McInerny on New Atheism & 'Chesterbelloc'

Father Ralph McInerny recognizes the true target of the new atheists (actually rehash of 19th century positivists, only with less sophisticated weapons); namely, the Catholic Church and her vouchsafed Magisterium of revealed truth. Where are the Chestertons and Bellocs today?

If Catholicism is true, the central event of human history is the Incarnation, God become man in order to save men from their sins and reconcile them with God. Our destiny is eternal union with God, and earthly life takes on added significance from that fact. It is here in the Vale of Tears that we must live the great decision for or against Christ. Every other criterion of human history is secondary to this. The Catholic Church is the continuation in time of the salvific work of Christ, Who is not some dim figure in the past but a continuing presence among us, in the Mass, in the sacraments, in the guidance of the Church. Not for the Chesterbelloc the privitatization of religion, treating the faith as if it were some private quirk about which the less said publicly the better.

Recently, the continuing love of Belloc was dismissed as triumphalism. The dismissal may be ignored, but the charge seems just. Belloc and Chesterton were loudly proud of the faith and sought out opportunities to commend and defend it. What is the opposite of “trumphalism”? Perhaps filing one’s beliefs away from public view, suggesting that they have no broad social relevance, apologizing for Catholicism’s claim to be the one, true church, tailoring Catholic teachings to the zeitgeist so that they are indistinguishable from secular assumptions. Anyone holding one or all of these will of course be made uneasy by the Chesterbelloc.

Heretics all, whoever you be,
In Tarbes or Nimes, or over the sea,
You never shall have good words from me.
Caritas non conturbat me.

But Catholic men that live upon wine
Are deep in the water, and frank, and fine;
Wherever I travel I find it so,
Benedicamus Domino.

Read all of The Chesterbelloc Thing [ht: Mark Shea]