In 1931, while serving as a professor at the Catholic University of America, Father Fulton J. Sheen published Old Errors and New Labels, a penetrating examination of the fashionable ideas of his generation. Among its most memorable chapters was A Plea for Intolerance. Its deliberately provocative title was not an appeal for hatred, persecution, coercion, or contempt. Sheen was pleading for intellectual clarity—the courage to distinguish truth from falsehood, virtue from vice, and Christ from the spirit of the world. Nearly a century later, his warning speaks directly to a culture that increasingly treats firm moral conviction as intolerance and to Catholic educational institutions tempted to preserve their social respectability by concealing the truths they were founded to teach.
Sheen opened his essay by declaring that America was not principally suffering from intolerance but from tolerance of irreconcilable opposites: tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil.¹ He believed that society had confused broad-mindedness with the refusal to make judgments. Yet, a mind that never reaches a conclusion is not truly open. It has simply failed to fulfill its purpose. The intellect exists to recognize reality, discern what is true, and guide the will toward what is good.
Sheen distinguished ideas from persons. Persons are to be loved, even when they are mistaken; ideas must be judged according to whether they are true or false. Charity may require patience with a person’s confusion, but it never requires approval of the confusion itself. A physician loves his patient precisely by refusing to tolerate the disease. Parents love their children not by affirming every impulse but by teaching them to distinguish what will help them from what will harm them. Likewise, the Church loves humanity by proclaiming the truth that liberates it.
This distinction is thoroughly Christian. Jesus showed extraordinary tenderness toward sinners, but he never treated sin as harmless or justifiable. To the woman caught in adultery, he offered mercy and then commanded, “Go, and do not sin again” (Jn 8:11, RSVCE). His mercy neither condemned the woman nor approved the adultery. Christ welcomed the lost while calling them to conversion. He identified himself with truth itself: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). He promised that knowledge of the truth would bring freedom, not oppression: “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:32).
This is the foundation of authentic Catholic intolerance. Catholics must be intolerant of falsehood because falsehood wounds the human person. They must reject racism without despising the racist, oppose abortion while praying for those involved in it, defend marriage without humiliating those whose lives contradict its meaning, and condemn religious persecution while respecting the dignity of every unbeliever. Christian intolerance is directed against error and injustice; Christian charity is directed toward every person, including an adversary.
The distinction also protects religious freedom. The Second Vatican Council did not teach that all religious claims are equally true. It taught that no one should be coerced into religious belief, because the act of faith must be free. At the same time, every person remains morally obliged to seek the truth, embrace it when known, and order his life according to it.² Freedom from coercion is not freedom from truth. Saint John Paul II therefore explained that religious liberty does not relativize objective truth; it establishes the civil space in which persons may seek and embrace truth responsibly.³
Sheen’s concern becomes especially urgent in education. Education is never the mere transfer of technical information. Every school communicates a view of the human person, freedom, happiness, sexuality, justice, family, authority, and God. Even an institution claiming to be morally neutral forms its students according to particular assumptions. Silence about God is itself a lesson. Treating moral judgments as private preferences teaches relativism. Presenting human identity as self-created instructs the student in a particular anthropology, even when the school denies that it is imposing one.
Catholic education exists because the Church possesses a unified vision of reality. God is the author of creation and revelation; consequently, truths discovered by reason cannot ultimately contradict truths revealed by God. Mathematics, history, literature, science, philosophy, and theology are not isolated territories. Each contributes to the student’s understanding of creation and of the human vocation within it. Catholic education seeks the formation of the whole person—intellect, will, conscience, imagination, body, and soul—in the light of Christ.
The Second Vatican Council described a Catholic school as one that creates an atmosphere animated by the Gospel, helps students develop their personalities, and orders human culture toward the message of salvation.⁴ The identity of such a school cannot be reduced to its name, its founding history, occasional prayer, religious artwork, or the presence of a theology department. Its Catholic character must inform its curriculum, moral standards, institutional decisions, and understanding of the student.
This is where Sheen’s warning becomes painfully relevant. A Catholic institution may become so eager to appear welcoming that it ceases to identify spiritual danger. It may call ambiguity “dialogue,” cowardice “pastoral sensitivity,” and doctrinal surrender “inclusion.” It may teach students about Catholicism as one historical perspective while hesitating to propose the Catholic faith as true. Religious instruction may be reduced to comparative religion, community service, or generalized kindness detached from conversion, sacramental life, and obedience to Christ.
