Catholic Herald

Open a newspaper on any given morning and expect to see a headline chronicling the sexual misdeeds of celebrities and non-celebrities alike. It seems that Americans, at least as portrayed by the media, are as concerned as ever that are their fellow citizens are behaving themselves sexually.

While most sexual taboos have been freed from the supposed bondage of moral conservatives, certain sexual no-no’s are still seen as reprehensible, and perhaps more now than ever.

For instance, John Edwards has to answer to the fact that he fathered a child in an affair. Tiger Woods faces relentless scrutiny for his infidelity to his wife. Even the media’s unremitting coverage of the priest scandal speaks to this issue.  But the line is very often a thin one.

Case in point: there were media figures who suggested that if Tiger really wanted to live his promiscuous lifestyle, why did he bother getting married in the first place?

The assumption being that while it’s reprehensible to cheat on your wife, it’s A-OK to move from sexual partner to sexual partner, as long as you don’t pretend to be committed to any of them.

An anonymous NBA player, guest writing for ESPN The Magazine, estimated that 60 percent of married NBA players cheat on their wives. His solution to this problem, of course, is not for the players to man-up and be faithful, but for them to remain as boys and put off commitment.

“No one criticizes [baseball star Derek Jeter’s] lifestyle because he doesn’t have a wife at home wondering what he’s up to, the anonymous NBA player said.

“He’s just a young, rich pro who enjoys being the king of New York.”

Count me as one who will criticize. Something is wrong when we devote round-the-clock media coverage to one man’s mistakes (Woods), while hundreds of other athletes’ similar behavior is excused simply because they’ve decided to delay growing up?

I could lament with many others about the poor examples professional athletes set. But I’m not.

Those of us who love watching pro sports are usually not as quick to criticize an athlete when he screws up, if only because it doesn’t really surprise us all that much.

Perhaps begging the question: Why do athletes screw up so much?  They have learned discipline necessary to ascend to the top of their sports. How are so many of them seemingly unable to carry that over into the rest of their lives?
Do they not care about the “rest of their lives?” Or is it possible the very thing that makes a man great in his sport is exactly what can make him a rotten human being?

Take Michael Jordan for instance.  Jordan’s athletic accomplishments are well-chronicled, and he will likely go down in history as the greatest basketball player of all time. Those who knew him personally credited his success to an unbelievable competitiveness, a certain “I-will-not-be-denied” attitude coupled with a talent that meant he could do anything he wanted on the court at any time.

Translate that mentality off the court and see a less than admirable personal life. Someone who is accustomed to doing whatever he pleases will likely do whatever he wants. In the head of an ultra-confident athlete, there is no room for humility, which is often necessary for making positive human relationships.
That didn’t stop Jordan from trying to show the world that he had “settled down.” After marrying in 1989, he began an affair merely three months in.  Did he tire that quickly of of his new wife?

Probably not. Jordan’s mistress alleged that the marriage was merely a “business agreement” intended to portray him as a family man, making a more marketable celebrity.

Did Woods make a mistake by getting married?  Would he have been better off following Jeter’s lead and delaying marriage until he was truly “ready” to settle down?  It depends.

If he wanted to avoid one of the greatest scandals in the history of pro sports, then the answer could very well be a yes.

If he wanted to actually become a better human being? The answer is most undoubtedly no.

I will not deny that promiscuity is absolutely worse when in a marriage relationship. But I will also make the claim that unmarried promiscuity is still a grave evil that ought not be totally separated from marital infidelity on a scale of good to bad, as it is in secular society today.

Thus, when Tiger Woods was busted for his cheating ways, I’m sure there was a moment he resented his decision to marry. On the other hand, it might be suggested that without his wife, he’d have nobody to tell him what he was doing was wrong.

Derek Jeter doesn’t have to deal with the constraints of a marriage, but he also may never learn that a wife can provide more self-improvement training than any of his coaches ever could.

I once contributed to a column, “Writer’s Block”, which is like if Toyota named re-named their gas pedals “crash pedals;” catchy, but bad for marketing.

Anyone who has experienced writer’s block first-hand knows it’s no laughing matter. Which is why whenever a writer stumbles across a no-brainer story, he is always plenty eager to oblige.

This is how I felt when I heard about Grant Desme and his decision to quit pro baseball to pursue the priesthood. Perhaps you saw one of the witty headlines: “Call-up of a different kind,” “A’s lose prospect to higher league,” or, my personal favorite, “He’d rather play for the Padres.”

