Some interesting stuff there but not what quite I meant. What I was driving at was that, firstly, it is frequently overstated by liberals in a desperate bid to get public opinion coalesced around some kind of issue (any issue will do) and, secondly and more importantly, it directly mirrors developments in the secularised side of contemporary society to do with uncertainty. Some fundamentalists seem rather more shaky in their beliefs than one might imagine. The Islamic variety, particularly those in the West, seem to be drawn to it largely for what one might call cultural reasons. Coming from the place I do, I've always been suspicious of identity politics.
By the way, as I'm sure you know, papal infallability does not apply to all pontifical actions or utterings and, more or less, must be invoked in Simon Says fashion, even if done so ex post facto. Thus we get an declaration: "Benedict says: limbo doesn't exist," and, whoosh, thousands of dead babies disappear, making Bernard Gui, sorry I mean Josef Ratzinger, the biggest abortionist in history. Or something.
As for Unitarians and the like, I occasionally wonder why they don't just go the extra mile and admit what they really think. I recall hearing about some German theologian who decided Jesus didn't walk on water but in fact strolled along a submerged plank which rather leads one to ask the question... was Jesus the world's first surfer?
Still, I somtimes read the Christian Science Monitor so I'm a stinking hypocrite.
Yours, John XVI.