Giving and Taking Offense

Fr. Longenecker's latest complain-o-gram on Patheos includes a few noteworthy bits:

Traditionalist Catholics are constantly getting on their high horse. Then its the feminist and homosexualists who are stomping off in high dudgeon. Next it is the Liberals or the Eastern Orthodox or the Lutherans or the college students or the environmentalists.[...]

That’s why we have these college “safe spaces” and the fear of free speech–because other people’s truth is a threat and makes you feel bad.

The irony of criticizing safe spaces while shutting down his own comment box is almost too obvious to point out, but I cannot seem to help myself. Last year, "Fr. Dwight" was deeply offended by any objection to Mother Teresa's canonization, and he frequently displays the same thin skin as most Patheos/Aleteia/NCR/WordOnFire ephemerists. His casual calumnies of everyone who is not exactly him are too boorish to be attended in any great detail.

Still, the basic conceit of the article—that Catholics should grow a sense of humor and thick skin—is solid enough. It is no virtue to be quick to anger at every little thing, nor to be habituated towards emotional rather than intellectual arguments.

One simply wishes that the good padre would take his own advice.