Decent =/= Reactionary

Last updated on: January 1, 2015 at 2:59 pm by Mark Shea

Decent =/= Reactionary 2015-01-01T14:59:33-07:00 Mark Shea

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A reader insults most decent non-Catholics everywhere by writing (on the thread about the Irish Church scandal):

I would just like to say something here as a non-Catholic, so that Catholics can understand how most decent people feel.

All defenses of the Church here simply add to our loathing for it.We wonder how you can defend the indefensible. The Catholic Church has been revealed as an evil, vile, utterly discredited organisation that, hopefully, will be brought to an end very soon.

Ecrasez l’infame.

I don’t know what more is to be said.

It’s the last line that’s the most telling, since it betrays a completely closed mind. As a non-Catholic looking in at the Church, it did not take revelations of abusive Irish Catholics for me to see that Catholic history has a wide variety of sins and monsters to choose from. You’d have to be a complete idiot not to know about the anti-semites, mafiosi, voodoo cultists, weird Mexican death cults, gifted torturers and murderers, corrupt clerics, and sundry other nasties.

But as a non-closed-minded non-Catholic who was not simply looking for ammunition to reinforce my prejudices (which is a very different thing than being “decent”) I also knew that you could do exactly the same thing to practically any human institution if you wanted to. Anything involving humans that attempts anything of serious weight for any length of time is bound to become encrusted with dirt due to the fact that humans are involved. The question is: are the sins of the Church essential to its nature? Are they necessary to make this thing what it is? I don’t see how that is proven at all.

Also, from a purely practical standpoint, apart from the claims of Christ and his saving gospel, I sometimes wonder if the sort of people who shout “Ecrasez l’infame!” and pine for the eradication of the Church have any conception of what they are hoping for. Because perverts and abusers will remain till the end of time. But if you really succeeded in destroying the last vestiges of Christianity, you would also destroy people like this, not to mention things like the university, the parliamentary system, English and American law, most of the literature of the West, the hospital, the orphanage, and, oh, well, pretty much the entire Western achievement. It’s the radical recklessness of such folly that takes the breath away. And all while patting oneself on the back for one’s decency. Nothing provides a better cloak for pride than outraged moralism.

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