Who am I to judge another person?

Pope Francis in July talking to journalists on his return
from Brazil: "If a person is gay and seeks God and has
good will, who am I to judge?"

Must we tolerate everything another person throws at us? Matthew 7:1-6 is a good place to go for an answer. There we can see from the examples Jesus offers that, first, "Do not judge" means "Do not condemn", in other words, don't be self-righteous or hypocritical, reacting to others as if we ourselves never do anything wrong. "First remove the plank from your own eye and then the speck in the other person's eye."

The second feature of Jesus' teaching is that judging, in its improper form, is a failure to be encouraging. "It does not look for or appreciate the good that a person may do. When we judge [improperly] we refuse to understand the difficulties of a situation or the struggles a person may face", as one biblical commentator put it. Often we notice a different attitude if the wrong-doer is someone we love; we are more sympathetic.

"When we have a judging spirit, we are powerless to see others change. We cannot even accurately see the problem. Criticism and self-righteousness always cloud spiritual vision. When you notice another's sin, is your goal to restore or to condemn?" 

Therefore, withholding judgement does not mean agreeing with everyone and about everything people do, but it means responding to people and actions after striving to gain the necessary insight, and in the spirit of a God who is merciful and forgiving - all the while knowing the way we judge is the way God will judge us.