St. Hyacinth and Other "Fanatics"

It seems that someone with the spirit of St. Hyacinth did some idol smashing in Australia recently. According to the article on CathNews.com, some enlightened priest had a 3-ft tall Buddha in his church, and somebody took it out and smashed it! This is reminiscent of St. Hyacinth, whom we featured four days ago, in an article and in the "Saint of the Day" (Aug. 17). What a coincidence.

The Saints would rejoice, right? Well not all. For example, Cardinal Ratzinger, in 2002 before his elevation to the Throne, wrote in his book God and the World: Believing and Living in Our Time: “There were in fact Christian hotheads and fanatics who destroyed temples, who were unable to see paganism as anything more than idolatry that had to be radically eliminated.” (p. 373) Maybe St. Hyacinth, as well as St. Francis Xavier and St. Benedict, were just fanatics who would know better, had they enjoyed the enlightenment of our time.