Cardinal Francis George, who is President of the US Catholic Bishops’ Conference, has noticed that the natives are getting restless. He observes that US secularism is moving from taming religion to rejecting it.
The new atheism has its followers…In Chicago, we now have atheist clubs in high schools. We didn’t have those five years ago. Kids I would have confirmed in the eighth grade, by the time they’re sophomores in high school say they’re atheists. They don’t just stop going to church, they make a statement…I think it’s something of a fad, because of the aggressiveness of this new atheism. It captures people.
Yes? Well what does the Catholic church do? It ‘captures’ people, doesn’t it? At least, if atheism does the Catholic church does – since atheism doesn’t throw big nets over people, or shoot tranquilizer darts into them, or put opium in their soup and then drag them away to the Scary Atheist Compound, never to be seen again.
Oh yes but you see that’s quite different because…because…er…give me a minute, I’ll think of it…
‘It is highly evangelical, isn’t it?’ simpers the interviewer helpfully, and the cardinal is happy to agree.
Yes it is, sure. Everybody has said that, and it’s true. It’s the mirror image of a kind of fundamentalism, because it’s very restrictive in its use of reason. It’s also very triumphalistic and self-righteous.
While Catholicism, on the other hand –
Right.
Comments
6 responses to “The Cardinal on atheism: he’s against it”
Brilliant! Those madcap Catholics with their playful sense of postmodern irony. This is some of the most clever, multi-layered Catholic humor since they had the Dadaist audacity to appoint a Nazi-turned-Inquisitor as Pope! Ever since Andy Kaufman’s faked death and retreat to the hidden precincts of the Vatican, they’ve just kept pushing and pushing and pushing the envelope of comedy…
Some say the Catholics go too far – and wasn’t that always Andy’s gag? Especially with the wrestling thing, and with Tony Clifton? But I say they just keep getting funnier and funnier.
Never mind that the high school atheist clubs were started and run by the students themselves, while the Catholic confirmations were started and run by the Catholic Church.
Deen, you’re completely missing the spirit of the thing. The Cardinal is ironically mimicking the most extremist, reactionary elements of the religious right – which the Church mocks most effectively by appearing to push the exact same agenda, but in a sophisticated, understated manner that might lead artless observers lacking a keen sense of postmodern irony to miss the barbed wit of the performance: It just wouldn’t be funny if they came right out and said, “Oh noes! Atheists are recruiting children!! Just like those awful gays do!!! Won’t somebody think of the children?!?!”
I say again: Brilliant! Comedy Gold! Best I’ve seen since the National Catholic Register published their “Six Myths of Atheism” laugh riot back in 2007!
Ewwww that cardinal guy says that those naughty atheists who make a statement are “a bit more like Europe.”
And atheism is “very restrictive in its use of reason. It’s also very triumphalistic and self-righteous.”
hahahahaahha
This is really silly. G Felis is right – these guy should have a TV show. . .
What to call the tv show…?
‘Friends With Benefits’?
‘Ratzinger’?
‘Boston Diocese’?
‘Mad About the Pope’?
‘Ben and Grace’?
’30 Vat’?
‘The Other Office’?
Cardinal Glick: Grab the little ones as well. Hook ’em while they’re young.
Rufus: Kind of like the tobacco industry?
Cardinal Glick: Christ, if only we had their numbers.
I miss George Carlin.