Such institutions may remain culturally Catholic while no longer being confidently Catholic. The crucifix can remain upon the classroom wall even as the truths represented by the crucifix are contradicted. Students may receive academic honors without understanding grace, sin, redemption, the Real Presence, the authority of the Church, or the demands of the moral law. A school can excel at preparing students for employment while failing to prepare them for judgment and eternity.
The crisis deepens when Catholic teachers or administrators openly reject doctrines they have accepted responsibility to communicate. Intellectual questions should be welcomed, and difficult questions deserve thoughtful answers. Catholic education is not indoctrination through fear. Nevertheless, there is a profound difference between examining an objection and presenting error as equal to revealed truth. Saint Paul warned that a time would come when people would reject sound teaching and gather instructors who satisfied their preferences (2 Tim 4:3–4). The Catholic educator is called to resist that temptation and to “preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season” (2 Tim 4:2).
The Church therefore teaches that Catholic educators must be witnesses as well as professionals. Their personal integrity and public fidelity are not irrelevant to their educational mission.⁵ Students quickly perceive whether teachers believe what they teach. A teacher who explains Catholic doctrine apologetically, as though embarrassed by it, communicates that the faith cannot withstand modern scrutiny. Conversely, an educator who joins intellectual competence with humility, joy, and holiness demonstrates that faith enlarges reason rather than suppressing it.
Parents hold the primary responsibility for their children’s education. The Catechism calls this right and duty “primordial and inalienable.”⁶ Schools assist parents; they do not replace them. Catholic parents must therefore examine what their children are being taught, the moral assumptions underlying the curriculum, the example provided by teachers, and whether sacramental and devotional life occupies a living place in the school. Paying tuition or choosing a school with “Catholic” in its title does not remove the parents’ responsibility for vigilance.
This vigilance should not become suspicion of every teacher or hostility toward school authorities. Parents, pastors, teachers, and administrators should work in communion. Concerns ought to be expressed accurately, respectfully, and through appropriate channels. Yet, peace purchased by silence is not genuine unity. If students are being taught serious moral or doctrinal error, parents have both a right and a duty to intervene. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend,” Scripture teaches, “profuse are the kisses of an enemy” (Prov 27:6). Honest correction may be uncomfortable, but false reassurance can abandon young souls to confusion.
The Church’s educational mission also requires intellectual seriousness. Rejecting relativism does not mean fearing science, literature, philosophy, or honest debate. Catholic tradition has produced universities precisely because it trusts that truth forms a harmonious whole. Saint John Paul II taught that faith and reason resemble two wings by which the human spirit rises to contemplate truth.⁷ A Catholic school should therefore expose students to challenging ideas, teach them how to evaluate arguments, and prepare them to defend the faith with reason and charity. Protecting students from every opposing claim leaves them unprepared; presenting falsehood without Catholic evaluation leaves them undefended.
Sheen’s plea also concerns the wider culture. When society ceases to acknowledge objective moral truth, power gradually replaces reason. If good and evil are only matters of preference, the strongest institutions, loudest movements, or most influential technologies will determine what may be said. Relativism promises liberation from judgment but frequently produces conformity. Those who deny that truth can be known may nevertheless become remarkably intolerant toward anyone who questions the approved opinions of the age.
Catholics must not respond with bitterness. The servant of Christ is forbidden to hate. Saint Peter commanded believers to give a reason for their hope “with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet 3:15). Gentleness concerns the manner of Christian witness; firmness concerns its content. Removing either damages evangelization. Truth without charity becomes harshness, while charity without truth becomes sentimentality. Pope Benedict XVI warned that charity must be united with truth or it can become an empty shell filled by passing emotions and opinions.⁸
The recovery of Catholic education must therefore begin with renewed fidelity to Christ. Catholic schools need teachers who pray, receive the sacraments, understand the faith, love their students, and possess the courage to speak clearly. They need administrators willing to protect Catholic identity even when fidelity brings criticism or financial cost. They need parents who live the faith at home, pastors who teach without ambiguity, and bishops who exercise genuine fatherly oversight. Above all, they need confidence that the Gospel is not an obstacle to human flourishing but its fulfillment.
