A bigot is a man who’s got nothing but opinions. The opposite of the bigot is the zealot. Think of Teddy Roosevelt or St. Francis of Assisi. They both had this infectious, indomitable zeal—for life, for nature, for God, for their fellow man. One was probably the greatest churchman of all time; the other was maybe the greatest statesman. Yet we wouldn’t really call either of them opinionated. They didn’t have opinions—they had principles, convictions. They never spoke out. They spoke up.
 

The post In praise of agnostics appeared first on The Catholic Thing.