Wednesday, April 27, 2005

The Wisdom of Ithilien

I've never met Edwin Tait, nor am I likely to. But I've been reading his online commentary and thoughts for years, and he's one of those folks whose writing gives you hope. Hope for lots of things -- reasonable and respectable Catholic / Protestant dialogue; the reappearance of Christendom; the survival of man's ability to cherish truth, beauty, and goodness. So I was delighted to see that he's put up some thoughts on our new Pope:
Benedict XVI is a "conservative" not because he wants to return to an earlier era, and not because he thinks progress is impossible, but because he understands that for progress to take place it must build on what has already been learned rather than rejecting it. Progress implies a goal. And as Chesterton pointed out more than a century ago, you can't have progress if the goal keeps moving. We live in a society that has glorified change for its own sake. Suggest that a given change might possibly be bad, and you find yourself branded a "conservative." And in a society that has abandoned a shared vision of truth, slurs and labels are our most powerful weapons, because rational disagreement has become impossible.
It's an essay well worth reading.

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