New Friends

I put up for hearing and reading Mary’s story New Friends.

Have I noticed another smile from Romano Amerio?

Since . . . the modernizing school of thought often admits in words what it denies in practice, and since it is an historical and psychological fact that the more some good is undermined in practice the more lip service there is paid to it, it is not surprising that the centenary of Aeterni Patris in 1979 was marked by statements praising and honoring the encyclical; empty praise indeed, for words cannot summon to existence things that are not. The conference on St. Thomas held in Rome in the centenary year of Aeterni Patris admitted the change that had occurred: With Vatican II, despite its reference to St. Thomas, the period of theological pluralism in which we are now living opened. . . . In short, the centenary celebration of Aeterni Patris was little more than a ceremonial, or even theatrical performance,²⁵ gone through partly for form’s sake in order to demonstrate continuity, and partly the product of that dulling of logical thought, which stems from losing a sense of the difference between the natures of things, and which leads to a confusing of one thing with another.

²⁵ Reading the Acts of the congress reminds one of books published in times past, under religious or political censorship. A book with a titlepage bearing the words Life of the Blessed Virgin would contain a collection of anti-religious prints, and Description of the Journey of Sir John Chasterly in China would turn out to contain the ideas of the Young Italy movement.

— Romano Amerio, Iota Unum, Paragraphs 240 and 242.