Fact is, stuff like this doesn’t happen every day. Which is why it was so enjoyable to read the reactions from the media outlets in America, who ranged from being amused to impressed to annoyed.

It did seem from first glance that most writers, like myself, were all too happy to have such an easy story to tell, and played the reporting high on charm. Many even spoke of Desme as if to say, “if only there were more like him out there.”

Rob Neyer of Espn.com, on the other hand, saw it a little differently. Even comparing a guy quitting baseball to enter seminary to, at worst, a guy who has multiple personality disorders, and, at best, “a kid who’s got more problems than we can afford to solve.”

To be fair to Neyer, he seemed to be merely trying to see Desme’s decision from the standpoint of the Oakland Athletics, who certainly must have been “hurting a little” when they learned one of their top-10 prospects was retiring when his stock had never been higher. Desme, after all, had just been named most valuable player of the Arizona Fall League, which draws the hottest minor league players in the land.

Allow me to see this whole thing from a different perspective: the Lord’s. Here is a man who is taking very seriously the words, “Sell all you have … then come, follow me.” What is Oakland’s loss is surely God’s gain, and I’ll argue, everyone’s gain, including the good baseball people in the Bay Area.

For what truly is more inspiring than to see a young man give up the game he loves, fame and fortune, and not to mention a wife, children and any personal possessions to serve God and his people?

And perhaps why it was so shocking for A’s general manager Billy Beane is that a young man was becoming a priest even though he could be doing something else! Something else that would seem to them to be a much better choice.

I get the feeling from run-of-the-mill Catholics, and non-Catholics alike, that many think the type of men who become priests are they type that don’t seem to have anything else going for them. Especially Catholic high school students; ask them if they’d thought about being a priest and many say, “why would I ever want to do that?”

In their minds, men who become priests are the ones who couldn’t find a date for senior prom, who couldn’t hack it in a “normal” career, and perhaps worse, are weirdly fascinated with church stuff to the point they probably played priest at home while the other kids were burning ants with a magnifying glass.

Is it possible that someone would give up professional baseball to be a celibate Catholic priest at a time when those three words are disregarded as irrelevant when they aren’t the butt of a joke? Grant Desme is living proof, and I for one hope that his story does not become merely fodder for “news of the weird.”

And here’s why: if he can give up professional baseball to follow a call to the priesthood, then the high schoolers no longer have an excuse. Maybe, just maybe, if he can do it, then maybe it isn’t so far-fetched of an idea. Maybe it will make the priesthood more of a possibility (or less of an impossibility) in somebody else’s life.

So, instead of saying, “if only there were more out there like him,” I hope there are more out there like him. Because let’s be honest, there are plenty of baseball players to go around, even though the A’s could probably use a few more.

Tiger Woods and Adrian Peterson, usually in the news for their athletic greatness, are now in the news for their personal shortcomings.  But should they be?  Sports fans everywhere are shocked and appalled by their star athletes’ off-field behavior.  But should they be?

Professional athletes do stupid things every day.  Should we be surprised?  Should we lose hope in coming generations by reading headlines filled with sports celebrity gossip?  Should we stop watching sports lest we corrupt ourselves or our children?

Nay, I say.

But shouldn’t we hold them to a higher standard?  They are role models!  They’re being paid millions of dollars to play a game!  They’re constantly under a microscope!  The least they can do is behave!  Right?

Certainly.

So should we excuse their behavior?  Are we to allow our pro golfers to engage in multiple affairs while parading around as happily married?  Should we give our footballers a pat on the back as we hand them 109 mph speeding tickets?

Nope.

But how do we react, then?  Should we drag them through the mud every time they make a mistake?  Should we litter their inboxes with shame-on-you’s and trash their name all over the headlines?

I’m not so sure.

But before we answer that question, let’s take some advice from somebody who knows: Let the sinless one cast the first stone.

I’m not a pro athlete.  But I am a human being.  And I do stupid things sometimes.  And if I was looking for a magical elixir that would cure me of my tendency to do stupid things, I’m not sure fame and fortune would be the potion.  In fact, I have an inkling that money and celebrity might make the human disease worse.

Am I striking a chord here?  Has anybody thought what it might be like to be a pro athlete?  Let’s try an experiment.  Think of something really stupid you’ve done in your lifetime (this shouldn’t be too difficult), and think of how you felt that moment when it really sunk in.  Check all that apply:

* You felt really rotten.
* You regretted it, wished it hadn’t happened.
* You really hoped that it wouldn’t ruin anything good that you had going.
* You probably wanted to make amends.
* Everybody in the world found out about it and rubbed your face in it.

