While the current pope certainly isn't my cup of tea and I dislike many bishops' modernism (which correlates with liberalism), Hoyt's article reflects fuzzy thinking in many respects. I'll just address two points: She mentions the Church's so-called meddling in politics and international affairs. People didn't mind this when the Church was opposing communism, and it certainly was a good thing when it inspired opposition to Muslim invasion via the Crusades. The point is that Truth touches everything, so the Church will, obviously, be touching on everything. The real issue currently is that the bishops in question have departed from Truth in much of what they advocate, but in principle Hoyt is wrong.

Moreover, it's unrealistic saying "the Church shouldn't be involved in politics" when the government is so big that everything is political! The state now "touches on everything," so it's sort of hard to avoid "getting political"; you could quip that to do this you'd have to confine yourself to talking about the weather, but with "climate change" even this wouldn't suffice.

Hoyt's piece also reflects today's all-too-common relativism. She writes, "We should take the time tonotbother our neighbors who happen to not be Catholic because they don’t behave like Catholics and instead show by our example the joy of a moral life."I certainly agree that most important is setting a good example; virtues are caught more than they're taught. But following her advice, we shouldn't have tried to stop pagans from engaging in human sacrifice (because, hey, that was part of their religion) or complain about FGM among Muslims today. Truth is Truth; morality applies to everyone. Of course, how we best try to convince people to be moral is a matter of tactics, which may have to vary depending on the time and place. But we ain't talkin' about coffee drinkers vs. tea drinkers here. This isn't a matter of taste.

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