Essays in Idleness

Just yesterday I mentioned wrong places in which one might repose one’s hope — places in which, I would say, the long sleep of the just will prove unobtainable. Several of my correspondents seem to have missed my point, and one asked for a complete list — which, thanks to free enterprise, will be impossible to provide. Let me however give two examples that I find much in the news.

The first is the belief, among Republicans in USA, that this Trump gentleman (or I might almost say, fellow) is “getting better.” He is acting a little more presidential, and thus scoring fewer “own goals” now that he is in the championship final. Perhaps he is, though I think even I could word a few things more empathetically, were I playing this game of running for high office.

But the same correspondents are so appalled by this Clinton lady (or I might almost say, woman) that they desperately hope he will behave more like a presidential candidate, and less like a three-year-old with some powerful resentments. And it is in the nature of people — Republicants and Democritters alike — to believe what they want to believe. They are full of illusions, as a consequence of this, and the belief that a fat, loud-mouthed billionaire of seventy can change his colours without a massive and embarrassing religious conversion — or at least a coronary — is, shall we say, optimistic.

I realize this argument won’t work against his “warts and all” supporters. God help us when he takes to Twitter in the Oval Office.

Another point I have already made, perhaps too many times, but it does bear repetition. It is the notion that the world would fill with Catholics if we’d only make the moral requirements a little looser. This, too, shows little appreciation for the human psychology. On that level, people do not turn to a religion — the Christian one in particular — in the hope that they will now be allowed to behave like barbaric atheist neo-pagans. For that option is already available, outside Holy Church. Too, there are other “Christian clubs” with all the consumer variety that free enterprise can supply. Yet it is from the sense of being dirty that one seeks a shower; and from the sense of sin that one seeks to be washed in the blood of the Lamb. That is, to be as vulgar as possible, where conversions begin: in the terrible perception that one is “alone” within bad company. It is, if you will, our “unique selling point” — the Truth. Unchanging and unchangeable.

If you think people want to become Catholics because it is “cool,” think again.