Letters to the Editor: September 2024

Christ Our Mascot?

Doug Wilson rightly admonishes “Big Eva”; Kennedy Hall rightly admonishes “Catholic Inc.” (June). I have heard the former called the “Business of Churchianity,” and the latter “Status Quo Ordo.” Regardless of the names, these represent a perennial problem, and Hall is right to identify the Catholic version in our time and place.

The core of the problem can be described as “starting out to do good and ending up doing well.” Over time, people and institutions have found association with Christ to be not only liberating but profitable. We can see this vividly in Catholic education. For example, I know of many parents who send their children to pricey, self-identified Catholic high schools. These parents tolerate aberrations such as Muslim women “preaching” at school Masses and the hegemony of the Rainbow Cult because Johnny and Sally are less likely to get shot at this school (“in the Catholic tradition”) and are more likely to get good ACT/SAT scores. What could be better than that?

In these institutions, Catholic “mission and identity” are more about name recognition and branding; Christ is a kind of mascot of the school rather than its meaning and measure. Something similar happens with self-identified Catholic institutions of higher learning. Pretty much everyone knows this and winks at it without qualms of conscience — after all, “it’s just business.” As these institutions become less and less the apostolates of religious communities and more and more the vehicles of profit for stakeholders, the temptation to bend the knee to the demands of the market rather than to the commands of Christ becomes almost irresistible.

Something similar might be said about Catholic media. Although mendicant or apostolic religious orders of the past arranged their lives to have the freedom to “preach the gospel in and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2), Catholic media — whether in the form of groups or as individuals — have to turn a profit in order to keep the lights on (as well as the computers, printers, microphones, and cameras). A Catholic corporation might have more ballast with which to weather a storm of unpopularity than a Catholic man trying to feed his family via social media. Both have mouths to feed, and the inclination to undertake a risk/benefit analysis before speaking a challenging word seems inevitable.

Priests and religious are not immune to this form of calculation. Priests can have their faculties withdrawn by their bishop. Religious can be “sequestered” by their communities — unable to perform public ministry and having no permission to speak, publish, or broadcast. Priests and religious may wonder if they will be “disappeared” if they aren’t team players.

It avails us nothing if we win the approval of the world but lose Christ (cf. Mk. 8:36; Phil. 3:8-10). Hall is correct: Each Catholic professional must examine his conscience and repent of any moves toward becoming a professional Catholic. I would like to add a consideration to his analysis.

What is the responsibility of the audiences that make up the congregations, listenership, viewership, and/or readership? Do they expect tame and soothing writing and broadcasting? What if Catholic audiences demanded authentic Catholic content from their preachers, authors, and broadcasters? They might be able to take some pressure off Catholic professionals (cf. 1 Tim. 5:18). Meanwhile, all Catholics must cry out with St. Paul, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16), and then act accordingly.

Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.

Buffalo, New York

Kennedy Hall makes an important distinction between Catholic professionals and professional Catholics (“On Selling One’s Soul to Catholic Inc.”). The rise of the professional Catholic is disturbing. It evokes the moneychangers in the Temple. But that’s a debate for another day.

The decision by the leadership of the prayer app Hallow to pay Liam Neeson — he of sound voice and faulty faith — to read aloud is egregious on its face. But even more troubling is Hall’s query: “How much money did Hallow drop on a pro-abort celebrity so he could read…to Catholics on an app that Catholics must pay to use?” Emphasis on pay to use.

I suggest two ways to pray online for free: The Word (word.op.org) and The Catechism in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz (free podcast available via Ascension Press). The Word offers a daily Scripture reading and reflection by a Dominican priest, sister, or lay Dominican from around the world. CIY, as the name suggests, covers the Catechism of the Catholic Church line by line, followed by insightful commentary by Fr. Mike. Ascension accepts donations, but there is no cost or paywall. Both of these are superior to supporting Catholic Inc.

Valoree Dowell

Marine on Saint Croix, Minnesota

Both Kennedy Hall’s article on Catholic Inc. and Thomas Banks’s review of The Habsburg Way: Seven Rules for Turbulent Times (June) share a certain heaviness that obscures the good.

