It really would behoove academics to take a hard look at many of their assumptions especially when they spend more time on natural law and casuistry than the gospels. Casuistry is a solid part of Catholic tradition to a certain extent. Moral theologians used casuistry to rescue the faithful from absurd theologians who saw sin everywhere and virtually terrorized people. Similarly, with natural law, academics can show that Christians can be no slouches when it comes to philosophical complexities.
Yet the following of Jesus is much more simple than our learned brethren oftentimes make it . And that includes Augustine, Origin and Thomas, among others. Origin used to complain that he tried to explain the finer points of the faith to people but all they were interested in was “Jesus Crucified.”
Archbishop Dolan of New York expressed consternation recently at the Pew study which showed that people were fine with Jesus and God. But did not like or identify with bishops or the clergy. The faithful still teach the hierarchy of today as well as they taught Origin and others who strayed from what was essential to the mission of Jesus.
