philosophers and the church

From Henri de Lubac in his Méditaiton sur L’Église:

On raconte qu’un malheureux prêtre, au soir de son apostasie, dit à un visiteur qui s’apprêtait à le féliciter: “Désormais je ne suis plus qu’un philosophe, c’est-à-dire un homme seul”.

(The story is told of a poor priest who, on the night of his apostasy, said to a visitor who was about to congratulate him: “From now on i am only but a philosopher, that is, a lonely man”.)

If Christianity has anything that philosophers, atheists and humanists can and perhaps should envy, it is the institution of the church. A christian can go anywhere in the world, even in the darkest reaches of lands entirely foreign to him or her and nevertheless find fellow christians who will immediately accept them as a brother or sister in christ. That is something the non-religious simply do not have. And it is, i think, a sad, melancholy thought.