The ranks are thinning

Each passing year reduces the roll of notoriety still further, for which we give thanks unto almighty God.

We shall never be entirely free from the baleful influence of the partisans of error, for there shall never lack those whom the devil shall excite with evil rage against the servants of the Lord.

But lately we have been informed of the repose of three whose names were hateful to the saints:

• Alfred Hrdlicka, pornographer, blasphemer, ‘artist’ and self-described Stalinist, who went to his reward on 5 December 2009. He received a Catholic funeral courtesy of his good friend Christoph Cardinal Schönborn;
• Theologian and conciliar peritus Edward Schillebeeckx, the mastermind behind the confusion of Lumen Gentium and the heresies of the Dutch Catechism (among sundry other notorieties), who fell asleep on 23 December 2009; and
• Mary Daly, the bitter and fanatical feminist ‘theologian’ whose anti-Christian and neo-pagan courses (at the Jesuit-run Boston college!) were off-limits to male students, and whom the Almighty mercifully took from our midst on 3 Jan 2010.

All three had an impact either upon the Church or upon contemporary culture (sometimes both), and this impact was less than beneficial to the health of the body politic.

Liberal blogs and websites are teeming with fulsome tributes to these purported ‘giants’ of theology; check out some of the obituaries here.

Fr. Schillebeeckx may have been more subtle and less stridently revolutionary than the other two, but his theology places him firmly in their camp. Furthermore, 95 years is far too long a time for such a dissident to be stuck in the craw of the Mystical Body; he certainly overstayed his welcome.

May God have mercy on their souls, but Melancholicus does not mourn their passing.

Step by step, people.

Step by step.