THE KNUCKLEHEAD
'
S GUIDE TO COVENANTAL THEOLOGY
79
Borrowing from anthropology, sociology, and psychology, [the
catechetical movement] has come to have a better understanding of
how individuals and groups appropriate symbols to establish a
sense of identity and a world of meaning and value.
1
1. Marthaler BL. introduction in Warren M, ed.
(1983). Sourcebook for modern catechetics.
Winona, Minnesota: Saint Mary's Press, Christian
Brothers Publications. p. 19.
There is one minor problem with New Class Catholicism's
"borrowing." Truly modern scientific men don't say that Catholicism is
partly absurd. Look at one fully 'modern' representation of the
paradigm we have been examining:
[ Insert your favorite irrational belief here ]
< - - - and please place all
rationality, everything we can ever
learn, discover, or think about, over
here.
Here is what genuinely modern men think:
[ Insert all of your Catholicism here ]
< - - - and please place all
rationality, everything we can ever
learn, discover, or think about, over
here.
Therefore, from within fully modern intellectual and scientific
commitments, while there is every warrant to study a Catholic
theologian or a Catholic religious educator -- such as Fr. Marthaler --
as "anthropology, sociology, and psychology" might study any strange
phenomenon, there is never any intellectual or scientific warrant to be
a Catholic theologian or a Catholic religious educator.
Within fully modern intellectual and scientific commitments, there
is absolutely no rational basis for anyone to be Catholic, let alone to be
a 'professional' Catholic. So, from within the fundamental intellectual
commitments made by New Class Catholic academics such as Fr.
Marthaler, no intellectual or scientific justification exists for him to
remain employed. Within his own intellectual and scientific
commitments, Fr. Marthaler's entire 'professional' life as a "Catholic
religious educator" has no intellectual or scientific content whatever.
Fr. Marthaler can not provide an intellectually consistent explanation,
even to himself, of why anyone should pay him to do what he does.
This is the 'grown-up' Catholicism of our day, the Catholicism of
the New Class. As can easily be seen, New Class Catholicism is not
very 'grown-up' at all -- in fact, it is childish and hypocritical. It really
is "why bother?" Catholicism. The irony is, this can easily be seen, not
only by faithful Catholics, but also by truly 'modern' secular people.
N.B. This is an html-ized copy of a page from the pdf file, The Knucklehead's Guide to Covenantal Theology.