It is all too easy to become a pious fraud. The chief priests and elders in the time of Christ were not unlike the clergy of every age. They were highly trained in religious matters and the people looked to them as experts in the Law. But the parable of the two sons in the vineyard indicts them for not practicing what they preached.

The parable drives home the point that interior dispositions and actual responses are more important than pious externals. One son refuses to work the vineyards, but later changes his mind and does his duty. The other son — the pious fraud — pays lip service to his father, promising to work, but fails to carry through with his promise. Christ's message to the chief priests and elders is clear. Their fixation on the appearances of religious devotion and their presumed religious "expertise" blinded them to John the Baptist's call to conversion. In their unbelief, they were pious frauds. In the meantime, the hated tax collectors and even the prostitutes followed John "in the way of righteousness," because they believed. Therefore, Christ tells us, they "are entering the kingdom of God" before the professional religious (cf. Mt 21:28-32).

A person becomes a "pious fraud" when religious externals — verbal expressions, clothing, articles, practices — become more important in themselves than a responsive interior religious devotion. Christ warns of certain pious frauds: "Beware of the scribes, who like to go about in long robes, and to have salutations in the market places and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation" (Mark 12:38-40).

Every Christian has the capacity to abuse religious externals. The following examples are all-too-common: When we claim to be "church going" Catholics as we defraud our employers; when we exercise various ministries in the Church for purposes of vain glory; when we attend weekday Mass but take every opportunity to disagree with authentic Church teaching in thought and in conversation.

But religious externals can have a positive effect on one's behavior. Mark Twain wisely quips that "clothes make man" because people without clothes "have little or no influence on society." Thoughtful priests and religious are keenly aware that religious clothing silently accuses them in every act of impatience, in every failure in charity, in every sin.

Religious externals can be a healthy means to help restrain sinful passions. Ask any priest who is driving in heavy traffic how the Roman collar affects his driving. A "We Vote Pro-Life" bumper sticker also tends to tame otherwise impatient driving. Who wants to be known as a pious fraud?

Religious externals are necessary. They help define us as Christians. But do the externals of religious devotion "make the man"? Or do they indict a Christian as a "pious fraud"? It would be easy and escapist to do away with all religious externals. It is far better to allow outward religious expressions to challenge us to a true interior acceptance of Christian faith.