Probably not the last one.  But that’s what pro athletes have to deal with.  Now, I’m not saying feel sorry for them; they reap plenty of benefits as compensation.  But what I am saying is that sometimes we forget to hold ourselves to the same standards we hold our professional athletes.

On the flip side, there is something to say about the fans providing a conscience where the players may lack.  That is to say that the people, through the media, have a certain responsibility to cry foul when a public figure is acting out of line.

When the media is doing its job, it’s not exploiting celebrities and their imperfections to make a buck, but rather doing the people a service by holding its citizens accountable to their actions, no matter the profile of the individual.

For example, it should bother us when we hear that Adrian Peterson and Bernard Berrian of the Minnesota Vikings get cited for speeding in excess of 100 mph in the same weekend.  And the players should hear what we think about it, though not merely to sell newspapers.

Pro athletes tend to have an air of invincibility, specifically because they have so many people telling them how great they are and they get VIP treatment wherever they go.  One speeding ticket, then, might not prick their conscience, especially if the fine wouldn’t approach even a thousandth of a biweekly paycheck.

However, if even a “routine” traffic stop (as the police called it) makes national news, an athlete might pause before pushing the accelerator to dangerous speeds the next time.

The issue gets a little more hazy when the media starts scrutinizing a public figure’s private life.  Woods was faced with such a situation when a public incident, namely his car crash outside his Orlando home, begged the question as to what has gone on behind closed doors, namely marital infidelity.

Yes, he’s the one who crashed his Cadillac into a city-owned fire hydrant while pulling out of his driveway, and that might call for an explanation.  But beyond a simple police investigation, requiring any more than that is bordering on intrusion.

In fact, Woods sounds like a prophet when discussing the topic: “No matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy.”

I think he has it right: we need to remember that pro athletes, although sometimes super-human on the playing field, are still human beings who sin.  Which is something we can all relate to.

Dante reserved the lowest rung of hell for those who betrayed their benefactors, describing Brutus and Judas as residing in the mouth of Satan himself.  Perhaps this is a consolation for Packer fans who lament their own Brett Favre’s joining the Minnesota Vikings as quarterback.
Truly, in the sports world, there could not be much of a more shocking jersey change than you-know-who donning Vikings purple after 16 seasons in Packers green.  Imagine if Larry Bird joined the Lakers or if Roger Clemens joined the Yankees.  Oh wait, that last one actually did happen.
Truth is, players change teams all the time, and sometimes they leave a team to join a hated rival.  Big deal, right?  But nobody is going to pretend that there’s anything normal about Number 4 wearing purple.
So what is it about this whole thing that makes every Packer fan’s blood boil?  And is it truly merited?
Brett Farve wanted to come back and play for the Packers, and they wanted to move on with Aaron Rogers.   So Brett Favre moved on.  If you want to blame Britt Favre for that, you have to blame him for loving to play the game of football and for having confidence in his own abilities even when others question him.  But those two things were heavily responsible for his success in Green Bay.
If you want to blame him for being indecisive, fine, but that doesn’t make him a bad guy, just bad at decision-making.
Does this mean we should all be happy about Rett Favre wearing purple?  Hell no.
And here’s why: anyone with a pulse, Packer fan or not, knows all about Bett Favre’s history in Green Bay.  Perhaps never in the history of modern sports has a town so identified with a player and vice versa.  Green Bay embraced Brett Farre as one of their own, and he returned the favor with a Super Bowl Championship and 16 years of memories.
The relationship between Green Bay, both the team and the town, and Brett Fvre became truly synonymous with loyalty.  Green Bay was his and he was theirs.  And then something went horribly wrong.
Perhaps because Brett Pavre was kept out of the Packers’ plans even though he wanted to return, he saw that as a breaking of the bond of loyalty.  Perhaps that was enough for him to decide to no longer honor his allegiance to Green Bay, and gave him enough reason to join the rival Vikings.
Perhaps he didn’t join the Vikings to “stick it” to the Packers, but decided it was the best fit for him, with their familiar offensive scheme, offensive coach Derrell Bevell being a great friend of his, and their talent level being championship-caliber.
Many will certainly argue that that’s a much too nice way of framing the situation.  But even given this rather neutral argument, I argue there is still plenty reason for Green Bay and all their fans to be plenty peeved.
And that’s because loyalty means something, and will always mean something, to anyone who truly cares about anything.   Disloyalty breaks a bond, and the stronger the bond, the more painful it is to break, regardless of the circumstance.
And that’s what bothers Packers fans the most.  As Jim Olski of the Green Bay Press Gazette said, “Favre always does what he wants. His only loyalty is to himself.”
Sports fans have become used to players leaving town for greener pastures, team management shipping a fan favorite out of town to save the owner’s money, lies, cheating, etc.  It’s a business, they say, and this should excuse their behavior.
But there are many still who do not see sports and their participants as being exempt to the laws God has written on the hearts of men.  They hold them to the same standards as anyone else, and perhaps even a higher standard, because they are so visible to the public, not to mention subsidized by the paying customers.
No, Brett Favve didn’t kill anybody like Judas or Brutus, but let’s be honest: joining the Vikings was an act of treachery.  Yes, gone are the days when most players spent their entire careers with one team.  Now, jerseys are as interchangeable as underwear.
But should we be happy about this?  No.  And if fans continue to be as loyal as they are, then players (and management) should be held to the same standard.
Thus, like it or not, Prett Favre’s departure from Green Bay broke the hearts of Packer fans everywhere, and because of the bond they shared, and his joining the Vikings poured salt into that wound.
Now, should we damn him to hell for his treachery?  Maybe not.  But perhaps a proper public penance would be to replace “Benedict Arnold” with “Brett Favre” as a name synonymous with a traitor.  Too harsh?  Maybe we’ll just call him “Brent” instead.

