Like many of you, my thoughts about the adulterous couple caught red-handed (and red-faced) at the Coldplay concert have bounced around like a ping-pong ball in the last few days.
When I first heard of the incident, I was visiting family out of town. I only saw a headline with two still shots of the couple—one an instant before and one an instant after their exposure. From happiness to horror in a split second.
My initial reaction was to gasp at the magnitude of the revelation and anticipate the brutal aftermath for this couple. My next thought was to be glad that, in justice, the cheaters got caught. I was also relieved that their consciences still functioned enough to allow them to feel shame. It was a hopeful sign that they tried, immediately and instinctively, to hide their sin. The sadness and irony, of course, is that they were not previously ashamed enough to hide it, as they brought it openly to a large, public concert with people and cameras everywhere.
When I was at the airport and on the plane ride home, I had downtime to scroll. The story was everywhere, from national and international news outlets to each corner of every social media platform. The whole world learned who this unfortunate man and woman were, where they worked, and details of their respective families. As any decent human being would (and amplified by my years of anti-divorce work and supporting abandoned spouses and the children of divorce), I felt sick for the spouses and, most acutely, for the children. The children are always the innocent victims of these moral crimes, and they are always the ones sacrificed for the desires and lust and sins of the so-called adults.
By the time I arrived home, I saw that this thing was getting even bigger. Black-humored memes were being created, each outdoing the last. Even Major League Baseball teams were parodying the infamous event on their own jumbotron kiss-cams, using their mascots, all to the roar of the crowds. It was clear that these two would never, ever live this down. Their anonymity gone forever, they will now be a permanent meme in the culture, a part of folklore, and (please, God) a cautionary tale.
When we speak of how “life can change in an instant,” we are often referring to a tragic accident that cannot be foreseen. In this case, there was no accident; rather, it was something deliberate and chosen. The spotlight exposure was the “instant” that changed life for them, and yet nothing in the couple’s moral landscape had actually changed from a minute before the exposure to a minute after. Had they not been exposed, they would have gone on as before. Adultery that is quiet and enjoyed is just as evil and offensive to God as adultery uncovered, maybe more so.
My thoughts continued to ping-pong around, and I became concerned about what the public humiliation and ridicule would do to the cheaters’ respective spouses (though the public rallied to their sides). And yet, because we live in such a twisted and sinful generation that mocks and degrades marriage in so many ways, I had to acknowledge with discomfort that there were previous divorces in the mix (including a current spouse married to someone previously married).
There was no way to know for sure whether the current civil spouses were their true spouses in valid marriages or if the spouses themselves were part of more sins against marriage and family. We long ago decided as a society that changing spouses at will is perfectly acceptable. But just because the culture, or Protestantism, or “progressive Catholicism” doesn’t consider serial divorce and remarriage adultery anymore, the Lord Jesus certainly still does.
Back to the ping-pong…. As my heart broke for the cheater’s obviously blindsided wife, it turns out that her own Facebook page, now deleted, publicly and dutifully had displayed a “Happy Pride!” post on June 1, complete with multiple rows of different artsy rainbow- and pastel-colored hearts (representing everything from sodomy to bisexuality to transgenderism). The label on this colorful display was “love is love”—the irony of which should not be lost on any of us here, for what her husband did with his mistress was simply an extension of the “love is love” sexual philosophy, distorting “love” to mean “whatever feels good sexually.”
After that jumble of sympathy and disturbance, my thoughts progressed to a more concrete gratitude that the cheaters got caught. What a severe mercy! If they choose wisely, as many saints have done before them, and if they avoid a false victimhood by loudly blaming others (Coldplay, media, the public) they could retreat from the public eye forever, in silence and humble repentance, and live a life of reparation.
Most adulterers don’t have such a spectacular exposure of their sin to the world, so God is lavishing His love and mercy on these two by showing them so clearly the effects of their sin. What a beautiful opportunity to change everything and turn to God, which in return could bless the whole world! This is the starkest invitation to die to self, in humiliation, and become great saints.
Of course, I ping-ponged to the worry that the worldwide and (let’s face it) never-ending replay of their public sin and humiliation would be too much for them to bear—and that none of us should be speaking of it at all for the sake of their privacy. But St. Thomas Aquinas says this about public sin:
I answer that, With regard to the public denunciation of sins it is necessary to make a distinction: because sins may be either public or secret. In the case of public sins, a remedy is required not only for the sinner, that he may become better, but also for others, who know of his sin, lest they be scandalized. Wherefore such like sins should be denounced in public, according to the saying of the Apostle (1 Tim. 5:20): “Them that sin reprove before all, that the rest also may have fear,” which is to be understood as referring to public sins, as Augustine states (De Verb. Dom. xvi, 7). (Summa Theologiae II-II, 33, 7)
We are so worried about being “nice” that we forget what the saints have said about such things—that public reproof is medicine for sinful souls and a true spiritual and practical help for those who may be scandalized. Taboos and stigmas exist in the Christian tradition for a very good reason, and they are not only compatible with love and mercy but they are themselves acts of love and mercy.
Finally, today my ping-ponging thoughts were thoroughly and powerfully grounded. I was catching up on the meditations I had missed in my Magnificat when I read this description of the Final Judgment, written by St. Bonaventure. The entry was dated July 15, the day before the Coldplay couple had their (earthly) public judgment:
“Remembering the Day of Judgment”
At the time of the judgment to come, when God is to weigh the secrets of hearts, fire will precede the arrival of the Judge; angels will be sent with trumpets to gather the elect from the four winds of heaven; all those who lie in their tombs will rise through the power of God’s command, and will stand before his judgment seat. Then the things hidden in darkness will be brought to light, and the counsels of hearts will be made manifest, and the scrolls of men’s consciences will be unrolled, and that scroll itself will be opened which is called the Book of Life. Thus, together and in a single flash, all the secrets of all men will be revealed to all with such clear certainty that, before the evidence of Truth testifying in the Person of Christ and corroborated by the testimony of every separate conscience, not a single path will be left open for denial or defense, for excuse or evasion, but every man will then receive according to his deeds…
And so my reactions, thoughts, and emotions came down to this: whatever happens to the couple from now on, the justice and mercy afforded them in their moment (or lifetime) of exposure is similar to—and yet nothing approaching—the mercy and justice we will all face, together, at the General Judgment at the end of time, when every one of our sins will be exposed, with perfect clarity, to all others. Praise God that the couple’s chance to repent while still on earth came as spectacularly as it did.
Thank you, that is wonderful commentary. Yes, a severe mercy, I pray they benefit from it.