While I’m not a Catholic, I choose to attend Mass each week and marvel that I never fail to hear something in one of the readings, the Gospel, or the homily that strikes me as a personal message regarding the past week’s events.

The news cycle has given us two stories to think about in relation to ourselves and the message from the second reading (Hebrews 9:11- 15). Several sources instructed us at length about Bruce Jenner’s “courage” and we all learned more than we had any interest in knowing about the Duggar family. The real stories, in my estimation, are not these but the very personal lessons we choose to take from them.

Consider the attention devoted to Bruce Jenner. It’s tempting to say the media’s obsession with packing depravity up America’s nose and diverting attention from “bad news” explains the ink and bits devoted to his story, but for the moment we remain a capitalist economy and stories that don’t sell don’t get repeated. Applying the term “courage” to Jenner may meet the dictionary definition, but it unconscionably cheapens the real meaning of the concept. Courage to me is choosing to do the right or moral thing despite the fear we feel or the danger we face. It is not indulging a narcissistic fantasy and engaging in self-mutilation while seeking to revive celebrity after three decades of obscurity. I would hope Mr. Jenner and his admirers have a very different judgment of his behavior and are, a decade from now, comfortable with their motives and values.

The seemingly continuous reporting (and consumption) of the Josh Duggar story is even more cause for introspection. Let nobody think Josh’s behavior is being minimized. What Josh did was a sin; he did something he wanted to do and he did it despite knowing it was wrong. Many were vehement in condemning both Josh and his family. Many used the term hypocrisy but none cited a specific act or utterance. Few, in fact none that I saw, focused on what should be taken from this sad story.

I deliberately avoided Megyn Kelly’s salacious interviews and don’t know whether there are allegations of other victims than his sisters and the baby sitter. Those three instances are admitted and presumably correspond to the three instances of Josh confessing to his parents. I’ve seen no dispute that his sisters didn’t know what Josh had done until they were told. The legal system has finished its work regarding Josh. The entertainment industry has yet to apply its retribution to his family, but despite the popularity of their reality show, relatively few will notice if it is discontinued. If either Josh or his family have failed to do the right and Christian things in the aftermath of his transgressions that case has not been made anywhere yet. The sheriff and the news media behaved irresponsibly and disgracefully; that will be their burden forever. Despite being very plainly told that we are unfit to judge either other people or their sins, we all do think of some sins and some people as “worse” than others and our legal system exists to assign those judgments. But what others think, what others do, and what secular judgments are made, we are the custodians of our own souls. Every one of us has an opportunity to consider this week’s reading, examine our own sins, and consider what Christians are called to do: … purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Neither we nor others can rewrite our past though every one of us would, or at least should, wish to. That others have done wrong doesn’t in the least diminish our own wrongs. We gain nothing from the dead works of the past if they don’t compel us to change our own lives to serve rather than exploit others and avoid rather than wallow in wrongdoing. We serve by making the rest of our lives about deserving redemption and forgiveness.

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Another View, a Maine Press Association award-winning column, is written on a rotating basis by a member of a group of Midcoast citizens that meet to discuss issues they think are of public interest.