priests, polished politicians, or the general mass of deceitful double-talkers, it must be dealt with decisively—though not in vigilante fashion, I hasten to add—by those with the God-given charism of wisdom and level-headed, impartial judgment. Jesus solemnly proclaimed, “I AM the Truth” (John 14:6), and in that truth we must stand. In his Spirit of Truth, we are called to judge with diakrisis, that is, to judge wisely, carefully—and to avoid rash, self-serving, or facile judgments. Let’s hear it once again from the mouth of Jesus: “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment” (John 7:24).
