Anger

+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
19 Oct 2008

Many years ago I came to know an old bishop well.  Although weak and sick he never complained nor spoke ill of others.  I felt able to remark to him that he was very self-controlled.

"That might be so", he replied, "But it was the result of a long struggle after a big fright".  When young, he told me, he had a fierce temper.  In a fight with his brother he knocked him unconscious by hitting him on the head with a brick.  For a while he thought he had killed him.  Eighty years afterwards that old man well remembered his lesson.

Anger is on everyone’s list of deadly sins, because it is like a door which opens onto many vices.

A runaway emotion which is easy to turn on and hard to turn off, anger “blinds the eye of the mind”, throws reason aside.  Anger can be like madness, demonic in its destruction and self destruction.

Even children are instantly frightened of a truly angry person, an ugly sight, a contorted face red or deathly pale, eyes burning or bulging, sometimes accompanied by streams of abuse.

Anger is dangerous even when it does not result in physical violence.  Sarcasm, quarrels and criticism can be deeply wounding, while in cultures which take God seriously ferocious curses are hurled on opponents.  Not many Australians are serious cursers, although sacred names are invoked with monotonous vulgarity.

When we are frightened or annoyed the adrenalin starts to run urging us to fight or to flee.  Practice makes perfect and both individuals and communities are called to persevere.  Instincts can be tamed and muted through small acts of self-control, or they can grow from bad to worse if left unchecked.

We see some children who are hot tempered, quick to flare up, but quick to calm down too as the storm passes.  Such people are often generous, well aware of their weakness and nearly all battle successfully to become peaceful and contributing adults, but capable of using their fire and energy for good causes.

I remember a senior school teacher explaining to a teenager who had lost his temper and quickly recovered.  She acknowledged that he was over his lapse but, she explained, bad temper is like hammering a nail in to a piece of wood.  You can quickly pull out the nail, but the hole in the wood remains.

Vandalism, an unfocused anger on society, is particularly poisonous. I remember working in a hot dry country town, where care and perseverance were needed to grow trees.  Some vandal took the tops off a series of two metre high young trees in a median strip.

His actions warranted a righteous anger, controlled by reason, proportionate and focused.  We should not allow fear or cowardice to foster cynicism or moral indifference, which encourages anti-social behaviour.

Sometimes we have a duty to be angry.