THE SPIRIT OF S. THOMAS

Since putting up the last post about S. Thomas, I had been thinking a bit about one particular observation in the passage from his letters which occurred in the Office of Readings :

'There are, to be sure, a great many bishops. At our consecration we promised to be continuously and increasingly zealous as teachers and pastors. We repeat the promise every day. Would God our lives made our promises more credible !'

Now; let me make it clear that I was not thinking about Bishops particularly - I was thinking that the passage applies so acutely to each and every one of us, and how it is perhaps fortunate that it comes just before the New Year, when we should at least try to 'turn over a new leaf' . . . and hopefully at least try to make more effort to keep the promises we made to God at our baptism.

At the same time, I was also thinking that we could really do with some more Bishops and leaders like him today, when - increasingly - secular powers are trying to interfere with the prerogative of the Church to teach its people : and then, a few moments ago, I read a new post on The Hermeneutic of Continuity apropos the recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights that Italian Schools must takedown the crucifixes from their classrooms because they might be offensive to atheists.

It appears that the Italian Courts have said, in effect, that 'up with this they will not put', and that they will not surrender their sovereignty in this way.

I imagine that they will not be martyred for this stand : but that doesn't make it any the less precious; so let us thank God for it, and rejoice that someone, somewhere, apparently still has some common sense, and some grasp of the need to put God before political correctness.