Like Mr. Hall, I am generally not a fan of what he calls Catholic Inc. and what I call commercial Catholicism. Nevertheless, Catholic Inc. does some real good. This spring, the Napa Institute and the Catholic Information Center — both “anchor stores” in the mall of Catholic Inc. — brought in the great Robert Cardinal Sarah, whose homily at the Catholic University of America and whose other remarks while in the United States breathed great life and hope for all who labor in the Lord’s vineyards.

More broadly, FOCUS, Ascension Press, That Man is You, and Exodus 90 reach hundreds of thousands of men and women, young and old, with the good news that living the Good News is lifegiving and joyful. Do they go so far as to introduce people to the depths of moral and spiritual theology? Well, they touch on them. And they give those with the interest and inclination general guidance on how to go deeper, and those who are not ready are not put off. In this way, each soul is given what it needs, and a certain peace, necessary for spiritual growth, is maintained in the Church.

Hall and I will agree about the differences between real and false peace, and we will also agree about pandering for profit. So, too, I think, will the apostolates I have mentioned by name.

I’m not exactly sure what Mr. Banks expected Archduke Eduard Habsburg’s book to be, but a “how-to” treatise on living an aristocratic Catholic life is the sort of book a courtier, not a nobleman, would write. A review of a thousand years of family history requires a certain lightness of touch, as does commenting on the foibles and failures, as well as the successes, of one of Europe’s major dynasties.

Perhaps the best comment would be the Archduke’s on the Empress Zita, whom he visited as a child: “You could sense the rod of moral steel that kept her straight, and she had a gentle and warm-hearted way about her. What impressed me most was her social grace, the way she made sure everyone in the room was involved in the conversation, even the youngest.” Moral steel with gentleness and warmth: We know so many who possess one or the other; possessing them both is the fruit of contemplation and suffering. Attention to the youngest, the most insignificant: that’s a living icon of the glory of God.

The Habsburgs’ focus on God’s glory and humility, and their own humble recognition that they are servants of all they lead, seem to me important lessons, as is the light way the Archduke has imparted them.

It is all too easy these days to give in to bitterness. Bitterness is death to the soul. Far better to see the good in what others do — things we have not done or cannot do — and their doing them in ways that magnify the grace of God and the graciousness of soul that arises in those who love, serve, and know Him. Here we find an antidote to our overly serious age.

David Carradini

Linden, Virginia

Clearing Out the Smoke

I was delighted to read Andrew M. Seddon’s article (June) on the “smoke” in some of the song-thangs we Catholics have been cajoled (or fooled) into singing. When I hear some of them, I have in my mind’s eye an image of a still-true-believer from that first generation after the Second Vatican Council, in bell-bottom trousers, a bit frayed after all these years, hobbling back from Communion with just a trace of an ecclesial Watusi in his gait.

I’ve heard it said that since bad art falls into oblivion and only the good stuff survives, we end up with a skewed picture of the quality of hymns before our time. Alas, I know too much about hymnody to fall for that; I collect hymnals, and I have played — not well, I assure you — a few thousand of them on the piano. As poetry, none of the hymns in my wide-ranging collection is flat-out stupid, incompetent, or ungrammatical, but plenty of hymns in the typical Catholic hymnal are just that. I will give two examples. The first is from Marty Haugen’s heretical song “Gather Us In.” The first lines of the first stanza wouldn’t have passed by the master of a Victorian elementary school:

Here in this place new light
is streaming,
Now is the darkness
vanished away;
See in this space our fears
and our dreamings
Brought here to you in the
light of this day.

Where is “this place”? And what is “this space” doing there, except to fill up a few syllables and provide an empty and meaningless rhyme? And what the heck is a “dreaming”? Is it a “dream” — vague and puffy as that image here is? Then why “dreamings”? Is it only to rhyme with “streaming”? The awkward plural gerund sticks out all the more because it doesn’t actually rhyme. The song gets worse, I assure you.

The second example is from Fred Pratt Green’s “Earth and All Stars.” Mr. Green was well intended, I believe, and he did try to make sense. The problem is that modern poetry has put it into people’s heads that you don’t have to think sharply about reality to write a good poem. So Green calls on everything in our everyday life to praise the Lord, including, in schools, “loud-boiling test tubes.” “Loud-flushing toilets” would make better aural sense and would be even more comical than boiling test tubes. Green wasn’t really picturing the scene. It’s just a bit of pious effervescence. But gas here and gas there do not a poem make.