Sheen’s “intolerance” is ultimately a form of love. We refuse to tolerate a lie about the unborn child because we love both mother and child. We refuse to tolerate confusion about marriage because we love spouses, children, and society. We refuse to tolerate religious indifference because we love souls created for communion with God. We refuse to tolerate corruption in Catholic education because young people deserve more than comforting slogans: they deserve Jesus Christ, who is the truth that sets them free.
The cultural decay Sheen foresaw will not be healed by anger, coercion, or nostalgia. It will be healed by saints—men and women who combine courage with compassion, clarity with humility, and conviction with holiness. Catholics must love every person, defend legitimate freedom, and reject every temptation to cruelty. But they must also recover the holy intolerance that refuses to call darkness light or falsehood truth. To surrender that distinction is not broad-mindedness. It is to abandon the mind, the culture, and the children entrusted to our care.
Footnotes
¹. Fulton J. Sheen, “A Plea for Intolerance,” in Old Errors and New Labels (New York: The Century Company, 1931).
². Second Vatican Council, Dignitatis Humanae, Declaration on Religious Freedom, December 7, 1965, nos. 1–3.
³. John Paul II, “Religious Freedom: Condition for Peace,” Message for the Twenty-first World Day of Peace, December 8, 1987, no. 1.
⁴. Second Vatican Council, Gravissimum Educationis, Declaration on Christian Education, October 28, 1965, no. 8.
⁵. Congregation for Catholic Education, The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium, December 28, 1997, nos. 11–14, 18–19.
⁶. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), nos. 2221–2229, especially no. 2221.
⁷. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, Encyclical Letter on the Relationship between Faith and Reason, September 14, 1998, introduction.
⁸. Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, Encyclical Letter on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth, June 29, 2009, nos. 2–4.
Bibliography
Benedict XVI. Caritas in Veritate. Encyclical Letter on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth. June 29, 2009.
Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000.
Congregation for Catholic Education. The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium. December 28, 1997.
John Paul II. Fides et Ratio. Encyclical Letter on the Relationship between Faith and Reason. September 14, 1998.
———. “Religious Freedom: Condition for Peace.” Message for the Twenty-first World Day of Peace. December 8, 1987.
Sheen, Fulton J. Old Errors and New Labels. New York: The Century Company, 1931.
Second Vatican Council. Dignitatis Humanae. Declaration on Religious Freedom. December 7, 1965.
———. Gravissimum Educationis. Declaration on Christian Education. October 28, 1965.
The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006.
A Plea for Intolerance: Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Truth, and the Crisis in Catholic Education
©2026 Victor R. Claveau, MJ
In 1931, while serving as a professor at the Catholic University of America, Father Fulton J. Sheen published Old Errors and New Labels, a penetrating examination of the fashionable ideas of his generation. Among its most memorable chapters was A Plea for Intolerance. Its deliberately provocative title was not an appeal for hatred, persecution, coercion, or contempt. Sheen was pleading for intellectual clarity—the courage to distinguish truth from falsehood, virtue from vice, and Christ from the spirit of the world. Nearly a century later, his warning speaks directly to a culture that increasingly treats firm moral conviction as intolerance and to Catholic educational institutions tempted to preserve their social respectability by concealing the truths they were founded to teach.
Sheen opened his essay by declaring that America was not principally suffering from intolerance but from tolerance of irreconcilable opposites: tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil.¹ He believed that society had confused broad-mindedness with the refusal to make judgments. Yet, a mind that never reaches a conclusion is not truly open. It has simply failed to fulfill its purpose. The intellect exists to recognize reality, discern what is true, and guide the will toward what is good.
Sheen distinguished ideas from persons. Persons are to be loved, even when they are mistaken; ideas must be judged according to whether they are true or false. Charity may require patience with a person’s confusion, but it never requires approval of the confusion itself. A physician loves his patient precisely by refusing to tolerate the disease. Parents love their children not by affirming every impulse but by teaching them to distinguish what will help them from what will harm them. Likewise, the Church loves humanity by proclaiming the truth that liberates it.
This distinction is thoroughly Christian. Jesus showed extraordinary tenderness toward sinners, but he never treated sin as harmless or justifiable. To the woman caught in adultery, he offered mercy and then commanded, “Go, and do not sin again” (Jn 8:11, RSVCE). His mercy neither condemned the woman nor approved the adultery. Christ welcomed the lost while calling them to conversion. He identified himself with truth itself: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). He promised that knowledge of the truth would bring freedom, not oppression: “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:32).
