Moral Certitude Vs. Moral authority

Pope Francis washing feet

          Today I was speaking to my friend about the new pope Francis, and it brought back to me an observation that I have been thinking about writing on for a while. That is the difference between having moral certitude and having moral authority.  Moral certitude is something that the Catholic Church has enjoyed since like Jesus promised in Matt 18: "the gates of hell will never prevail against the Church". This means that on matters of morality, the Holy Spirit does not let the Church err on its teachings.  This is comforting given the infiltrations of moral relativism that have taken modern society by the storm.  Now when it comes to moral authority, I think the church today have lost its appeal or authority when it comes to morality given the scandals that it has endured from its own. The scandal from some priests, that of politicians who don't honor God's word in their governing or even our individual personal scandal that we cause when we don't live according to the Gospel as Christians have cost us the moral authority that we should have so as to leaven the bread of society.
   If we look at the life of Jesus, we see a great combination of both moral certitude and moral authority.  Jesus taught the truth from a position of authority because his entire life was a model of truth. Now I know that we might argue it was because he was God; and its true, but down throughout Christian history, we see that the people who have won people's hearts to the truth lived holy lives that demanded being heard.  Even in recent times, someone like Mother Theresa of Culcutta although backed by moral certitude of the Church's teaching had great moral authority since she lived the gospel in an authentic manner.  An atheist who had studied the scriptures for 20 yrs and interacted with many Christians had remained unconvinced about Christianity, but spending a few hours even minutes with Mother Theresa led to his conversion.  When he was asked how comes, he said that through out that time of his study, he didn't think Christianity was anything more than a noble ideal, but spending time with Mother Theresa, he saw those teachings portrayed in a manner that he couldn't argue with.  The life of charity that Mother Theresa lived demanded that she be heard when she spoke about truth since her life gave testimony to her words.  This is what moral authority looks like. The same can be said of others like Blessed Pope John Paul II and many others.
    Now going back to Pope Francis, I think he has introduced a new vision for the Church that will however slow start to give it back moral authority.  By inviting people to care for each other and creation, urging us to care especially for the poor and weak of our society and to live an authentic Christian life will help us to start shining in a manner that is undeniable about the Gospel we preach.  If we preach the truth and yet ourselves do not live it, we come out only as using it as a sword of judgment instead of the saving grace that is in Christ Jesus. Jesus said that we shall "be known by our love" and that is the invitation that our new pope is calling us to.  G.K. Chesterton once when asked if there was any argument against Christianity said that "the only argument against Christianity he could find was Christians." Meaning that the Christian message was without blemish but the people delude it by their bad example.  If we practice charity liberally, our message on morality becomes relevant, and we can win the hearts of people towards truth.  Finally we can weave the moral certitude that the Holy Spirit promises with a moral authority that demands following, and take Our Lord from the Cross that we have once again nailed him with our sins.  May God see us into this new phase of history where evil is rampant and relativism on the rise, but also where grace abides all the more. 
Lord Jesus, may your love penetrate the darkness of our hearts and bring us to the light.