TO BE OR NOT TO BE IS NOT THE QUESTION...TO APPEAR TO BE IS!

"It might be argued that Pell is somewhat unfortunate in finding himself in the role of poster boy for the Catholic Church's institutional response to child sexual abuse. Perhaps he's copping more than his fair personal share of rhetorical abuse. A major reason for this is that, in all his public responses to this crisis, he has never demonstrated anything even approaching empathy or remorse."

This passage appears to be very similar in tone to the opprobation heaped onto the head of the Queen when she 'appeared' less than disturbed by the death of Diana in 1997.

"The Queen was criticised for two things. One was taking the boys [Princes William and Harry] to church [on the day the Princess died]. But they wanted to go to church. If you are a Christian and your mother has been killed, it is a comfort going to church.
"The other thing was that people expected the Queen to abandon her two grandsons – whose mother had just been killed – and go to London to mourn with people who had never even met the Princess. "If you stand back and think about it, it is an extraordinarily selfish attitude. Queen Elizabeth was hugely upset by the criticism of her daughter because she has always admired her so much. It was such a cruel criticism and it was unfair."

The truth is that our Western culture now believes that it is more important to appear to be virtuous rather than feeling the need to actually be virtuous.

It is emotionalism that wins the day and any perceived lack thereof is hunted down and destroyed in the name of tolerance and fairness. Some have termed it the Oprahfication of culture; obviously because of the extreme public emotionalism of the Oprah show, others, longer ago called it the Vannatization of culture after the game show hostess Vanna White whose sole claim to fame was the result of a fake, vacuous display of false emotions.

Either way our culture has lost authenticity. We are more concerned with the outward expressions of piety rather than deeply held ones. As a society who has accelerated from what was once a drift into what has now become a stampede away from the Judeo-Christian foundation of our culture, we are all in danger of becoming like the Pharisees depicted in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 23 vs 27/28:

27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.

28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.