This is the foundation of authentic Catholic intolerance. Catholics must be intolerant of falsehood because falsehood wounds the human person. They must reject racism without despising the racist, oppose abortion while praying for those involved in it, defend marriage without humiliating those whose lives contradict its meaning, and condemn religious persecution while respecting the dignity of every unbeliever. Christian intolerance is directed against error and injustice; Christian charity is directed toward every person, including an adversary.
The distinction also protects religious freedom. The Second Vatican Council did not teach that all religious claims are equally true. It taught that no one should be coerced into religious belief, because the act of faith must be free. At the same time, every person remains morally obliged to seek the truth, embrace it when known, and order his life according to it.² Freedom from coercion is not freedom from truth. Saint John Paul II therefore explained that religious liberty does not relativize objective truth; it establishes the civil space in which persons may seek and embrace truth responsibly.³
Sheen’s concern becomes especially urgent in education. Education is never the mere transfer of technical information. Every school communicates a view of the human person, freedom, happiness, sexuality, justice, family, authority, and God. Even an institution claiming to be morally neutral forms its students according to particular assumptions. Silence about God is itself a lesson. Treating moral judgments as private preferences teaches relativism. Presenting human identity as self-created instructs the student in a particular anthropology, even when the school denies that it is imposing one.
Catholic education exists because the Church possesses a unified vision of reality. God is the author of creation and revelation; consequently, truths discovered by reason cannot ultimately contradict truths revealed by God. Mathematics, history, literature, science, philosophy, and theology are not isolated territories. Each contributes to the student’s understanding of creation and of the human vocation within it. Catholic education seeks the formation of the whole person—intellect, will, conscience, imagination, body, and soul—in the light of Christ.
The Second Vatican Council described a Catholic school as one that creates an atmosphere animated by the Gospel, helps students develop their personalities, and orders human culture toward the message of salvation.⁴ The identity of such a school cannot be reduced to its name, its founding history, occasional prayer, religious artwork, or the presence of a theology department. Its Catholic character must inform its curriculum, moral standards, institutional decisions, and understanding of the student.
This is where Sheen’s warning becomes painfully relevant. A Catholic institution may become so eager to appear welcoming that it ceases to identify spiritual danger. It may call ambiguity “dialogue,” cowardice “pastoral sensitivity,” and doctrinal surrender “inclusion.” It may teach students about Catholicism as one historical perspective while hesitating to propose the Catholic faith as true. Religious instruction may be reduced to comparative religion, community service, or generalized kindness detached from conversion, sacramental life, and obedience to Christ.
Such institutions may remain culturally Catholic while no longer being confidently Catholic. The crucifix can remain upon the classroom wall even as the truths represented by the crucifix are contradicted. Students may receive academic honors without understanding grace, sin, redemption, the Real Presence, the authority of the Church, or the demands of the moral law. A school can excel at preparing students for employment while failing to prepare them for judgment and eternity.
The crisis deepens when Catholic teachers or administrators openly reject doctrines they have accepted responsibility to communicate. Intellectual questions should be welcomed, and difficult questions deserve thoughtful answers. Catholic education is not indoctrination through fear. Nevertheless, there is a profound difference between examining an objection and presenting error as equal to revealed truth. Saint Paul warned that a time would come when people would reject sound teaching and gather instructors who satisfied their preferences (2 Tim 4:3–4). The Catholic educator is called to resist that temptation and to “preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season” (2 Tim 4:2).
The Church therefore teaches that Catholic educators must be witnesses as well as professionals. Their personal integrity and public fidelity are not irrelevant to their educational mission.⁵ Students quickly perceive whether teachers believe what they teach. A teacher who explains Catholic doctrine apologetically, as though embarrassed by it, communicates that the faith cannot withstand modern scrutiny. Conversely, an educator who joins intellectual competence with humility, joy, and holiness demonstrates that faith enlarges reason rather than suppressing it.
Parents hold the primary responsibility for their children’s education. The Catechism calls this right and duty “primordial and inalienable.”⁶ Schools assist parents; they do not replace them. Catholic parents must therefore examine what their children are being taught, the moral assumptions underlying the curriculum, the example provided by teachers, and whether sacramental and devotional life occupies a living place in the school. Paying tuition or choosing a school with “Catholic” in its title does not remove the parents’ responsibility for vigilance.
