I often think of James Bond when I think of the Jesuits. No, not becuase they travel the world putting themselves in grave danger for the sake of others. Those are old school Jesuits. No, I think of James Bond when I think of the faith of many Jesuits. The faith of many Jesuits is just like a James’ Martinis.

Shaken, not stirred.

Language in the hands of a Jesuit theologian is like taffy. Sweet nothings boiled and stretched into something completely other. Sweet on the tongue and of no nutritional value.

So it is with Jesuit Priest James Keenan, professor of Theology at Boston College.

Fr. Keenan is aware that Pope Benedict has decried relativism. Most theologians should understand that relativism is a bad thing. Most Jesuit theologians also think that traditionalism is a bad thing. So, using their impeccable logic, if relativism is bad AND traditionalism is bad — ergo relativism and traditionalism must be the same thing. That was easy! And you didn’t even have to pay the $40k a year for Boston College.

Asked about what Pope Benedict XVI has termed as a “creeping secularism” and his call to address the moral relativism of today’s society, Fr Keenan said that the notion of relativism “ cuts two ways”.

“We can have a relativism in which we simply say; ‘what the church once taught in 1548 has never changed and always remains the same’”, which Fr Keenan notes, is not possible. “There is the relativism of those who want to objectify tradition is such as way that they want us to be living in the past with rules that do not address some of the contemporary challenges that we have. So there is a relativism that comes from objectifying the tradition”.

Got that.

Don’t get me wrong, its not that I think that most Jesuits are stupid, just that they are really really lazy. I mean they can’t even be bothered to come up with new words to describe heresies of the right, they need to re-use words that mean the exact opposite.

They are so lazy they can’t even put two words that combine normally-contradictory terms. What is that called again? Something….

MORON.