Tolerance Is The Opposite Of Charity & Courage

A curtsy low to the ground to Prof. K. for this speech from Chaput the Great on the limits of tolerance. He starts with a list of 20th c. Christian martyrs and heroes, and shows why anyone serious in the pursuit of truth can't promise to confine his beliefs to his drawing room. A creed transforms your action or it isn't genuine.

The mentality of suspicion toward religion is becoming its own form of intolerance. I have seen a kind of secular intolerance develop in our own country over the past two decades. The modern secular view of the world assumes that religion is superstitious and false; that it creates division and conflict; and that real freedom can only be ensured by keeping God out of the public square.
But if we remove God from public discourse, we also remove the only authority higher than political authority, and the only authority that guarantees the sanctity of the individual. If the twentieth century taught us anything, it’s that modern states tend to eat their own people, and the only thing stopping this is a resistance based in the human spirit but anchored in a higher authority—which almost always means religious witness.

He addresses "spirituality" v. "religion," and answers Christopher Hitchens' complaint about folks who invoke religion for evil ends --of course people of different faiths competing for the same souls have to find a way to love and respect one another. But:

I think the word tolerance itself is a kind of problem. Tolerance comes from the Latin words tolerare, which means to bear or sustain, and tollere, which means to lift up. It implies bearing other people and their beliefs the way we bear a burden or a really nasty migraine headache. It’s a negative. And it’s not a Christian virtue.
As Catholics we have a duty to treat all people, regardless of their beliefs, with justice, charity, mercy, prudence, patience, and understanding. We’re not asked to “tolerate” them but to love them, which is a much more demanding task. Obviously, tolerance is an important democratic working principle. Most of the time, it’s a good and vital thing. But tolerating lies about the nature of the human person is a sin. Tolerating grave evil in a society is an equally grave evil. And using “tolerance” as an excuse for not living and witnessing Jesus Christ in our private lives and in our public actions is not an act of civility. It’s a form of cowardice.

There's a lot more I'd love to quote, but will have to rely on you to RTWT.