We remember that, on that eventful first Good Friday, Pilate and Herod were made friends. Pilate stands for the man whose motto is to get on in the world at all costs, to be suave and diplomatic in playing his cards, so as to secure the advancement of his plans. He will easily enough compromise his conscience, either refusing to give ear at all to its protests or else telling himself that if he is to be a good businessman he cannot afford to allow his neighbor to outstep him. After all, if he did not accept this deal, which is crooked or at any rate a little questionable, somebody else would leap at it. So why not he?
There was an old Jesuit novicemaster who used to tell his novices he wanted them, as Jesuits, to be men of character. And by men of character, he would go on to explain, he meant men who had a principle from which they would never deviate. It was: "What's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong, and that's all there is about it!" If a certain course of action is right, your man of character is following that course; if his conscience as a Catholic dictates that course, "that is all there is about it." Say what you like to him, point out that plenty of others act differently from him, insist that he is going to lose a big deal you are wasting words. He is a man of character and he will do what is right, cost what it may.
And "what's wrong is wrong." Yes, of course, but then we are living in the twentieth century and one must "get on." Certainly we must, but not by means that are contrary to conscience and God's law. You may count the man of character out; whoever else accepts the compromise, it will not be him. He is the "iustum et tenacem propositi virum" the man who has his principle and will refuse to bend wherever that principle is at stake.
Pilate never heard that principle, or if he did he failed lamentably to live by it. The result is that he ends by being morally forced to condemn an innocent man, to do an act against which his soul revolts. But he has reached this pass by a series of compromises one after another they have landed him finally in this position where it is morally impossible for him to obey his conscience.
Are there many Pilates today? Is there something, much perhaps, of the Pilate in me? And is worldly advancement, a career, a good position with security, allowed to drown the voice of my conscience? Many men stand firmly by their principles as Catholics while dealing with those who have little or no conscience, while competing with those who are not bothered by the Seventh Commandment.
Jesus, make me one of these. Teach me to abhor and shun all doubledealing, all compromise where principle is concerned. At the close of each day let me bring my conscience to You to be thoroughly examined by Your allseeing eye; let me make sure of the divine approval as day follows day and night succeeds night, till my latest day and latest night before I stand to render an account of my entire stewardship.