I used to attend Mass in a parish in NYC where the pastor had studied with Raymond Brown and in fact had himself been very involved in producing the NAB (New American Bible). He began all his sermons on the Gospel or any passage of the Bible with the words, "It is commonly misunderstood..." and then proceeded to inform us all that of course there was no truth to any part of it.
Strangely enough, he was very conservative liturgically, and did everything possible not to implement the liturgical changes of VatII. But I always thought that he had "demythologized" himself out of any real faith, and was busy trying to do the same to the parish.
He also used to refuse to read Cardinal O'Connor's annual pro-life letter for Pro-Life Sunday, which was theoretically mandatory for reading at the Masses on that day. It was a university parish, and I think it was pretty clear what his opinion on this was and who he was courting by refusing to read the pro-life letter.
Intellectual pride can often be found at the heart of heresy.
That was pretty much the same preface to all the statements made by this priest who taught the pastoral [mal]formation classes I attended, he had degrees from Rome and also taught at my diocese's seminary, no doubt destroying the faith of many a seminarian.
Intellectual pride can often be found at the heart of heresy.
Yep. I once heard Fr. Groschel say:
"Anyone can be stupid, but it takes someone highly intelligent to be really stupid, because then their stupidity can have depth."