Do We Have the Right To Judge?

”From the fact that God’s judgment threatens man it is often deduced that no man has the right to judge another, (Mt. 7:1f; Jm 4:11; Rom 4:4,10; 1 Cor 4:5.) This does not imply flabby indifference to the moral condition of others nor the blind renunciation of attempts at a true and serious appraisal of those with whom we have to live.
• What is unconditionally demanded is that such evaluations should be subject to the certainty that God’s judgment falls also on those who judge, so that superiority, hardness and blindness to one’s own faults are excluded, and a readiness to forgive and to intercede is safeguarded. The emphatic way in which Jesus extended the law of love in this direction has far-reaching consequences.
• It means that the Church cannot practice discipline with merciless severity (2 Cor 11:24). It means that the Church cannot take up a hard, contemptuous and supercilious attitude towards those whom it regards as sinners.
• It means that Church discipline must make predominant, if not exclusive, use of means which promote edification and pastoral care. Precisely the unreserved seriousness with which the community takes the concept of judgment in the Gospel is that which enables it to overcome a mere legalism in its religious and moral life.”

– (Buchsel) – [3:929]