Anyone who grew up in the 1990s had a favorite Saturday morning cartoon. It was just a ritual. Long before you grew out of Saturday mornings and started sleeping in until noon, you would get up as early as possible so you could see as many cartoons as viable.

My favorite, of course, were the Marvel Comic cartoons. Not any of those wimpy “super” hero cartoons like “Captain Planet” or “Power Rangers.” No way, Jose. We’re talking Batman, Spiderman, and, my personal favorite, X-Men.

The Marvel Comics are set apart because of their characters. Attractive because of their gifts but understandable because of their flaws; it’s not uncommon that they display great character depth as they contemplate remarkable moral dilemmas.

The X-Men series in particular boasts of particularly intriguing drama as the main players wrestle with their mutations and struggle to make sense of their respective place in a world not always welcoming of minorities. After three blockbuster X-Men movies, this year brought a film devoted to one of the X-Men, Wolverine, in “X-Men Origins,” recently released on video.

Perhaps the most intriguing of the X-Men characters (and most certainly the coolest and baddest of them all), is Wolverine. Wolverine’s popularity on the screen and in the comics has everything to do with his hard-nosed, get-out-of-my-way, kill-first-and-ask-questions-later attitude.

In fact, for many, Wolverine serves as an icon of masculinity: strong, fierce, unbeatable, and with a swagger to boot. The violence he wields with his claws is only a natural progression of the reality that he can do whatever he wants without consequence, coupled with a burning rage and a smoldering vengeance.

The movie’s storyline details Wolverine’s history and how he came to be who he is “today,” tracing all the way back to a childhood that saw him kill his own father with his original retractable bone-claws.

His life is marked by constant violence, as his fearlessness and unique ability to heal instantaneously makes him the ideal war hero. His body doesn’t seem to age either and he is shown fighting in the Civil War as well as the major wars of the 20^th century.

He fights alongside Sabertooth, a similarly gifted mutant who is shown in the movie version to be Wolverine’s brother. Sabertooth is even more violent-natured than Wolverine to the point of excess, a constant strain on their relationship that eventually leads to Wolverine’s desertion both from his military service but also his relationship with his brother.

While he doesn’t seem to have any problem killing to defend himself, Wolverine seems to be bothered by unnecessary death. However, he is encouraged to suppress his conscience in this regard, both by Sabertooth but also their commander Colonel Stryker, who uses the mutants for his own evil designs.

Wolverine ends up settling down in the Canadian wilderness with a school teacher, Kayla, and seems to have moved on from his past. She constantly reminds him that he’s “not an animal,” and encourages him to be humane.

However, in an apparent reaction to the desertion, Sabertooth murders Kayla, and sends Wolverine into a fury of rage bent on killing Sabertooth. This leads him to volunteer for the experiment that gives him his virtually indestructible metal claws and skeleton, solely so he can carry out his vengeance on the killer.

While the part of the movie where Wolverine is working as a lumberjack by day and gentle boyfriend by night is not the most exciting, it is clear that he is happiest and most at peace. It is almost as if the audience exploits his violence at his expense, just as Col. Stryker does in the story. And thus Wolverine’s most admirable trait comes forth, that which loathes the idea of being owned by anyone or anything, even Stryker, even revenge.

