I’m a few days late commenting on the broom brawl in the Church of the Nativity. It seems this sort of tussle breaks out quite often this time of year. I’m not surprised. I mean, what would it be like if I had to share a church with the Baptists and Episcopalians?

A good old scrap like this doesn’t worry me too much. I would prefer it to the polite ecumenical discussions we used to have when I was an Anglican cleric. We’d all sit around and eat cookies and drink tea and pretend we liked one another, and then when it was all over we’d sit down and have a pint of beer with our mates and slag off the other side–and that was just among the Anglican clerics…

Seriously now, while I’m not in favor of broom fights, I am in favor of a bit more honesty and open ness in our debates with other Christians. We shouldn’t beat around the bush quite so much. If we truly believe that the Catholic Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church we say it is, then we should stick up for our side and, (in holy charity of course) defend the faith.

One of the biggest problems with the Catholic Church today is that we are the Church milquetoast rather then the  Church militant. The problem with being the Church militant is that we cannot wade out into battle without being armed with humility. If we fight in humility then there is a certain insouciance about it. I’m talking about fighting in foolishness–like Don Quixote or St Francis.

If we stand up and fight with self righteousness we shall surely lose, but if we stand up and fight as fools we might just win–for all the world loves the impudent clown (except for the self righteous–who are the enemy after all)

Because of this I have a smiling respect for the clerics who threw brooms at each other and had their foolish humanity broadcast to the world. I’d rather have them than the nauseating scrubbed and smiling army of self righteous Christians who want to impose their smiling ‘success’ on the whole world.