Michael Gerson, evangelical Christian and former Bush speech writer turned syndicated columnist, declares in his most recent effort that the Roman Catholic Church is "indispensable" because "it is the main defender of reason in the modern world."
Not even Catholics would agree. They understand that their Church is bonkers and routinely ignore its teachings, especially on subjects relating to sexuality and reproduction. I recently wrote about some of the fruits of the Church's vaunted reasoning powers (see "Popery," from Apil 21). To women who don't want children, or don't want more children than they already have, the Church says: You must not have an abortion or even use contraceptive devices. To women who want children but are unable to conceive, the Church says: You must not avail yourself of artificial insemination or any other reproductive therapy but, instead, regard your barrenness as an opportunity to share in the suffering of Christ.
Check-mate. It is more like gratuitous cruelty than reason. The prohibition of contraception is really quite shocking and a significant block to reducing the load of human suffering in the world. When you try to comprehend the line of thought, what you come up against is nothing better than "This is so, because it is written" or "The Church teaches." These naked appeals to authority are the antithesis of reason.
The septuagenarian virgins responsible for these contributions to human thought are fit objects for contempt. Maybe Gerson meant to say that, by the standards that prevail in the rest of American Christendom, the teachings of the Catholic Church are not particularly unreasonable. I'd grant him that.
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