Of Pigs and Ostriches

Of Pigs and Ostriches

   by the late Father Leonardo Castellani, S.J. (1899 - 1981)

taken from caminante-wanderer.blogspot.com.ar

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

Kierkegaard says that in religion what is essential is not the object but the manner. This would seem to wipe out all dogmatics. The words of the Dane are: “He who adores a fetish as if it were God, actually adores God, but he who adores God as if He were a fetish, does not really adore God.” This is the theory of the “how.” According to this theory, it would seem to be the same to believe in Jesus Christ, or in Jupiter, or in Mohammed, or in Mumbo Jumbo, as long it is believed in a certain way.

The present world is too much bent on accepting this, especially the Protestant world: indifference or inconsequence of dogmas. What counts is goodwill, “unity in charity”, they say.

The Catholic world, on the contrary, places all the strength on the rigorous unity of doctrine, even without much charity: the unity in faith. But with none of the two alone can one attain the unity which Christ commanded, in faith and in charity.

Much less with that mishmash devoid of faith or charity which they now call “ecumenism”; namely a kind of general roundup of sheep, goats, cows, ostriches, and pigs, as they do now in the church at Fatima [or as they perform at the Vatican or in Assisi.]