Let’s get past the food for thought…

…and start thinking. The following should provoke thought:

 Writing in the 1950s and early ’60s, Flannery O’Connor could point to a widespread institutional defensiveness among Catholics that took the form of a fear of humiliation: we were terrified that scandal could make us a laughingstock among the separated brethren. Well, who today is in a position to point denominational fingers? What humiliation has any of us been spared; what pride is left to lose; what calamity remains to be afraid of? Gloating over another’s misfortune has given way to inter-denominational sympathy for intra-denominational antagonism. It’s not a question of Anglicans’ shaking their heads at Catholics, but of conservatives (of whatever allegiance) bemoaning the triumphs of the libs, and vice versa.

Where’s that from? Diogenes strikes again in Catholic World News. So where does that leave us? In need of firm voices, clarity of language and meaning, and an unapologetic but charitable defense of truth. In other words…Pope Ratzinger would be a good read right now. Here’s a good beginning, and especially this part:

“Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be “tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine”, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.”

 It was the shot heard ’round the world.