“The Christian believer is a simple person: Bishops should protect the faith of their little people against the power of intellectuals” - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now the pope of course).
If this offensive quotation had come from one of the new atheists I suspect that few christians would have been surprised.
Perhaps we should give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe his meaning was lost in translation? (Well OK, maybe not.) Ratzinger wouldn't want to confuse his 'little people' with actual facts would he?
I can sort of see how 'little people' was mistranslated if in fact the German was more on the lines of "small flock".
ReplyDeleteBut it's still insulting. Mind it also seems to indicate that intellectuals are too intelligent to be Christians????
I think the intellectuals are allowed to be bishops. One thing I am sure of though - some very intelligent people are christians. But similarly some very intelligent people are fooled by the cups and balls magic trick. Richard Wiseman's new book 'Paranormality tell us a lot about why that happens. A great read and one worthy of a blog post soon.
ReplyDeleteIts an offensive post no matter who said it.
ReplyDelete