This vigilance should not become suspicion of every teacher or hostility toward school authorities. Parents, pastors, teachers, and administrators should work in communion. Concerns ought to be expressed accurately, respectfully, and through appropriate channels. Yet, peace purchased by silence is not genuine unity. If students are being taught serious moral or doctrinal error, parents have both a right and a duty to intervene. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend,” Scripture teaches, “profuse are the kisses of an enemy” (Prov 27:6). Honest correction may be uncomfortable, but false reassurance can abandon young souls to confusion.
The Church’s educational mission also requires intellectual seriousness. Rejecting relativism does not mean fearing science, literature, philosophy, or honest debate. Catholic tradition has produced universities precisely because it trusts that truth forms a harmonious whole. Saint John Paul II taught that faith and reason resemble two wings by which the human spirit rises to contemplate truth.⁷ A Catholic school should therefore expose students to challenging ideas, teach them how to evaluate arguments, and prepare them to defend the faith with reason and charity. Protecting students from every opposing claim leaves them unprepared; presenting falsehood without Catholic evaluation leaves them undefended.
Sheen’s plea also concerns the wider culture. When society ceases to acknowledge objective moral truth, power gradually replaces reason. If good and evil are only matters of preference, the strongest institutions, loudest movements, or most influential technologies will determine what may be said. Relativism promises liberation from judgment but frequently produces conformity. Those who deny that truth can be known may nevertheless become remarkably intolerant toward anyone who questions the approved opinions of the age.
Catholics must not respond with bitterness. The servant of Christ is forbidden to hate. Saint Peter commanded believers to give a reason for their hope “with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet 3:15). Gentleness concerns the manner of Christian witness; firmness concerns its content. Removing either damages evangelization. Truth without charity becomes harshness, while charity without truth becomes sentimentality. Pope Benedict XVI warned that charity must be united with truth or it can become an empty shell filled by passing emotions and opinions.⁸
The recovery of Catholic education must therefore begin with renewed fidelity to Christ. Catholic schools need teachers who pray, receive the sacraments, understand the faith, love their students, and possess the courage to speak clearly. They need administrators willing to protect Catholic identity even when fidelity brings criticism or financial cost. They need parents who live the faith at home, pastors who teach without ambiguity, and bishops who exercise genuine fatherly oversight. Above all, they need confidence that the Gospel is not an obstacle to human flourishing but its fulfillment.
Sheen’s “intolerance” is ultimately a form of love. We refuse to tolerate a lie about the unborn child because we love both mother and child. We refuse to tolerate confusion about marriage because we love spouses, children, and society. We refuse to tolerate religious indifference because we love souls created for communion with God. We refuse to tolerate corruption in Catholic education because young people deserve more than comforting slogans: they deserve Jesus Christ, who is the truth that sets them free.
The cultural decay Sheen foresaw will not be healed by anger, coercion, or nostalgia. It will be healed by saints—men and women who combine courage with compassion, clarity with humility, and conviction with holiness. Catholics must love every person, defend legitimate freedom, and reject every temptation to cruelty. But they must also recover the holy intolerance that refuses to call darkness light or falsehood truth. To surrender that distinction is not broad-mindedness. It is to abandon the mind, the culture, and the children entrusted to our care.
Footnotes
¹. Fulton J. Sheen, “A Plea for Intolerance,” in Old Errors and New Labels (New York: The Century Company, 1931).
². Second Vatican Council, Dignitatis Humanae, Declaration on Religious Freedom, December 7, 1965, nos. 1–3.
³. John Paul II, “Religious Freedom: Condition for Peace,” Message for the Twenty-first World Day of Peace, December 8, 1987, no. 1.
⁴. Second Vatican Council, Gravissimum Educationis, Declaration on Christian Education, October 28, 1965, no. 8.
⁵. Congregation for Catholic Education, The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium, December 28, 1997, nos. 11–14, 18–19.
⁶. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), nos. 2221–2229, especially no. 2221.
⁷. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, Encyclical Letter on the Relationship between Faith and Reason, September 14, 1998, introduction.
⁸. Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, Encyclical Letter on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth, June 29, 2009, nos. 2–4.
Bibliography
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