Imagine somebody taking a big tomcat, pressing it claws-first on a blackboard, and scraping it up and down for four solid minutes. That’s what most of the hymns written since 1970 are. But I can say one thing about the tomcat: He ain’t a heretic, anyhow.

Anthony Esolen

Warner, New Hampshire

I was gratified that Andrew M. Seddon shares my long-held opinion of the line “Not in some heaven light years away” in Marty Haugen’s “Gather Us In” (“The Smoke in the Songs,” June). I have one additional complaint about that line: the word some implies that Heaven doesn’t really exist.

Once, years back, when I mentioned these complaints after Mass, a parishioner responded that she had never noticed those words, despite having sung them numerous times. Also back then, the author of an article similar to Dr. Seddon’s opined that “Gather Us In” was one of several newer hymns that would be appropriate for use at a meeting of a communist party cell.

I have told my son that when I go, I want hymns at my funeral Mass like the ones from back when I was a kid: “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” — and by all means not “On Eagle’s Wings.”

Regarding inappropriate music, my mother told me she was angered and disappointed when told they couldn’t play “Here Comes the Bride” (the “Bridal Chorus” from Wagner’s opera Lohengrin) at her 1946 wedding to my dad because, the priest (erroneously) explained, the composer had committed suicide. I dismayed her further by advising her that the composer had been far too much in love with himself ever to do that, and that he had died of a heart attack in Venice.

That said, I was stunned when in 1977, during the funeral Mass for my paternal grandmother — a staunch Catholic immigrant from Poland — the organist played a portion of the beautiful “Liebestod” from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, an opera about illicit sex. I still don’t understand how that sneaked through. (And my grandmother had never been particularly fond of Germans to begin with.)

Walter Staruk

Middletown, Maryland

Can I say that Andrew M. Seddon’s critique of today’s liturgical music strikes a chord?

I am old enough to remember the Hymnal for Young Christians, which provided joss sticks of hootenanny to waft in our newly remodeled churches back in the early 1970s. As a young seminarian, I joined my peers in learning to strum three chords on a cheap guitar (not the same chords Dr. Seddon sounded with such perspicacity) and raise my voice with “Here we are, all together as we sing our song, joyfully….” Then came the St. Louis Jesuits, introducing Scripture, of all things, as the foundation for the lyrics of songs at Mass. Needless to say, it was a great advancement (thanks, Jesuits!). Unfortunately, additional guitar chords were needed, so my stint as a liturgical musician reached its coda.

In 1974 the Liturgy of the Hours emerged, chockful of hymns with which I still think everyone ought to be familiar (granted, a few duds are included). But here we find not only lyrics that are theologically sound and beautifully poetic (meter included), but melodies that have time-honored names fit for four-part harmony.

We should encourage Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Oregon (whom Seddon quotes), so that his wisdom and orthodoxy may influence the content of hymns published by the Oregon Catholic Press. OCP is in a position (at least in this part of the country) to become a new powerhouse of beauty and grace and a resource for those aspiring to enhance the liturgical experience in our churches by improving, expanding, and enhancing its repertory.

I might be a bit more forgiving of some of today’s pastoral musicians than Seddon is. When a contemporary hymnodist pens and sings a colorful or evocative turn of phrase to praise the Lord, I can take holy delight. I don’t necessarily jump to the conclusion that the Evil One is simply tickling my ears and leading me astray theologically. My beef with newer liturgical music is a bit different. The melodies seem more fitting for orchestra pits and stages on Broadway than for our sanctuaries. Showtunes become popular for a reason (singability? catchy rhythm? contemporary cultural spirit?), but we Catholics do ourselves a disservice by abandoning our musical treasures.

Revive the old, ring in some new, and let’s be grateful that people like Dr. Seddon make us wake up and pay attention.

Rev. Jay H. Peterson

Chancellor Pro Tempore, Diocese of Great Falls-Billings

Great Falls, Montana

I was pleased to see Andrew M. Seddon’s critique of modern Church music. He is brave to try to tackle the problem. Will anything be done about it? Cleaning out the hymnals is going to be much harder than it was to mess them up in the first place. That is partly because some of the “new” hymns are no longer new; they have become traditional. It is good to know that some prelates, such as Archbishop Sample, are trying to stem the tide. If only priests, organists, and choir directors would take notice!

