"That's not how my Aana taught me to read the Bible."

"the first epistle of John. . . .  was composed at a time when the emergence of a new group of intellectuals, the so-called Gnostics, raised problems that are not unlike those we are facing today.  They interpreted the Christianity of the Church as a Christianity of the naive in comparison with the 'real' Christianity, in which the letter of faith, which Christians had thus far accepted, could be manipulated by sophisticated methods of interpretation to accord with one's own views.  Simple Christians felt themselves deceived and, at the same time, more or less helplessly victimized by the intellectual superiority of the Gnostics and their inventions.  In his response (1 Jn 2:18-27), John says:  You have all received the anointing that instructed you; you have no need of further instruction.  The Apostle opposed to the arrogance of an intellectual elite the unsurpassability of simple faith and of the insight it bestows. . . .  This common knowledge, which comes from baptism, is not subject to a higher interpretation; it is itself the measure of every interpretation.  It is the source of life for the Church, which, in the sacrament and in the catechesis that is part of the sacrament, is the real bearer of the word.

     "We come thus to understand the duty of bishops as representatives of the Church with regard to theology.  Their obligation as bishops is not to seek to play an instrument in the concert of specialists but, rather, to embody the voice of simple faith and its simple primitive instincts, which precede science and threaten to disappear where science makes itself absolute.  In this sense, they serve, in fact, a completely democratic function that rests, not on statistics, but on the common gift of baptism. . . .  The common ground of baptismal faith, which the Magisterium must protect, does not fetter a theology that properly understands itself but rather issues to it that challenge that has proved fruitful again and again throughout the centuries.  The model of enlightened reason cannot assimilate the structure of faith. . . .  But faith, for its part, is comprehensive enough to assimilate the intellectual offer of the Enlightenment and give it a task that is meaningful also for faith."

     Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "The Church and scientific theology" (1978), in Principles of Catholic theology:  building stones for a fundamental theology, trans. Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 1987), 330-331 (322-331) =Theologische Prinzipienlehre (Munich:  Erich Wewel Verlag, 1987) ="The Church and scientific theology," Communio:  international Catholic review 7 (1980):  332-342 ="Kirche und wissenschaftliche Theologie," in W. Sandfuchs, ed., Die Kirche (Würzburg, 1978), 83-95.  "The shepherds of the Church not only find themselves exposed today to the [supposedly Enlightened] accusation that they still hold fast to the methods of the Inquisition and try to strangle the Spirit by the repressive power of their office; they are, at the same time, attacked by the voice of the faithful, who accuse them more and more loudly of being mute and cowardly watchdogs that stand idly by under the pressure of liberal publicity while the faith is being sold piecemeal for the dish of pottage of being recognized as 'modern'" (324).  "Under this new aspect, the shepherd of the Church is offered the opportunity of giving his teaching ministry a democratic form:  of becoming the advocate of the faithful, of the people, against the elitist power of the intellectuals" (324).  "To that extent, we are correct in seeing in the function of the ecclesial Magisterium a democratic element that derives from its Christian origin" (325).  For "Faith is not to be placed in opposition to reason, but neither must it fall under the absolute power of enlightened reason and its methods" (325), which often set themselves up in opposition to the intrinsic logic of the Christian faith (which, unlike the religions of the East, is, in fact, a logos, and not a mythos (327)).
     The headline I stole from my dear friend and sister Esther Smith.