Heh!

A reader writes

Here’s an amusing mental exercise. Imagine you are able to travel back in time to, say, 1985 or 1990, a moment when the Ratzinger-is-the-evil-Inquisitor-the-Panzer-Cardinal narrative was in full swing. And you find the journalist Peter Hebblethwaite (may he rest in peace), one of the propagators of Cardinal’s reputation.

And you tell him that in 2009, Ratzinger is Pope. (Give him a moment, it will throw him for a loop.) Then tell him in summer of ’09, Pope Ratzinger has issued an encyclical.

“Probably criticizes immoral actions like abortion, gay marriage, and contraception, doesn’t it?” Hebblethwaite growls.

“Yes,” you allow. “It does.”

“Not surprising,” he nods. “Some things never change, I see.”

“And some people,” you add, “are picking and choosing which parts of the encyclical they like and which they don’t.”

“Well, sometimes a discerning conscience is–“

“It’s the conservatives doing it.”

“Huh?”

“Yes, and they’re mad at him.”

Poor Peter is getting very confused now.

“They are? For what?”

Pause for effect. “They say he’s focusing too much on love and goodness, not enough on rooting out sin.”

Now you’ve either driven Hebblethwaite stark raving mad or convinced him that you’re from a bizarre parallel universe and your time machine dropped you off accidentally in ours.

Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!