Another important doctrinal development from the hierarchy

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Nov 03, 2003

The Italian bishops have issued a message for that country's Thanksgiving Day, in which they announce that "water is certainly one of God's most essential gifts for life."

Remember the dufflepuds in C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader, creatures who ran around pointing out the obvious: "Water, powerful wet stuff, eh?"

Seriously, I'm grateful when any utterance made by a Catholic bishop, upon examination, can be shown not to weaken the deposit of the faith. Let them issue pastoral letters on solving crossword puzzles, and improving lawn care, and making sour cream-vegetable dip.

On the same lines, whenever anyone from the Right or Left suggests that the US bishops are conservative, I ask them to consider the fact that every orthodox Catholic would be delighted if, at their national meetings, the US bishops did nothing -- nothing whatever -- and left the Church no worse than they found it the week before. Even when the good guys manage to muster the vote to block a 2/3 majority on liturgy or doctrine we feel a wild urge to celebrate -- like Viet Cong villagers when a napalm canister comes through the roof of the cottage and fails to explode.