In Praise of Credulity

Mark Shea at Inside Catholic strives to avoid excesses of doubt:

St. Thomas Aquinas was once tricked by his fellow students who cried out, "Look! A flying ox!" Thomas dutifully went to the window to look, and his peers all laughed at him heartily. Thomas's reply (and one of the many reasons he's a saint): "I thought it more likely that an ox would fly than a Dominican would lie."

I thought of that story as I read a piece the other day on the Blessed Virgin Mary allegedly appearing in Egypt. I don't know if it's a real apparition or not, but the headline got me thinking. You see, I'm always rather leery of stuff on the Spirit Daily Web Site; I tend to think of it as Credulity Daily. But I'm also not altogether convinced that this speaks very well of me. I live in an age where making fun of the credulous is as easy as falling off a log, particularly when the credulity is directed at things having the savor of Christianity in its Catholic expression.

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