Butler gives us a powerful quote about this 4th-century Christian who, before becoming an anchoret and a “Father of the Church,” served as an honest magistrate. Quite simply, Nilus “feared nothing so much as to authorize or connive at injustice or sin.”

Today, I learned that the etymological origins of the word, “connive,” refers to winking at thoroughly (or shutting one’s eyes while still knowing what you are shutting them to). And, alas, we have made an art form out of connivance–collectively as well as individually.

One of the things I have discovered from my experience as a lawyer is that there is a great difference between conniving and constructing. Some lawyers use (and are paid handsomely to use) their knowledge and insight to enable their clients to find ways to avoid taxes, to bypass regulations, to shelter money, to foreclose after having first engaged in predatory lending practices, to discover ways in which employees’ rights and freedom to organize can be minimized, and to manage workarounds to campaign laws to control the political process. These lawyers connive at injustice. They find a way to operate on the moral plane of “as long as it’s not illegal, I’ve performed my job well if my client is happy.” They knowingly wink at injustices that, because they employ not-illegal methods, they do not correctly label as unjust. Similarly, the highest court in our land’s majority has of late often responded in the face of massive injustices brought to its attention, “If the complaining parties do not like the results of this matter, then change the law. Until such time, it’s legal”–even if it is patently unjust.

Imagine instead if, like St. Nilus, we became vigilant–heck, if we even became aware of the multitude of ways that we wink at injustice and sin, and how passively we have accepted this in our professionals, our attorneys, our leaders (elected or appointed), and ourselves. It was tremendously discouraging when I discovered in law school that the professional ethics we were being taught were primarily aimed at covering our asses, and that we reserved discussions of “justice” for classes like “Philosophies of Jurisprudence” rather than as a constitutive element of contracts, criminal law, property law, or even Constitutional law. Law schools, alas, are frequently mills for taking “connivers in the rough” and polishing them up, smoothing the edges off, and making them attractive to firms dedicated to keeping and increasing money in the hands of the rich (to which they aspire to become a sub-class).

“Is it possible for me to get away with this? For how long and under what cover?” These are dangerous and damaging questions. I read an op-ed this past fall in the Washington Post, entitled “Why do all these racists keep joining the GOP?” Another way of asking this is why the Republican party connives at racism–that is, why they choose to shut their eyes to the values and actions of people if tey can possibly garner their votes. Why is unthinkable to declare openly, “If you are a White Supremacist or hold allied beliefs, we do not want your money, your support, or your vote”? Any other position in these matters is precisely what Nilus stood against–a connivance at injustice and sin.