I guess since I wasn’t there I wouldn’t know the context in which you were sharing things about your brother. Some people seem to use “don’t judge me (or whomever)” as a copout because it’s clear that they other party is guilty of the accusation. It’s not always the case, but sometimes it applies.

That you are open and willing to examine what you said about your brother is a good sign that you are headed in the right direction and not trying to be unfair about your brother. ” title=”Smile” />

[quote:3d700dr1]If you know factual things about a person’s behaivor and actions, would you call that judging?

~Victor[/quote:3d700dr1]

I think there could be a difference between judging actions or judging persons. If you said “I think what my brother did is wrong” I think could be ok. If you said “My brother is a…” or “He shouldn¬¥t have done that because” maybe that was judgmental.

For example, stealing. We know it is wrong, so that is a judgement on an action. But we cannot judge why a person does it. I do agree with Jon that the simple fact you are asking about it says your intentions are good

God´s Peace and Love

Juan

Telling a person that he sinned is a manner of judging. We might know that what he did was wrong (objectively disordered) but we are ignorant of any personal guilt he may shoulder for his action.

[quote:lqaxdxnk]So judging actions is ok?
~Victor[/quote:lqaxdxnk]

I´m not sure if is ok to judge actions or not. But I do think it would be wrong to judge a person based on the actions he/she commits, because we cannot know the circumstances that leads a person to commit his/her actions.

Let´s say there is a problem in a family, the father lost his job for example. This leads to a very stressful situation in the house. Then the 5 year-old son starts misbehaving at school, let´s say hitting his little classmates.

We could say and know hitting someone else is wrong (judging an action)
But we can´t say the person who is doing the hitting is a bad person(of course in many cases there would be a strong temptation to do it) because only God knows all the circumstances and how each person reacts to them.

God´s Blessings

Juan

[quote:3u8zhkr7]Don’t we all do it though?[/quote:3u8zhkr7]

Of course we do. There are a lot of thing we are not supposed to do and we all do them anyway. Believe me I´m not judging you here, I´m just saying what I believe the teachings of the Catholic Church are on this one.

I think this is one of the toughest, but Jesus did ask us not to judge others. Keep in mind He also asked us to be perfect as God is. Now, are we? obviously not.

You make the good point that sometimes we actually can be correct on judging others, we aren´t supposed to do it though.

Let me use hitler as an example here. Based on Catholic teachings there is a very slight possibility that he is in Heaven. Does anyone actually believe that though? I certainly don´t.
If we had met hitler and we had say to him “hey, I think what you¬¥re doing is wrong, if you continue on this path you will go to hell” would we had been wrong? No
Would we had disobeyed what Jesus asked us to do? Yes

Am I taking the “Do not judge others” too literally? Maybe, I don¬¥t know
What do you think?

Juan

St. Paul was adminishing those communities. Heck, that was his job. As an apostle he was given the authority to instruct and teach people how to follow Christ.

Basically he was correcting their errors and helping them live like Christians.