It takes a strong man to wipe out everyone in his path, to hunt down his adversaries, and carry out his vengeance. But it takes an even stronger man to resist those urges for a greater good, even when he has all of the capability. Wolverine, after much bloodshed at his own hands/claws, learns this important lesson.

What is so intriguing about Wolverine’s character is not the fact that he is so very violent and in a strange mutant-sort-of-way, for the world has never lacked for quirky violent characters with in any genre. Nor does the real intrigue even come from the struggle in his heart between right and wrong, for even Power Rangers can have internal struggles.

No, what’s so fascinating about Wolverine is that he is both: an arrogant, hardened, brute of a man, albeit with charm, (who just so happens to have super strength, a skeleton of unbreakable metal, and retractable claws), combined with a conscience that knows right from wrong, who struggles with it from beginning to end, and strains on toward the good. If that’s not a hero, I don’t know what is.

Like many young boys who grew watching professional sports, I dreamed of being a professional athlete. It seemed like the ultimate profession: not only could I play a game all day, I could get paid for it, and paid a lot for that matter, and if that wasn’t enough, I would be a celebrity, and I would be famous, and women would be screaming for my attention, and I would be use my celebrity to help save the whales. My dream had it all: fun, fame, fortune, and females. What more could a guy possibly want?

Well, someone ought to tell Tim Tebow what being a celebrity athlete is really about. Apparently, he has made it to the top of the college football world without tapping into the bag of goodies that comes with sports superstardom.

Here he is, in his fourth year of playing quarterback for the Florida Gators, two National Championships and a Heisman Trophy later, and he doesn’t seem to get it. Does he not know he could be making millions in the NFL by now? In fact, he could have left the college ranks after his sophomore year and still would have gone down in history as one of the best college players of all time. Instead, he now is recovering from a concussion he sustained September 27 against the University of Kentucky.

Of course, everyone expects Tebow to bounce back from the injury with no ill effects because up until this point, anyone who has ever been impressed by his success has ceased to be surprised. Heck, even his birth was miraculous. According to his parents, “Timmy” should have died no less than four times before he was born because of a deadly illness his mother contracted on a missionary trip to the Philippines. Yes, his parents are missionaries. And yes, perhaps the greatest college quarterback ever is also a well-seasoned missionary himself, taking time every off-season to travel abroad to spread the Good News. And perform circumcisions. I’m not making this up.

Clearly, nothing holds Tim Tebow back. And yet, he has become an icon of restraint in the last year; beginning with his decision to return for his senior year of football, risking, or at least delaying, a pro career promising all of the spoils that every young boy dreams about at night. And yet perhaps his greatest feat of restraint is in a different arena: sex.

Back in July, as Tebow fielded questions at a preseason press conference, a reporter asked him if he, you know, was saving himself for marriage. His response was a lighthearted chuckle and a genuine smile, accompanied by nervous, yet slightly amused laughter from the other reporters in the room. The answer, of course, was “yes I am”, and the whole sports world stopped turning for a moment. Not necessarily because it was surprised, as the guy wrote “John 3:16” on his eye black during the national championship game in January. But the fact that the information was undeniably public now was enough to give pause to sports fans everywhere as they tried to make sense of such a thing.

Think about it: the guy is undeniably good looking, funny, charming, articulate, built like a horse, plays the hardest position in sports (better than maybe anyone ever at the college level) and is set to make millions the moment he takes his talent to the NFL. Not to mention, he is doing all of this at the University of Florida, which does not lack for eligible mega-babes, and he’s saving himself for marriage? It honestly is mind-blowing, most especially for a world that would be asking not one question, but two; Why? How?

The unbelievable nature of the story is only multiplied when you consider the modern culture in college football. It has become a relatively common occurrence for recruits who are visiting a campus to be treated to certain “local ladies” as a sort of foretaste of what life would be like as a member of the team. Sex is a foregone conclusion on college campuses today, especially for football players, who are the most eligible bachelors on campus, and many times are particularly sought out by groupies hoping to get close to a star. All too often, many times players are more than happy to oblige.

Not Timmy. He claims that football is fourth on his list, behind faith, family, and school, in that order (notice: premarital sex is not a priority). And when he says things like that, you almost expect him to say, “ha ha, just kidding,” not because he doesn’t sound sincere, but because he does. He doesn’t sound like a preacher, or an extremist, or even slightly annoyed when faced with cynicism.

