Up to Date
Ten years have passed since Martin Mosebach mused about Catholic bishops: ‘It is as if they have forgotten that the Church is very old and that she has survived many societal systems and upheavals throughout history and that, in many centuries, she was not completely ‘up to date’. Least so at the time of her foundation in late antiquity, in an urbanised, enlightened, multicultural, atomised and individualised society which, by a slow process, she permeated and transformed.’
Thinking people at a distance from the Church are apt to ask themselves, Mosebach contends (with customary poignancy and elegance): ‘Should they see [the Church] as dangerous or possibly as the only remaining alternative to secular society?’ The jury, I’d say, is still out.
