How suspicious should Catholics be? If we’re always suspicious, seeing heresy around every corner, we’ll exhaust ourselves and probably fail in charity too. But we have to be suspicious sometimes – because there’s a duty to defend the faith, and some attacks on the faith are devious and subtle.
That dilemma was at the heart of three controversies this week: a tweet, an administrative error, and an appointment.
The tweet was sent by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales – or rather, by whichever member of the communications staff was running the bishops’ Twitter account that day. “Today is Transgender Remembrance Day,” the tweet read, “and we pray for all people who are ill at ease with their gender, seek to change it, suffer for it and have been persecuted, and also killed. All people are loved by God and valued in their inherent God-given dignity. #TDOR”. The response from Catholics – “Cringing prostration to the dictats of social justice commissars is embarrassing and doesn’t win friends” was one typical reply on Twitter – might have been predicted.