In fact, he seems to relish the opportunity just to share his faith, “You know, there’s a lot of leaders out there. But, unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of good ones. So that’s always been my dream and my goal…to be someone that a parent can say, ‘Hey, this kid did it the right way.’ That’s always been my dream and my goal more so than winning a trophy or winning a championship.”

Sounds like he’s just living his dream.

An old, wily priest smoked like a chimney and didn’t hide it. One day, one of his parishioners walked straight up to him and said, “Father, you’re smoking!” His reply: “My sins are public, how about yours?”

Josh Hamilton, all-star outfielder for the Texas Rangers major league baseball club, was recently in the news for a relapse into drinking he suffered in January. The news came as a shock to anyone familiar with his story, which had proven to be one of the most inspiring in all of sports.

Hamilton has been in rehab eight times both for alcoholism as well as for a cocaine addiction that nearly ended his baseball career and threatened his life. He finally made it to the major leagues in 2007, then in 2008 was among the league leaders in home runs and RBI and was named an American League All-Star.

However, Hamilton’s highlight of 2008 was quite possibly at the Homerun Derby in New York, when he set a record at the Home Run derby by hitting 28 home runs in one round. It was there that his story of addiction and redemption reached a national audience and he declared himself a changed man, crediting his relationship with Jesus Christ as the reason for his turnaround. “I can’t believe what God has done in my life and how quickly He has done it,” he said then.

Then pictures surfaced in August on a Web site of him drinking and cavorting with women at a bar in January and it seemed as if another feel-good story from the world of sports had come to a disappointing end. It is as though sports fans have grown accustomed to falling in love with sports stars, only to hear of them using drugs, cheating on their wives or committing violent crimes.

Many baseball fans expressed outrage over Hamilton’s relapse. Perhaps some felt betrayed by one who claimed to have made such a dramatic change in his life, and perhaps others were scandalized that another could profess to be a born-again Christian on the one hand and on the other act in such a disreputable manner in public. And perhaps they would be right in feeling that way.

Admittedly, my own immediate reaction was similar. However, hearing Hamilton’s reaction to the pictures, has given me a different sense about the story: a sense of respect for Hamilton, specifically in his admission of wrongdoing and his transparency before his fans in the wake of the news.

Here are his own words from a news conference on Aug. 8, originally published by DallasNews.com.

“Obviously, I’m embarrassed about it, personally. For the Rangers, I’m embarrassed about it. For my wife, my kids. Obviously, it’s one of those things that reinforce that I can’t have alcohol … I hate this happened. But, it is what it is, you deal with it, and I realize that, obviously, I’m not perfect and that it’s an on-going struggle, battle, that is very real. A lot of people don’t understand how real it is. As soon as it happened, I called my support system, like the Rangers, MLB even, and told them what had happened. I was absolutely open and honest about it … It was a one-night thing. I called my support system and just told them what had happened and asked for forgiveness about it. The first thing I did, I asked the Lord for forgiveness about it,” he said.

Hamilton didn’t make excuses, didn’t downplay the seriousness of the situation, didn’t even seem annoyed by the attention. He owned up to his mistakes, and spoke like a man who has come to grips with his own limitations, without using them as a crutch.

He speaks as someone who understands the reality of original sin, the universal inclination to sin all men possess known as concupiscence, and he seems to clearly understand that Jesus Christ died to save him from his sins  — even if that means that he may not stop sinning until he stops breathing.

Hamilton is not a Catholic. However, he seems to understand an important nuance in Catholic moral thought, particularly having to do with sin and forgiveness. God calls us to turn from our sins. However, we still sin. And when we sin, we are to ask for forgiveness, and pledge to change our lives, even if we may know for certain we will sin again. And this does not mean that Hamilton is a hypocrite, or anyone else who has sinned again after asking forgiveness. It only means that they are human, and in need of a savior as much as everyone else.

Shortly after the news broke about the pictures, questions arose as to how they would affect his endorsement deals, many of which were agreed to because of Hamilton’s inspiring story. For example, he has appeared on billboards for “I Am Second,” an evangelical Christian organization. When asked if the company will continue to feature Hamilton, vice president Nathan Sheets said, “We’re not going to take him down … this isn’t about a bunch of perfect people.”

His point being, of course, that Hamilton ’s redemption story remains valid, even if it is still in the process.

If it’s true that “All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God”, as St. Paul says, then it would be good to take to heart, especially when we are tempted to ridicule others because their sins happen to be more public than our own.