Morons with doctorates

One generally imagines that tenured professors with terminal degrees have a certain amount of intellectual ... Ability? And then, one's assumptions are challenged by gems from the mouths of the academes themselves. For instance, behold Boston College religion prof Alan Wolfe holding forth with regard to church and state:

It may make sense to allow symbolic displays of religion, but some religions are very symbolic while others are not. Catholics, for example, worship statues of saints, which conservative Protestants generally view as a form of idolatry.

Ahhh. Yes. You know, conservative Protestants view statue-worshipping as idolatry because, well, it is idolatry. Catholics who have gotten beyond their first two years of life without damage to their brains also know this to be true. Just when you think the whole "Catholics worship statues! And saints! And Mary!" crap had been successfully banished to the far margins of wacked-out, hate-mongering Jack Chick-dom, you hear it out of the mouth of a religion professor. And this really ices the cake: Boston College is supposed to be a Catholic university. I guess it's just a Jesuit university now ;) No offense to the "good" Jesuits ... I know you're out there somewhere, har har!

I'm really hoping Dr. Wolfe has been misprinted or something. And yet ... I have looked at some of his other work over the years, and in terms of quality it seems to jive pretty well with his "understanding" of Catholicism. Grr.

Came upon this on Off the Record.