Who Are “They?’

I really cannot imagine anything more cold and more enslaved, more paralyzing to human reason or destructive of freedom than that thing to which millions of people are prostrating themselves every day, namely, the terrible, anonymous authority of “they.” “They say.” “They are wearing green this year.”  “They say that Catholics adore Mary.” “They say that the hair will be worn shorter this year.”  “They say that Freud is the thing.” Who are they? Countless slaves and puppets are bowing down daily before that invisible, tyrannical myth of they. No wonder dictatorships arose to personalize that terrible slavery. These millions will not accept the authority of Christ who rose from the dead, who continues to live in the Church. We know whom we obey. Millions do not know whom they are obeying. They cannot point to the persons or the object behind that terrible, anonymous “they”  But thank God we know. We obey our Lord in the Church.