The Jonathan Livingstone Seagull variety of Catholicism is doing well in the episcopate.
The Vatican-appointed (let is not forget) Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton told the Catholic Herald:
You can’t talk to young people about salvation. What’s salvation? What does salvation mean? My eternal soul? You can only talk to young people in young people’s language, really. And if you’re going to talk to them about salvation, the first thing they will understand is saving the planet. You’re talking about being saved and they will say: ‘What about saving the planet?’ ”
Doesn’t Jesus talk in black and white terms, as if we might be in danger? “Shoulder my yoke and learn from me,” quotes the bishop, “for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.”
Doesn’t he also say we should repent, beware of sin – a stark message? “Not stark. According to where you look in the Gospel, and again if you go to Matthew 25, the final parable of Jesus, only in Matthew’s Gospel – ‘When I was hungry, you fed me … naked and you clothed me … you visited me in prison.’ That would resonate much more with young people.”
He cited approvingly something that Cardinal Hume said – “it was always easier to deal with the loony Left than the conservative Right. He said they were always nicer people.”
That’s right, no distasteful talk about sin and repentance and salvation. And no sin – after all, we are a forgiving people, even if the nasty secular courts don’t practice that forgiveness when Catholic priests have been exploring the boundaries of moral freedom with ten-year-old boys.
And when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith upon the earth – or among “Catholic” bishops in England.