{"id":529,"date":"2011-11-07T15:17:25","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T20:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/badcatholic\/?p=529"},"modified":"2011-11-09T15:10:48","modified_gmt":"2011-11-09T20:10:48","slug":"catholicism-the-last-immunization-against-stupidity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/badcatholic\/2011\/11\/catholicism-the-last-immunization-against-stupidity.html","title":{"rendered":"Occupiers, Wayseers and the Catholic Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

G<\/strong>.K. Chesterton, in his noble goal to make the life of a Catholic blogger unbearably easy,\"\" said that \u201cthe Catholic Church is the only thing that frees a man from the degrading\u00a0slavery of being a child of\u00a0his age.\u201d You might think I cannot possibly add to such a perfectly rounded statement of truth. And in one sense you\u2019d be right \u2013 I can\u2019t \u2013 but dead wrong in another, for I have a bad habit of trying.<\/p>\n

For if there is anything that can be said about the modern world, it is that stupidity abounds. Truly, there have been all sorts of cultures with all sorts of whack ideas, but we currently live with an absolutely unprecedented level of facepalm-I\u2019m-moving-to-Hungaryism<\/a>. Why? Because the current philosophy of our times is an inherent contradiction. The truth is that there is no truth. There is no right and wrong, and thus it\u2019d be terribly wrong \u2013 and certainly not right \u2013 to force morality on another. (On an unrelated note, I cannot type a word in English.)<\/p>\n

Relativism, baby. It\u2019s what drives the modern world. Pro-abortion laws are drawn up under the philosophy that it is morally wrong to impose a moral standard. I sat in a high-school classroom where we all wrote down our personal definitions of truth and then voted for the best one. Catholic hospitals cannot force their views on others, so they are forced to provide contraception. Depressed yet? Don\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

I think Papa Benny is a closet Chesterton fan. Because if I know my Pope at all, when he told us we are living under the \u201cdictatorship of relativism\u201d, he wasn\u2019t scared. It was more of a beer-drinking, German shrug. He\u2019d read Gilbert. We live under the dictatorship of relativism, but we have the Church, and thus cannot be a child of the stupidity of this age.<\/p>\n

\"\"
So relax errbody. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And I don\u2019t mean \u2018stupid\u2019 as a childish insult. I mean the only possible adjective that can be applied to an entirely self-defeating statement. Intellectually shooting others is mean. Intellectually shooting yourself is stupid.<\/p>\n

So what can one expect of the movements and actions of a culture standing upon the foundation of relativism? What is the childhood of this age from which our Church saves us? Don\u2019t expect frightful evil. Don\u2019t expect exciting, daring rebellion against the system. Stupidity is utterly\u00a0incapable\u00a0of producing greatness, evil or<\/em> good. Expect therefore awkward,\u00a0embarrassing\u00a0movements; short-lived and incoherent.<\/p>\n