You hear it all the time. 137% of all Catholics contracept. 11 Catholics out of 10 contracept. (Their numbers, not mine.) And then when you say that the Church still says it’s wrong they drop the Latin hammer on ya’. Sensus freakin’ fidelium baby. Oh yeah.

Sensus fidelium is popularly understood as- if enough Catholics believe something stupid, it magically becomes right.

I’m wondering, what’s the poll number where that magic occurs? How many Catholics have to believe something ridiculous before it becomes magically right and the Vatican must bow down to the gods of Gallup.

What the power structure of the Church is obviously finding hard to understand (and me) is that the people who happen to be alive right now are soooooo much smarter than all the wisdom built up over 2,000 years. That’s a lot of dead dumb people, if you ask me. And it seems to me none of those previous generations watched “Two and a Half Men” so dead people have that going for them.

And there’s this. The sensus fidelium isn’t always important to these folks. I always wonder where the sensus fidelium disappears to when it comes to things like the death penalty. Polls report that 66% of Catholics support the death penalty. Why do some just insist the death penalty is always wrong and say they’re right and in that case the majority of living people are wrong when they were touting the wisdom of the masses moments before. Then, I guess, the sensus fidelium isn’t as important.

So what we have then is people who think they’re smarter than all the dead people and most of the living people now. Seems to me there’s a name for those people. No, not “Occupy Wall Street.” And no, not “Mr. President.”

I think they’re just blowhards. Just plain ol’ blowhards.