Catholic and Enjoying It!
Two of the best bloggers at Vox Nova (Policratus and Katerina) have re-booted the Evangelical Catholicism blog, which is cause for rejoicing. They seem to be able to stay on track, actually talking about Catholic social teaching, without erupting in bizarre paeans to Obama’s greatness, or absurd tu quoques, or obscene attempts to justify abortion, or disgusting and nutty tribalistic excuses for torture, or dumb tirades about Evil Calvinist America as the all-explaining paradigm for all the wickedness in the world, or eyeroll-inducing eulogies to Michael Jackson, Cold War Winner.
The cast they’ve brought with them seem to be the most sensible members of the Vox Nova crew, both right and left-leaning. Discussion is already underway as consideration is given to the Pope’s new encyclical, with a view to actually trying to understand it as distinct from either trying to cram it into the template of a a Hurray For Democratic Capitalism Rah Rah with a couple of empty words intended to “mollify social justice types” or else dismiss it as being nearly a disastrous capitulation to Justice and Peace types.
Me: I’ll wait till I’ve read and re-read it before doing the autopsy on how great a promoter of the American Way/how hopelessly naive and foolish Benedict is. I have this notion that when the Church offends me, that’s probably where I need to pay closest attention. Similarly, I strongly suspect that when the Church seems to me to confirm *exactly* what I think, despite the fact that there are those easy-to-ignore passages that are just there to “mollify” fools I easily dismiss, it’s possible that I’m not really reading Her to find out what she is saying, but to confirm my own prejudices.
Anyway, I’m happy to see Evangelical Catholicism is up and running.
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