A few weeks ago, I got involved in a discussion on social media with a group of conservative and liberal Roman Catholics who, when I announced that there was other forms of Catholicism other than Roman, ganged up on me.

My grandmother always told me to avoid a cat fight.

Well, clearly I haven’t learned.

This showed up in my Facebook feed a couple of days ago, and my first response was to think about my own experiences with the demonic, and how having had personal experience and first hand knowledge of oppression….

Then it hit me. I’d be entering into a cat fight again.

Behold! Another perfect trap!

As a bishop of what I’d call a Catholic denomination that is Autocephalous, but also focused on reconciliation with those who have been harmed by organized religion, the first thing that needs to happen is to acknowledge that harm has occurred, and continues to occur. I won’t even use the term “well meaning” when describing Christians who practice love the sinner, hate the sin without even recognizing their own indifference and prejudice shuts them out from experiencing the face of Christ in every soul that they encounter.

This is a hard teaching that our community embraces. Christ is reflected in every face, including the atheist. As such, every person is deserving of love, respect, and honour as sacred.

And this is the kicker: that would be true even if we weren’t the community we are, or if we were a group of atheists trying to help our community as a collective.

Engaging in bating–regardless of which side of an argument you are on, presupposes there’s an argument to have.

When we argue, we loose focus on honoring. Caring for. Advocating against injustice doesn’t fall into this because in order to advocate, you must first embrace and love. Advocating against injustice is the attempt to bring those who are committing the injustice to reconciliation with creating and becoming instruments of peace.

I’ve got lots to say about the efforts of demons, and how lazy they are, how they much prefer to allow those of us interested to act with the least amount of effort possible. But that’s not what this is about.

It’s time to disarm ourselves towards those of us who look through different windows, but see the same pain in the world. Why we love is irrelevant, that we love and act together is what is important.

Just….don’t get involved in cat fights.