In watching the soon-to-be-completed meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, I was reminded of something C. S. Lewis said in his great work: The Abolition of Man. His prescient observations struck me in particular when the incoming USCCB president, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, was interviewed last night by Colleen Carroll Campbell, on EWTN, about the infamous HHS mandate. Sadly, he sounded more like a politician ( a pretty secular one) when attempting to answer her inquiry as to what the bishops intended to do when the mandate becomes binding. He spoke blandly about the court cases (which he expects will find their way to the Supreme Court) and expressed the hope that they will, eventually, be resolved in our favor. I kept waiting for him to say as forcefully as a bishop might (think St. Peter or Andrew), "In any case, regardless of the outcome of these civil maneuverings, WE CANNOT and WILL NOT COMPLY," but that would not be nice.
That is what brought to mind this relevant quote from C.S. Lewis.
Here's the quote:
"The operation of The Green Book and its kind is to produce what may be called Men without Chests. It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as intellectuals. This gives then the chance to say that he who attacks them attacks intelligence. It is not so...It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so."
VIVA CRISTO REY!