There are hymns that are not only stupid but heretical, and though Seddon does not say so, it is clear that these could drive away someone who was thinking about checking out the Church. Whatever trivializes the holy cannot be other than off-putting. Not to mention that such horrors provide fuel for those who claim the Church has become corrupt, and we are justified — indeed, commanded — to look elsewhere for salvation.

It’s no wonder many of us are careful to find conservative parishes. I am grateful for the new generation of holy priests who guide their flocks with fervor and common sense, and I am sorry for those Catholics who do not have access to them. Though there may be some weird stuff in our parish’s hymnal, I doubt it is being sung. Thanks to Seddon, I’m going to pay more attention!

Colleen Drippé

St. Marys, Kansas

As usual, I read the latest issue of NOR cover to cover. Two articles, however, hit on themes dear to my heart. The first was Andrew M. Seddon’s on the mess of liturgical music in the vast majority of parishes in the country. I am happy to report that I’ve never heard of most of the loony tunes he identifies therein.

Of course, Thomas Day, way back in the previous millennium (1992), hit all the right notes in his magisterial Why Catholics Can’t Sing: The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste. His 2013 update, unfortunately, had nothing better to report. I have been beating the same drum before and after him.

As Dr. Seddon points out, not only is the “hymnody” bad music, it is all too often bad theology, even heretical. I believe it was in 2007, when Francis Cardinal George assumed the presidency of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, that I wrote him a detailed letter of concern about the state of liturgical music, with particular emphasis on the issue of heterodoxy. He wrote back within a week and committed himself to shepherding through the USCCB a study of the problem and a subsequent document. The document emerged and dealt with it all reasonably well, but, lacking teeth, it died aborning.

The good news, from my experience, is that the nutty stuff is mainly the preserve of left-over hippies. In fact, if you do a Google search, you will find videos of “folk groups” plying their craft for near-empty “assemblies,” looking like a warmed-over version of The Mamas and the Papas: octogenarian men with either long hair or ponytails or no hair, and women of the same generation, with severe looks, in peasant dresses. On the other hand, search for scenes from parishes with traditional hymnody and Gregorian chant, and you will find images of vibrant young folk (and full pews). It must be hard for people so desirous of “relevancy” to find themselves considered irrelevant by the next two generations. What did Fulton Sheen say about getting wedded to the spirit of the present age and waking up a widow in the next?

John M. Grondelski’s article on “mixed” marriages was equally engaging. While the Church has never totally forbidden mixed marriages — St. Paul deals with the phenomenon within the canon of the New Testament (and St. Augustine was the product of such a union) — she always held to the notion that those unions were less than ideal and thus made them more difficult to enter. Truth be told, that instinct is no more than good psychology, held to even by most Reform Jews, let alone the Orthodox.

That said, the Church embarked on that proverbial “slippery slope” more than a century ago. And so, for a bit of ecclesiastical marital trivia: We find that, originally, both parties (Catholic and non-Catholic) had to promise to raise their children Catholic. That morphed into the non-Catholic simply being made aware that the Catholic had to do all in his or her power to do so. In terms of the ceremony, at least in this country, it could take place only in the rectory office; then, it moved to the sacristy; then, outside the altar rail; then, within the sanctuary; then, very stupidly, it could take place even with a Mass (which, thankfully, most priests will no longer do). The last practice caused immeasurable difficulties because the non-Catholic (and his whole party) could not receive Holy Communion; that did not stop some priests from disregarding that law and inviting everyone to “come on up.”

The huge marital policy “elephant in the room” comes, however, from the Council of Trent. Often, we hear would-be traditionalists decry “ecumenism gone wild” as having its origins in Vatican II. I dissent. That award goes to Trent. As we know, in less than two generations, the priesthood was gone from Protestant communities, thus eviscerating their sacramental system (what was left of it by then), which meant, among other things, that valid marriages were gone. Trent, in an effort to save the legitimacy of children born of those unions, changed the minister of matrimony from a priest to the couple themselves — frankly, a shocking development! — and we have suffered from that decision ever since.

Thus, I have been able to reflect on both fine articles by speaking of “marital musical chairs.”

Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas

Editor, The Catholic Response

Pine Beach, New Jersey

ANDREW M. SEDDON REPLIES:

I am grateful to Anthony Esolen, Frs. Peter M.J. Stravinskas and Jay H. Peterson, Walter Staruk, and Colleen Drippé for commenting on my article.

Prof. Esolen has written eloquently on the great hymns of the Church, and I commend his book Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church and his Illuminations column in Touchstone (I hope one day he will make a compilation of them). He does not mince words when describing the poor grammar and lamentable attempts at poetry that afflict certain hymns in the typical Catholic hymnal. And if we were to include those that are theologically questionable, it would surely require more than a brief article to cover them all.

Mr. Staruk mentions the phrase “some heaven light years away” in “Gather Us In” as introducing doubt that Heaven, as traditionally understood as being in the Presence of God, really exists. I wouldn’t disagree. In fact, the image it conjures up of a physical “heaven” somewhere in our galaxy, rather than inspiring me to praise God, makes me more inclined to exclaim, “Beam me up, Scotty!” — or to recall the plot of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier in which the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise starship embarks on a misguided quest to find “God” on a planet at the center of the galaxy, only to discover this “god” not to be divine at all but an evil alien creature imprisoned there.

Staruk also brings up the issue of funerals. When my mother died last year, my father and I met with our priest to plan the funeral Mass. When it came to music, the priest mentioned that “On Eagle’s Wings” is very popular. My mother, who was 91, had been raised English Methodist, spent decades as a Baptist pastor’s wife in both England and America, and then years in the Episcopal Church before joining the Catholic Church later in life. She would have been horrified at having “On Eagle’s Wings” sung at her funeral, so I demurred as politely as I could. Instead, we sang “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven,” “Be Thou My Vision,” “Come Down, O Love Divine,” and “Praise to the Holiest in the Height,” all of which my mother knew and loved. Alas, apart from “Be Thou My Vision,” I’m not sure anyone in attendance had much, if any, familiarity with these older hymns.

Like Fr. Peterson, I have no objection to a contemporary hymnodist who creates a colorful or evocative turn of phrase to praise the Lord. After all, St. Francis of Assisi did it admirably in his “Canticle of the Sun” — although we have to sing it in Marty Haugen’s bowdlerized version. The line “the moon and the stars who light up the way unto your throne” again sounds suspiciously as if Haugen’s concept of Heaven is confined to our galaxy/universe.

Poetical turns of phrase must make sense, be intelligent, glorify God, and fix our focus on Him. When I come across a line such as “birds fly in treetops where swift waters run” (if I remember the exact words correctly, from a hymn the name of which I have forgotten), I don’t imagine the 23rd Psalm, which is probably what the author intended, but a deluge of water at treetop height giving the poor birds nowhere to land. I have to keep from laughing, and any sense of reverence goes by the board. Such lyrics are distracting rather than elevating.

I share Fr. Peterson’s beef with hymns that are musically bad, insipid, earworm, dancehall — choose your adjective. Hymns that present bad theology, even to the point of being heretical, could lead people astray or turn seekers away from the Catholic Church and even Christianity itself, as Colleen Drippé aptly concludes. When dealing with people who may be poorly catechized or uneducated in the faith, hymns that are theologically weak or even erroneous are the last thing we should be offering them.

All this raises the question as to why such things end up in Catholic hymnals to begin with, why music directors choose them, and why Catholics are happy to sing them. Why the rush to embrace the contemporary to the neglect or exclusion of hymns that nourished, inspired, and comforted generations in the past, and that have stood the tests of time, poetical and musical excellence, and theological soundness?

It’s not as though there aren’t any contemporary hymnodists who know how to write properly. One example is retired Anglican bishop Timothy Dudley-Smith, now 97, author of about 400 hymns, some of which have made it into Catholic hymnals, such as Worship.

Of course, good hymnody alone is no unshakable buttress against error and empty pews — the dismal state of the Church of England, despite its magnificent patrimony of hymns, demonstrates that. But hymnody is a musical treasure and heritage, and the best hymns are a source of inspiration and nourishment to the soul. Let us pray with Fr. Stravinskas for the return of traditional hymnody and Gregorian chant, and for pews full of vibrant folk, young and old alike.

