It's the Age of the Pseudo-knowledgeable

Or perhaps, more appropriately, being fooled by the Pseudo-knowledgeable.

Mark Shea expounds:

Yesterday, the election of Francis completely blindsided the world, especially the English-speaking world of Americans, who don’t in for all the polylingual stuff and who largely don’t pay attention to things in Spanish-speaking media. Most people in the US went, “Wait. What? Who?” after the announcement and then scrambled to find out who the heck he was.

Yet, within an *hour* I was receiving combox message from people who, on the basis of a Wikipedia article, were speaking with absolute assurance that they knew everything there is to know about Argentinian history, Francis, his role in the Dirty War, and the complexities of his relationship with Church and State there. Above all, they knew with adamantine certainty that he was overwhelmingly guilty of “support” for torture and murder. And they knew that I knew all about this and was covering it all up.

...

“It’s all there on Wikipedia. Haven’t you *read* it?” say my Star Chamber comboxers. As though their accusations are the fruit of years of careful scholarship and not Barryesque BS of the first water. Dude: I’m just learning to pronounce the guy’s name. Only here’s the difference: so are you, but you lie and pretend you are an expert with damning knowledge, when the reality is you have no knowledge, just pseudoknowledge. I’ll wait until I have actual knowledge and not pseudoknowledge, thanks.

Read the whole piece.

There are two things in the wake of Pope Francis' election I find surprising though I guess I really shouldn't.

One, the idiocy I'm hearing from the media and the shallow-minded they're finding to interview about their hopes for Pope Francis to usher in a more progressive era, as if he were a politician sticking his finger in the air to gauge the pop cultural winds and react accordingly.  As if he were going to change core doctrine, core doctrine upon which others are built, by simply waving his hand.  It's utter stupidity.  It's absolute ignorance.  

Catholicism will change core doctrine after baseball does away with the pitcher and the batter, after golf does away with the driver and the ball, after football does away with the quarterback and his coach.  It's craziness.  If you do those things, you no longer have baseball or golf or football and you certainly won't have Catholicism if you decide that core doctrine must change.  

But just as surprising to me are the Catholics who've taken to social media and to blogs to criticize Pope Francis and who are, in a sense, agreeing that the media's idiocy and the idiocy coming out of the shallow they're interviewing, is about to come to bear.  They're out there and apparently in decent numbers.  It just seems way too early for that kind of thinking.  

Way too early.

And frankly, it suggests a complete lack of trust, even faith.

Catholics, let's give the guy some time.  It's only been 24 hours.  Let's give him 24 days and then perhaps start having conniption fits but please, let's all realize... Catholicism has survived for 2000 years despite the best efforts of many to ensure that she doesn't.

Truth may take a beating but Truth will stand in the end.

Bank on it.