Correction Without Condemnation

What St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Ambrose Teach Us About Criticizing the Powerful

Taking the Schism Out of Criticism

In the Letter to the Galatians, St. Paul recounts that he “opposed [St. Peter] to his face, because he stood condemned.” (Galatians 2:11ff). The theological issue was clear: St. Peter was wrong to require converted Gentiles to follow the Jewish law. St. Paul was right. St. Peter was wrong. Yet the dispute did not rupture communion. It was resolved within it.

This classical category of fraternal correction is largely forgotten. Strong opinions about authority abound, but without a shared framework for what legitimate criticism looks like. This episode presupposes a shared grammar of correction that is largely absent today.

Aquinas on Fraternal Correction

In the Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 33, St. Thomas Aquinas asks about the nature of fraternal correction. The first, and most important, reality about fraternal correction is that it is a “spiritual almsdeed… an act of charity.” (ST II-II, q.33, a.1, sc.) Therefore, correction is not a judgment; it is the fruit of a desire to remedy the sinner himself. In this way, it is to wish the good of the other. As an act of charity, St. Thomas Aquinas, following St. Augustine, treats correction as a precept: “You become worse than the sinner if you fail to correct him.” (Augustine, De Verb. Dom. xvi, 4; ST II-II, q.33, a.2, sc.) However, if someone is correcting another in order to satisfy themselves, this is not charitable and therefore is not fraternal correction.

St. Thomas distinguishes between correction rooted in charity, which belongs to all, and correction rooted in authority, which belongs to those charged with the common good and may include punishment (ST II-II, q.33, a.3, corp.). Even so, those in authority remain subject to correction when they err.

The subordinate has no competency to administer a correction or punishment to those in authority, but he is duty bound, out of respect and charity, to correct the person in error, ordinarily through private admonition before any public rebuke (see ST II-II, q.33, a.7). People have a right to a good reputation.

Fraternal correction does not imply that the critic thinks himself better than the one being corrected. Due respect must always be given to the office of those in authority, even as the one with authority is being corrected of their error or disorder.

St. Ambrose and Emperor Theodosius

This same grammar can be seen with particular clarity in the encounter between St. Ambrose of Milan and the Emperor Theodosius I after the massacre at Thessalonica in 390. In response to a riot in which a Roman official was killed, Theodosius ordered a brutal reprisal that led to the death of thousands of civilians. St. Ambrose, though a subject of the emperor, did not respond with public agitation, but with a direct and pastoral correction ordered to the good of the sinner. He wrote to Theodosius, naming the act for what it was, and refused him admission to the Eucharist until he had repented. This was not an act of defiance but of charity: St. Ambrose neither denied the emperor’s authority nor usurped it, but exercised his own office for the sake of the emperor’s salvation. Theodosius, for his part, did not treat the correction as a rupture, but submitted to public penance and was reconciled. Here, correction does not produce schism but communion, precisely because it is governed by truth, charity, and a shared recognition of the moral order to which both superior and subordinate are accountable.

What This Rules Out

There are two main obstacles to applying fraternal correction appropriately: the uncritical loyalist and the uncharitable critic.

The uncritical loyalist conflates the person with the office. To criticize the evil or erroneous act of a person in power, in this distortion, is to attack the authority itself. By definition, this would make fraternal correction impossible.

The uncharitable critic conflates correction with condemnation. Without the end of the sinner’s amendment, and without deference to the office, then criticism becomes a weapon rather than a remedy.

Fraternal correction in the classical sense is a discipline, not an instinct. True correction requires the courage to speak and the charity to speak well.