Mixed Marriages & Religious Indifferentism

John M. Grondelski’s focus on the destruction of Catholic belief through mixed marriages is spot on (“Mixed Marriages: Breeding Grounds for Religious Indifferentism?” June). In fact, he may have put a finger on a major cause of the deterioration of Catholic belief. My own experience confirms his assertion that most mixed marriages end up with the Catholic spouse giving ground, sometimes all of it. The result of this religious tension, Dr. Grondelski correctly notes, is that “the child will face the broader cultural message that marriage is but one of many ‘love forms’ to be chosen at will.” He asks, “Is there a connection between the decrease in Catholic marriages and the overall decrease in numbers of Catholics?” Well, duh!

As one of the shrinking number of folks who have witnessed the Church’s backsliding on this issue — from a position of active discouragement of mixed marriages to actively embracing them — I can affirm the accuracy of Grondelski’s summary. For a more extensive discussion, I recommend David Carlin’s book The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America. But more is needed, much more, than addressing the problem from the pulpit or online. More is needed from the Church to address how the commitment to Catholic truth actually works in “the real world.”

A basic, ground-level issue is: Where does a faithful Catholic woman go these days to meet a faithful Catholic man? Not bars, certainly. Nor the gym. Catholic dating sites? Where are places where young Catholics can meet socially? There was a time in America, within the lived experience of a dwindling number of us, when the Church actually provided such a place — a “safe space,” in today’s parlance — within which children could grow in faith with other Catholic children while also growing in stature and maturity, and where future husbands and wives could, and did, become acquainted. That place was the Catholic parish, which was the center of Catholic spiritual and social life.

Back then, most parishes had a thriving Catholic school, staffed by teaching sisters. Families mixed socially at parish or school gatherings. Catholic kids grew up knowing Catholic kids, and in high school they generally dated Catholic kids. In my hometown, the Knights of Columbus provided a hall for weekly gatherings, usually dances to recorded music and various variety shows we put on. Catholic colleges and universities provided the same opportunities for young Catholics to meet. I met my wife in such a venue. For us, it was easy.

That Catholic “safe haven” is now ashes, destroyed by the ecumenical theology of the “Spirit of Vatican II.” Grondelski argues that we now need to “examine how we approach mixed marriages.” But in dealing with the religious indifferentism that mixed marriages promote, what we don’t need is another committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. What we need is action: work toward creating an environment in which Catholic boys can grow up with Catholic girls, such as are being provided by the growing number of Catholic homeschooling families, Traditional Latin Mass parishes, and staunchly Catholic academies and colleges. This work is primarily the task of laymen because teaching and guiding children in the faith is primarily the role of parents. And because the bishops don’t seem interested.

Michael V. McIntire

Cave Springs, Arkansas

JOHN M. GRONDELSKI REPLIES:

Fr. Peter M.J. Stravinskas and Michael V. McIntire both make valid points, and I thank them for their comments. If there is no agreement on essentials, then (a) what else become the essentials, or (b) on what do the nonessentials hang? In some quarters, mixed marriage has been rebranded “ecumenical marriage” to pretend it is somehow already embodying the unity which Christ wills and to which the Church strives. But like some “official” ecumenical dialogues and documents, the “unity” is often a managed appearance that glosses over real differences or pretends they don’t exist or don’t matter. That might work in an afternoon event after which everybody goes home; it’s another thing when it is the home.

Too Breezy a Dismissal

In his review of Kevin Vallier’s All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Al­ternatives to Liberalism (June), Preston R. Simpson explains integralism as due simply to the “frustration and arrogance” of some Catholic intellectuals who lust for power. But is this a fair or sufficient interpretation of the complex conversation that has occurred in recent years on liberalism, post-liberalism, and the Church’s traditional stance on the relation between the faith and civil society? It is difficult to see how anyone acquainted with the encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII on the social order, for example, could dismiss integralism in so breezy a manner.

Perhaps such a lack of acquaintance is the reason for Simpson’s stance. He carefully transmits the contents of Vallier’s book, to be sure, but he does not judge or evaluate it. He simply accepts as gospel truth Vallier’s negative understanding of integralism. Is Simpson cognizant of the considerable literature on the subject, or is he simply a captive to whatever information and evaluation Vallier chose to transmit? If the latter is the case, then he is unable to judge whether Vallier is fair and acquainted with the subject or qualified to judge it.

