If you only read one blog post today…
… your day will be more productive than mine.
But by all means read this one. Bad Catholic is the Man. Ecce Homo, dude.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2012/02/how-the-catholic-church-became-cool-overnight.html
Marc Barnes here quotes Walker Percy, who speaks with Chestertonian eloquence and power:
This life is too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then to be asked what you make of it and have to answer “Scientific humanism.” That won’t do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight, i.e., God. In fact I demand it. I refuse to settle for anything less.
And he speaks with the tongue of a lover for his beloved, a Dante to his Beatrice:
But here’s the thing about the Church. Once you begin the radical task of defending Her right to practice what She preaches, you can’t help but notice how excellent that preaching is. Thus the issue of why — precisely — the Church is against the use of artificial contraception is similarly irritating the public eye, and as it turns, ’tis a beautiful irritant. The Business Insider, an entirely secular journal, found it alarming enough to publish Time To Admit It: The Church Has Always Been Right On Birth Control. From the article:
The Church teaches that love, marriage, sex, and procreation are all things that belong together. That’s it. But it’s pretty important. And though the Church has been teaching this for 2,000 years, it’s probably never been as salient as today.
Today’s injunctions against birth control were re-affirmed in a 1968 document by Pope Paul VI called Humanae Vitae. He warned of four results if the widespread use of contraceptives was accepted:
- General lowering of moral standards
- A rise in infidelity, and illegitimacy
- The reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men.
- Government coercion in reproductive matters.
Does that sound familiar?
Because it sure sounds like what’s been happening for the past 40 years.
So what happened overnight? Why is the Church’s most controversial teaching something that — suddenly — can be affirmed in the secular, public sphere without fear? The teachings didn’t change — they’ve always been awesome. Our culture didn’t change — it continues to suck. No, we owe this shift in disposition to the remarkable act of placing our hands on the desk, pushing firmly down upon it while pushing firmly up with the toes, and straightening the kneecaps until the body is aligned vertically between heaven and earth.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
