The Sensitive Catholic

Save a prayer with me for the Sensitive Catholic.

The Sensitive Catholic is committed to Catholicism, until it becomes disagreeable. He is full of his own goodness, and desires all the world to know about it. The problem is, if one wants all the world to know how good he is, chances are some people will be offended by his goodness. At that point he is in front of a choice: being good and hated, or not-so-good and loved.

The Sensitive Catholic always chooses the second way. His opinion is always expressed provided you are not opposed to it, in which case a tsunami of tolerance and dialogue will take the place of asserting Catholic values. Generally, though, he will avoid coming in that situation in the first place, as the Sensitive Catholic has already noticed this attitude will get him a deserved reputation as a coward among the real Catholics.

Therefore, the Sensitive Catholic will take refuge in utterly non-controversial matters: peace, justice, dialogue, peace, the saint of the day,  Jesus The Uncontroversial Whatyoulike, peace, prayer, penance, peace and, of course, peace.

The Sensitive Catholic is extremely attentive no one should consider him intolerant: he’ll consider the vicar a person with holy orders (even if he/she/it isn’t) and will happily discuss about his distributing communion (even if he/she/it doesn’t). Most of all, the Sensitive Catholic wants you to like him. He’ll do whatever he thinks contributes to the result, and will leave whatever doesn’t.

In its extreme form, the Sensitive Catholic will talk (with other Catholics) about the necessity for the Church to go underground  and transform into a small group of people who are oh so good (like him/her, of course) without having to give any public witness of their Christianity. This way, he’ll signal to you he/she has no intention of ever fighting any battle with relatives, friends or colleagues, but has no intention to depose the self-made halo for that. In fact, I never met a Sensitive Catholic who didn’t think his halo was just the ticket, and never to be touched by any controversy because they could crease it.

I would smile at the Sensitive Catholic, if he/she were just an occasional manifestation of the usual Don Abbondio– mentality requiring from one that he/she doesn’t quarrel with anyone, and gets along with the enemy with a smile. But the problem is that the Sensitive Catholic seems to have become representative of a good part of the Catholic population, people whose motto seems to be “my truth will make me beautiful only as long as it does not conflict with yours, at which point I’ll happily ditch it because otherwise what’s the use…”.

The Sensitive Catholic is always either vain and disproportionately attentive he is popular, or else irretrievably cowardly. After V II, the Sensitive Catholic has come into fashion, and he/she now seems to me just what the V II doctor ordered. If you aren’t a Sensitive Catholic, there’s something wrong with you.

The Sensitive Catholic is, I would say, by far not as bad as the Sensitive Nazi.

But he is the Nazi’s most useful ally.

Mundabor