To mention just one point, Vallier and Simpson summarize the lengthy and sophisticated debates over religious liberty and the Vatican II document Dignitatis Humanae as an effort to “devise various theological contortions to make all these documents agree with one another.” Apparently, they are unaware of the real theological problem here or why a faithful Catholic might want to seek harmony among the Church’s magisterial documents.

Toward the end of his review, Simpson reveals that he is a Protestant, and a Protestant indeed of the old-time variety. “Intolerance and corruption in Catholic-run states,” which led to the glorious Reformation, the “financial corruption in the Vatican and the priestly sex-abuse scandal” — these are what define Catholicism for him. I don’t blame a Protestant for holding such views, but it’s odd that someone like that would review a book on such a complex subject as Catholic integralism.

If integralism is indeed to be weighed in the balance, then might it not be desirable for the scales to be monitored by someone more qualified to judge?

Thomas Storck

Westerville, Ohio

PRESTON R. SIMPSON REPLIES:

Thomas Storck’s comments are noted and worthy of consideration. I confess that I am a Protestant, although I have no idea what Storck means by an “old-time variety.” But if he believes that I define Catholicism as corruption and sex scandals, he did not read my review very carefully.

I also confess that I am not a scholar of papal and conciliar documents. Storck makes no effort to defend Catholic integralism, and his only specific comments regard interpretations of Dignitatis Humanae. Yet even there he observes only that faithful Catholics “seek harmony” but leaves unanswered the question of whether they find it among the “real theological problems.” Storck seems familiar with Vallier’s work, but if it did contain errors, he does not elucidate them. In the interest of educating me and other NOR readers, perhaps he should take the time to point them out.

Communicating Something Essential

I enjoyed the letters (June) regarding Christopher Beiting’s review of volume 1 of Speaking in Tongues: A Critical Historical Examination (April), a trilogy I am writing with my Canadian co-author, Charles Sullivan. My thanks to Hurd Baruch, whose writing in the NOR I remember enjoying many years ago; to Frank Gibbons for his comments; and to Beiting for his apt replies (and excellent review).

I would like to chime in with several observations. First, whenever the miraculous gift of foreign languages has been given in Church history (from the Apostles up through modern saints like Vincent Ferrer), it is always reported as having been used for communicating something essential to the faith, such as preaching the Gospel, answering catechetical questions, hearing and responding to a sacramental Confession, and the like. In the accounts Mr. Baruch gives, there seem to be clear purposes as well, such as the Polish hitchhiker being called back to the priesthood by hearing the words of Jesus in his native Polish language. Remarkable! But more often than not, when I hear of a miraculous gift of previously unlearned languages occurring today, I’m left scratching my head because I can discern no purpose in the gift. Perhaps there is a purpose, and I simply don’t recognize it. In any case, this leaves me puzzled.

Second, I heartily endorse my colleague Mary Healy’s suggestion that contemporary glossolalia (which involves no known human language) might aptly be called jubilation. This fits the notion of glossolalia as a “personal language of prayer and praise” quite well. However, there is no historical basis for her claim that in the patristic era “the gift of tongues…went by another name, jubilation.” The semantic range of the word jubilation covers everything from shouts of joy to weeping from exuberant happiness, from laughing heartily to yodeling! (True fact: it’s mentioned in a German historical dictionary.) But there is no historical record anywhere of these sorts of phenomena being called tongues (whether in Latin, Greek, or Aramaic).

Third, St. Teresa of Ávila’s oft-quoted passage from The Interior Castle references a higher form of prayer. When she writes, “This may sound [like] nonsense [another translation uses the word gibberish], but it really happens,” Dr. Healy and others interpret this to mean that Teresa is referencing what the prayer sounds like, whereas she is referencing her description of the prayer, which may sound like “nonsense” to some of her readers. This is clear from the examples she gives of this heightened form of joyful prayer: St. Francis of Assisi shouting that he was the herald of a great King, and another saint loudly singing the Divine Praises — neither of them uttering anything unintelligible. Another of my colleagues, Fr. John McDermott, documents these facts in his article “Do Charismatic Healings Promote the New Evangelization? Part II” (Antiphon, vol. 24, no. 3; 2020).

