Perhaps you remember Michael Higgins, president of St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, Canada, who last graced these pages in July when he wrote an opinion column for the Toronto Star extolling liturgical dancing, especially that of certain Jesuits, and then insulted his pastor for refusing to allow Higgins’ daughters to dance at a family funeral.
Now Higgins is back and this time he’s charging Pope Benedict with “gross stupidity.” Not much nuance there. Higgins is a real diplomat.
In Higgins’ opinion, “the only possible answer” to the question of why the Pope said what he did in Regensberg [sic] is, “gross stupidity.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Higgins then goes on to say that “the Pope lacks ‘even a child’s grasp of basic Christian ethics,’ for having dared to risk the wrath of Islamic extremists in his address.”
Quoting the gospel of St. Matthew, Higgins insists that the Pope would only have had the right to criticize the excesses of Islamic fundamentalism, if he had begun with mea culpa’s for the “violence in his own tradition.”
You get the sense from some of these Catholic critics of Pope Benedict that they’re more embarrassed by their own religion than they are offended by the violent reaction of the Muslim extremists.
Based on these two public actions by Higgins, if I were a Canadian Catholic considering colleges for my kids, I would be crossing St. Thomas off my list.
[Thanks to Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex for the link.]Technorati Tags:Canada, Catholic, dissent, Islam, Pope, Regensburg
