I wrote recently about how misplaced, on the whole, the defensive posture being encouraged in the Catholic church today from on high appears to be. In the posting to which I've just linked, I was referring to Austen Ivereigh's view of things, from a British perspective.
For an alternative perspective that echoes my interpretation, here's Kevin McKenna writing today in the Guardian about what defensive Catholics in Scotland have just done to Hugh Dallas, and about how, when Dallas was down, Peter Kearney of the Scottish Media Office chose to drive the dagger a wee bit deeper with a rant about purported anti-Catholic sentiment in Scotland.
McKenna disagrees:
Sadly, there are still many in the church who regard valid criticism of its teachings and its conduct as tantamount to sectarianism. There is a loose alliance of shrill Catholic evangelicals and pious ecclesiasticals who are beginning to hold sway in my church. Many have shown themselves to be intellectually incapable of defending the precepts of their faith in the marketplace of ideas that post-devolution Scotland seeks to foster. When there is reasonable opposition to the Pope's visit and a justifiable outcry over child sex abuse they retreat into their novenas, benedictions and prayer meetings and mutter darkly about anti-Catholic agendas and vendettas.
Very well-noted, it seems to me. The louder the Catholic right scream about "persecution" of Catholics, the less intellectually compelling they sound. The loud screaming is designed to mask the emptiness lurking behind the rants.
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