A Catholic Time Capsule

Having spent a considerable time abroad - and not as a tourist - I cannot but admit that my exposure to different societies is fairly divers, and thus perhaps my mindset is influenced much more differently than the average of the current society around me. In an age, where we surf, chat, and mail - today even with our smartphones, and therefore a computer is no longer required for such - it is still remarkable how many people tend to be misinformed. This would not be too much of a problem were it not, that some of these people are in fact ... priests.

Priests have the sad privilege, that a community more or less take their word - relatively - for an infallible truth. Provided, the said priest is a humble wise and learned person, that would hardly be a problem to swallow. When such a person lacks some of these attributes, then it becomes dangerous. 

Last week namely, an acquainted priest-blogger posted an article, in my view as a slightly provocative gesture towards woman rights activists. The contents I didn't take too seriously, as it contains arguments, which in my view are no longer of this time. I left it for a while, until I started to ponder, why should a person with a certain community status feed readers with such a rhetoric? Would this not be exactly the school book example, why certain groups hardly get out of their shell and remain constantly indulged in navel-gazing?

I decided to re-read the article, and even to follow the discussion beneath - where the author is actively reacting on the comments. From here, the student-like diatribe appeared not to be just a lighthearted jest, but it transpired that not only was the author dead-serious, on top of it, the constant slightly old fashioned anti-Semitic implications were made. And sadly; obviously through ignorance, either from the theological or historic point of view.

A correspondence followed, where I tried to point out some missing facts from his statements, I couldn't help feeling a bit detached; as if we were talking at different wave-lengths, where the author had little understanding of the point. His fairly limited remarks on Judaism were embarrassingly off our nowadays reality. Lack of fact-knowledge, unaware of historic developments, global theological discussions. Almost, as if I was writing to a member of the clergy from the 17th century.

Unfortunately, this continues to feed wrong signals to the community, which regards priests as revered authorities. And indeed, such were the comments in the discussions. Certain conservative tendencies are perhaps not fully exclusive for Slovakia alone. Remarkably, his last sentence was; society still needed much to get rid of their prejudices. Fully true. Yet it was he himself, who repeatedly instigated these prejudices., and the facts I put forth had hardly an impact. Apparently, they live in a time capsule. A Catholic one that is; and those not belonging to this club hence are not noticed. 

And how dangerously far poisonous prejudices can go, is history... Beware.