Originally published at The Catholic Thing
The progressive theologians’ guild imagines itself to be the cutting edge of Catholic thought but displays a certain atavistic character reminiscent of the Bourbons, as the French dynasty-in-exile was described by the diplomat Talleyrand: “They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” In the former category of ignorance is the guild’s refusal to concede that some matters of doctrine and morality have been definitively settled. In the latter, the guild has never forgiven John Paul II for issuing the 1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor (The Splendor of Truth) on the authentic reform of Catholic moral theology.
