Saturday, January 21, 2006

But I already have a full-time job

"Already in reading the remarkable amount of material the present Holy Father writes each week, it is clear, as in the case of his predecessor, that it is a full time job just to keep up with him. "

So begins this article by Fr. James V. Schall at Ignatius Insight, in which he points out what a prolific, scholarly and yet still accessible man is our current Holy Father.

Fr. Schall writes:
"The Pope is clearly very aware of the high level of intelligence demanded within the Church. The Catholic Church is definitely a thing of intellect. "

Before I began to study the Catholic faith, I was convinced that it was as far from "a thing of intellect" as an earthworm is from the human brain. What surprised and amazed me about Catholicism, as I dug more deeply into it, was the richness of its intellectual tradition, the depth of thought and study that is part and parcel of the faith. As Fr. Schall also notes:

"This Pope is well worth keeping up with. Already we can see that he is on a daily basis as productive as the great John Paul II. Already we can see a great theological mind at work explaining to us what revelation means in our world."

I'll try, I'll try ... to keep up not only with Anne, Betsy and Ramona, but also with this extraordinary man whom we are blessed to call our shepherd.

1 comment:

Maureen said...

There is a free access cable station here called Reformation Today. It should be called Catholic Bashing Today. Anyway, one of their complaints is that the Catholic Church is too intellectual. They content that they keep the little people out of the loop by using big words like transubstantiation. Puhleese.