Belloc and more Belloc

In his approach to skepticism Hilaire Belloc talks about “skepticism of intelligence” and “skepticism of stupidity”. The former is respectable, the latter is, by definition, stupid. I just wonder if the genuinely skeptic ones are risking extinction for the time being.
Following this thread I am led to think that not only the average quality of Catholics has dropped. It is also the quality of the enemies of the Church or, at least, of those who do not share the Holy Mother’s ethos. It is not just the decrease of the Catholics in their Faith. The Protestants are even in worse shape. If one compares attendance to Protestant Services and Masses in the UK, for example, the Catholics still perform considerably better.
Let’s take it from another angle. It is not just the holiness, but the sin as well. Definitely our times are not just the times of shrunk holiness. They are moments of buffed sin … for the worst! Before people used to sin, let’s say, quite often as a consequence of a “biological excess” or an “uncontrolled drive”, so to speak. At the very least there was the decency of not making a banner of it. Nowadays it is just looking for the limelight which seems to be the driving force. Modern society rejoices in public sin. I will even contend that there are more sins for defect than for excess these days. Cowardice is a suitable example, a sin far more prevalent today than its opposite sin, imprudence.
And this wee post was written in English in remembrance of our conversations in Tolkien’s language with O Corcunda, another (former) “Oxfordian” like myself, whose posts I kept missing when his “bloguctivity” was considerably reduced in recent times. I am certainly inclined to adscribe both O Corcunda and myself to the “Inklings” variety of Oxfordians. Indeed we frequented a certain pub …
And for those two English-speaking friends, who in spite of their struggling with their Spanish and their Portuguese, still make the effort or reading us. Thanks, folks!

Rafael Castela Santos