Just a quickie for today: The Irish Times just published a letter in which the writer expresses a kind of good will towards atheists.
One sincerely hopes that Joe Humphreys is correct in his suggestion that a new, more reasonable form of atheism may be beginning to emerge, from the creed’s Irish adherents (Arts Ideas, October 26th). Those of us from the Catholic intellectual tradition would certainly welcome such a development. Because there are undoubtedly large areas of agreement on many important ethical issues.
Ah yes, the spirit of camaraderie, atheists and Catholics agreeing on important ethical issues…
Wait for it, you know there’s got to be a punch line, right?
For example, two of Pope Benedict’s closest confidantes are the atheist politician Marcello Pera and the agnostic philosopher, Jürgen Habermas. Likewise many Catholics were very impressed when a large number of French intellectuals, including many atheists, signed a public letter defending the Pope against unfair criticism of his handling of abuse cases.
So here’s hoping that Joe Humphreys’s analysis proves to be accurate.
So the “important ethical issue” is that atheists agree not to “unfairly” criticize the Pope for covering up child abuse and helping move pedophile priests around so they could rape fresh victims. Saw that one coming, did you?
I’m certainly glad that they did not defend the Pope against all of the well deserved criticism that has been heaped on him and his holy office.
That would have been going too far.
I would defend the pope for being part of HitlerJugend as it was compulsory for boys of his age, but he has to be held to account for his own personal handling of the world-wide abuse scandal
For whatever reason, I was surprised Habermas is still with us. It’s been a LONG time since grad school, I guess…
“Nothing is true, everything is permitted”?
/Nope, not playing 3 at the moment.