I am presently working on volume 3 of our trilogy, subtitled The Tongues of Corinth. I solicit your prayers. It involves a lot of work and documentation, but it is also one of the most fascinating subjects I have ever encountered. Stay tuned!

Philip Blosser

Sacred Heart Major Seminary

Detroit, Michigan

A New Vantage Point for Contemplating the Body

The conversation between Caitlin Smith Gilson and Cicero Bruce (“What is the Purpose of Poetry?” April) was tremendously thought provoking. Smith Gilson’s poetry has a haunting quality. I couldn’t help but note the poignant imagery that “stuck” in my mind’s eye. Although there wasn’t a structure to lean on in the poetry, there was an unmistakable conjuring, a making present, that I have not felt in a long time when reading a poem.

Smith Gilson’s words and poems instigated a string of thoughts upon which to ruminate. For instance, her poetry is visceral and seemed scandalously corporal to me. But then I realized that my sense of scandal was coming from the assumption that the most intimate physical human relationship is sexual. Her poetry jarred me into questioning this assumption.

Consider the existential weight of the intimate physical relationship of pregnancy, in which the child is held within and encompassed by the mother’s body; it is nudity within nudity. The human vulnerability of each to the other is profound. Consider further that Jesus, who was fully and completely human, did not have a sexual relationship with a woman, and yet He did not deny Himself the sensual relationship of having a biological mother. It seems that the mother-child relationship is too integral to the human experience for God to disregard in the act of incarnation.

If we consider Smith Gilson’s poetry from the perspective that the mother-child relationship is the primary sensual human relationship, then we turn the world on its head. Since the popularization of Sigmund Freud’s work, the primary sensual relationship has been overwhelmingly recognized as the sexual. All other physical relationships became understood only as an outgrowth of the sexual. Because the body and soul permeate each other in human nature, this sexual understanding of physical relationships seeps immediately from just physical relationships into all human relationships. Children are not exempt from this Freudian sexualization. This is why the public discussion in our culture is obsessed with the gender identity of children. The sexual has eclipsed childhood.

The sexual is not sordid, and I do not necessarily advocate for the mother-child relationship to ascend to ultimate primacy in the hierarchy of physical relationships. Rather, I am trying to challenge pre-existing notions we may have that bring us to poetry like Smith Gilson’s with eyes that cannot see. Her work has a foreign tang to it that piques my interest. I think she has something to show us.

Paul Tournier, the genius Swiss psychoanalyst, said the body is the last remnant of the conscience. He explained that since modernity has decided there is no sin, people don’t have remorse for what they’ve done wrong. But they do have stomach ulcers, migraines, anxiety, and so on.

Perhaps the body holds more truths than just the banished remnants of the conscience. Thinkers like Smith Gilson can show us a new vantage point for contemplating ourselves and our human condition. Our Catholic faith was early on accused of advocating cannibalism because of the fervent affirmation of the Eucharist as true flesh. Certainly, such a carnal sacrament held eternally as the source and summit of our faith invites us to ponder the body with a sense of awe and wonder.

Joanna Verellen

Davison, Michigan

CAITLIN SMITH GILSON REPLIES:

Many thanks to Joanna Verellen for her astute and generous reading of my conversation with noted literary scholar Cicero Bruce. The way she connects the mystical and sensual quality of my poetry with the hidden intimacy of pregnancy is particularly moving, especially as this reality extends to Christ as fruit of the womb.

Verellen writes of the majestic vulnerability of “nudity within nudity.” This type of nakedness is truer to the specific human embodiment. Our souls are so commingled with flesh that attempts to separate the two co-parts results in a devastating spiritual violence, a fallenness.

The present anti-culture of mass desacralization, with its preoccupations with identity, sex, and gender, is far more Gnostic and disembodied than it outwardly presents itself. It cannot be anything other than vacant and bodiless, for it has cleaved the flesh from its entwined twinned soul, misunderstanding that true nudity is a sacred reality and a quest for sanctity and holiness.

In pregnancy, God touches the womb. We may be procreative, but we do not create souls. This “nudity within nudity” ultimately signifies one unrepeatable human soul animated within and alongside another unrepeatable human soul. This is the experience of the universal and divine within the intimate and singular. It is this union that has always begun a life, and begun a culture of life, with art, beauty, goodness, and transcendence.