Pope Benedict on Atheistic systems: "Bombastic trumpeting ... conceal(s) their nothingness"

Father Blake on Saint Mary Magdalen has a wonderfully ironic post on the British Humanist Society's new 'Atheist Bus Campaign' which apparently involves the following slogan being plastered on the sides of buses in our 'sceptr'd isle.. and blessed plot....this England' etc. (The Bard's doing a few spins in his Stratford tomb, I should cocoa, particularly in view of recently well researched claims that he was a closet RC. Give you links later..absolutely fascinating. ) Sorry for digression here's the slogan:

'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.'

The vehicle in the photo on Father's blog looks like a bendy-bus. Very bendy. If a number 11 goes by bearing this rubbish when I'm in London next month, I may be constrained, in spite of the advice of Holy Smoke's 'Eminence Grise, to throw caution to the winds and publicly in the Westminster Cathedral Piazza, eat my mantilla. But calm down Janey bird. Pope Benedict has the answer as always:

"Even the decidedly atheistic materialistic systems create their own forms of cult, though, of course, they can only be an illusion and strive in vain, by bombastic trumpeting to conceal their nothingness." (see 'The Spirit of the Liturgy' page 21, in English version 2000 A.D. Ignatius Press)

When, by a small providence, I re-encountered these words a few nights ago, I laughed out loud, and yet again thanked God for our Pope and the fact that my mirth did not, in spite of open shutters because of a warm Autumn, disturb my sleeping neighbours.

Humour and Pope Benedict will be the subject of my next post. DV

ICPP