Edward Feser
@FeserEdward
St. John Henry Newman: “I will not shrink from uttering my firm conviction, that it would be a gain to this country, were it vastly more superstitious, more bigoted, more gloomy, more fierce in its religion, than at present it shows itself to be. Not, of course, that I think the tempers of mind herein implied desirable, which would be an evident absurdity; but I think them infinitely more desirable and more promising than a heathen obduracy, and a cold, self-sufficient, self-wise tranquility… Applying this to the present religion of the educated world, full as it is of security and cheerfulness, and decorum, and benevolence, I observe that these appearances may arise either from a great deal of religion, or from the absence of it; they may be the fruits of shallowness of mind and a blinded conscience”
Sober reminder that the world has been going in the wrong direction for longer than we have been breathing.
Thank God for the unlikely miracle that even part of His Church persists in Faith!
Amen, Optimist. Your comment brings to mind the well-known quotation from Hillaire Belloc, which appears to be timeless:
“The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine – but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight”
Indeed.
https://the-american-catholic.com/2019/09/06/popewatch-rome-never-changes/
I still think that Oscar Wilde’s comment is the perfect follow up to Belloc.
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