Fr. Z on Samuel Gregg on Benedict

Last updated on: December 31, 2014 at 2:45 pm by Mark Shea

Fr. Z on Samuel Gregg on Benedict 2014-12-31T14:45:40-07:00 Mark Shea

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Interesting piece here. Excerpt:

In an article welcoming Benedict’s visit to Britain, the UK’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs observed, “Whether or not you accept the phrase ‘broken society,’ not all is well in contemporary Britain.” The facts cited by Sachs were sobering. In 2008, 45 percent of British children were born outside marriage; 3.9 million children are living in poverty; 20 percent of deaths among young people aged from 15 to 24 are suicides; in 2009, 29.4 million antidepressants were dispensed, up 334 percent from 1985. Such is the fruit of a deeply-secularized, über-utilitarian culture that tolerates Christians until they start questioning the coherence of societies which can’t speak of truth and error, good and evil, save in the feeble jargon of whatever passes for political correctness at a given moment.

The phrase [“creative minority”], which Benedict has used for several years, comes from another English historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975). Toynbee’s thesis was that civilizations primarily collapsed because of internal decline rather than external assault. “Civilizations,” Toynbee wrote, “die from suicide, not by murder.”

Which is, by the way, one of the reasons I think chucking the American Constitutional order, creating draconian anti-Muslim speech codes, and attempting the mad task of exiling (whether by force or bribery) several million Muslim citizens is the wrong approach. We are not in danger of murder. We are in danger of suicide. We would apply ourselves (especially we Catholics) far better if we aimed to evangelize than if we aim to defend Fortress Catholicus. It is Hell that has the defensive gates. It is the Church in union with Peter against which those gates cannot stand.

Hey! It’s not just me. Abp. Chaput is saying the same stuff.

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