Just two weeks ago, NYT papist in chief Ross Douthat had a column, “Make Catholicism Weird Again”, urging a return to the good old days, saying that the Church should reclaim its rightful role “as a full alternative culture in its own right — one that reclaims the inheritance on display at the Met,1 glories in its own weirdness and supernaturalism, and spurns both accommodations and entangling alliances.”
Uh-huh. Well, more recently, all 34 Chilean bishops have offered to resign in response to allegations of long-running and widespread coverups of sexual abuse by priests. Is that weird enough for you, Ross?
Afterwords
Ross displays an amusing animus towards, you know, Germans, who have been getting it wrong ever since Martin Luther, and, as Ross would have it, are still causing trouble—lots of it!—with their damned Protestant proselytizing. So lay off, Krauts!2
- Referencing the recent “Ab Fab and Totally Catholic” Met gala, which struck me as marginally less offensive than that totally abysmal “royal” wedding that just took place amongst our besotted and bespotted brethren across the sea. Alas, poor schmucks! But I guess Ross likes to play dress up. ↩︎
- In a subsequent, not always off the mark column, “The Fall of the German Empire”, Ross indulges in some perhaps premature schadenfreude at the expense of German pretensions of European dominance. Never say that Catholics can’t carry a grudge. ↩︎
