If you attend the SSPX, or have ever conversed with someone who has, you may have heard, or said, something, “I’m not SSPX, but I sympathize with them.” Or, “I have a lot of sympathy for Catholics in the SSPX.”
Now, without coming off as cantankerous or unnecessarily flippant — not that I have ever done that! — I would like to say: Respectfully, no sympathy is needed.
When someone dies, like a colleague’s parent, you head down to the grocery store and peruse the greeting card section. Naturally, for such an occasion, you look in the sympathy card section to find the requisite card.
“I am so sorry for your loss,” it might read, and you give this card to someone to show your sympathy with their plight.
Sympathy is defined as: the feeling of sincere concern, pity, or sorrow for someone else’s misfortune. In addition, the word can be used to show a general agreement with someone’s opinion or actions, although usually it is used in this context to suggest there is not full agreement.
I understand that the term is most often used in the context of the second meaning, but it still annoys me.
Here’s why.
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