Book Review: The Catholic Church, Modernity, and Modern History

From Basic Books:

A powerful new interpretation of Catholicism’s dramatic encounter with modernity, by one of America’s leading intellectuals

Throughout much of the nineteenth century, both secular and Catholic leaders assumed that the Church and the modern world were locked in a battle to the death. The triumph of modernity would not only finish the Church as a consequential player in world history; it would also lead to the death of religious conviction. But today, the Catholic Church is far more vital and consequential than it was 150 years ago. Ironically, in confronting modernity, the Catholic Church rediscovered its evangelical essence. In the process, Catholicism developed intellectual tools capable of rescuing the imperiled modern project.

A richly rendered, deeply learned, and powerfully argued account of two centuries of profound change in the church and the world, The Irony of Modern Catholic History reveals how Catholicism offers twenty-first century essential truths for our survival and flourishing.

This is a fascinating but ultimately frustrating overview of the history of the Catholic Church from 1789 to 2018. It's fascinating because Weigel interprets Church History from the French Revolution to the McCarrick Scandal to help his readers understand how the Catholic Church has been reacting to the loss of Christian faith in modern society since the late eighteenth century, largely through the projects and efforts of our Popes. From Popes Pius VI and VII's wranglings with the French Revolution and Napoleon, Weigel takes us through the pontificates of Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII; then to Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI and the confusion after the Council, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI and the project to revive the implementation of the Second Vatican Council in transition to the New Evangelization and the pontificate of  Pope Francis. Its frustrating because of how it seems the Church may be stalled in our efforts to help the modern world--our world--love Jesus and love each other.

Weigel organizes this history as a drama with five Acts and four Entr'Actes. The Acts drive the narrative history forward on stage while the Entr'Actes consider important events and personalities off stage. He provides both narrative drive and cogent analysis with attention to biographical detail.

Act One describes the pontificates of Gregory XVI and Pius IX, including a discussion of the First Vatican Council and Papal Infallibility, as these popes were opposed to many of the hallmarks of modernity and its rejection of Catholic teaching authority, while the first Entr'Acte highlights the contributions of Mohler, Rosmini, Scheeben, Ketteler, and Newman to different responses to the revolutions of the nineteenth century--and the distinctive position of the Catholic Church in the United States of America.

Act Two places Pope Leo XIII at center stage with his efforts to "gingerly" reach out to the modern world, reviving Catholic philosophy and theology through his emphasis on St. Thomas Aquinas and biblical interpretation and proposing some Catholic wisdom for the industrial age and the treatment of workers with dignity (Rerum Novarum); then Pius X comes on stage with his efforts at sacramental renewal and battles with Catholic modernists; World War I and Benedict XV follow, reviving Pope Leo XIII's projects; then Pope Pius XI; and finally Pope Pius XII. Weigel shows great appreciation of three of the latter's encyclicals, Mystici Corporus Christi, Divino Afflante Spiritu, and Mediator Dei, but deprecates Humani Generis.

The second Entr'Acte includes a large cast of theological renewal characters including Guardini, various Thomists (Garrigou-Lagrange, Maritain, Gilson,), the ressourcement school (Congar, de Lubac), the Catholic personalists (von Hildebrand, Scheler, Mounier), Hans Urs von Balthasar, and John Courtney Murray.

Act Three brings us to Pope John XXIII and what he hoped to achieve with the Second Vatican Council to "embrace modernity", examining Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, and then various documents of the Council, including Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, and Dignitatis Humanae. Weigel offers a substantial critique of Gaudium et Spes, pointing out particularly how dated some of its optimism of how well modern democracy and the Catholic Church would be able to get along seems now. So the Entr'Acte, not surprisingly, examines the aftermath of the Council: Pope Paul VI's efforts to implement it, highlighting Evangelii Nuntiandi; Karol Wojtyla's vade mecum Sources of Renewal and his curial retreat Signs of Contradiction; and the theological rivalry between Communio and Concilium.

With Act Four Weigel brings two of his favorite dramatis personae to the stage: the protagonist Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II), and in the supporting role, Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). If you are familiar with Weigel's great biography of Pope John Paul II you'll find much that you've read about before with a overview of his papacy and his encyclicals. Weigel also offers an analysis of Pope Benedict XVI's four "September Lectures": Regensberg (9/12/2006); Bernardins (9/12/2008); Westminster (9/17/2010); Bundestag (9/22/2011)--all Weigel's commentary is focused on how these two "distinctively modern men" offered modernism some critiques of unresolved issues of reason, freedom, conscience, morality, economy, and society.

The Entr'Acte reviews the problem of implementing the reforms of the Second Vatican Council since it was "the Council without Keys" and the solution to this problem: the Extraordinary Synod of 1985. Weigel sets the stage for the last Act with the Great Millennium of 2000 and New Evangelization. 

So in Act Five, after explaining John Paul II's vision in Novo Millennio Ineunte, Weigel inserts a flashback to Redemptoris Missio, his 1990 encyclical on the Church's permanent missionary mandate. Weigel also examines John Paul's efforts to influence the EU Constitution, which was poised to skip all of its history from 180 to 1596 by avoiding any mention of Christianity. His 2003 General Audiences and the post-synodal apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Europa attempted to remind Europeans of the work of the Church to proclaim the Gospel of Hope in Jesus Christ.

Then Weigel comes to the unsatisfactory denouement: "The Franciscan Stall". He has to end his review of Pope Francis' pontificate with the McCarrick revelations of 2018, but he starts with Evangelli Gaudium, the 2013 apostolic exhortation setting out the Franciscan program of evangelization and the continued spread of the Joy of the Gospel. Then Weigel describes the confusion of the 2014/2015 Synods on the Family and the 2018 Synod on Young People, which both resulted in contradictions of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (Dei Verbum) on the deposit of faith; Jesus Christ on marriage, and St. Paul on the worthy reception of the Body and Blood of Jesus in Holy Communion with implications of historicism (Church moral and sacramental teaching can change with and adapt to the mores and trends of the world) and a new Gallicanism (what's true in Poland about Catholic teaching might not be true in Germany). Weigel asks how this helps fulfill the efforts of the New Evangelization to spread the Joy of the Gospel to everyone, those who believe, those who've fallen away, and those who've never heard of Jesus.

Then the McCarrick Crisis, with the Vatican displaying the same old modes of "institutional-maintenance and status-quo thinking" with slow responses (not to mention Pope Francis' intransigence regarding the Chilean bishop) demonstrated that Pope Francis, blaming a culture of clericalism, still didn't want to take action in certain cases or be transparent: we've been promised a report for almost two years on how a serial abuser of boys and seminarians became a Cardinal and continued to have influence even after he was supposed to retire from official duties and it hasn't been issued yet. 

So we have to wait for the continuation of Act Five or for Act Six.

In the meantime, Weigel summarizes his argument that the Church has rediscovered itself through contending with the issues of modernism and can offer the modern world some guidelines for reform of its own issues: doubt, the naked will to power, emptiness. Jesus Christ is the answer to every human question, he concludes, and the Catholic Church has, from the Apostles, through the Popes, Bishops, clerics and laity, been offering that answer throughout the ages. We may be stalled as Weigel believes, but we still have a message to share and solutions to propose: "liberating truths about salvation and the ultimate destiny of human beings" through the Person of Jesus Christ.

Except for some glimpses in the Entr'Actes, Weigel's spotlight is on the top of the Church's hierarchy: the Popes, but that makes sense since he is describing the Church's official responses to modernity. He provides a good list of sources. Fascinating but frustrating.

Preview: Newman and Church History

On Monday, July 22, I'll continue my series on the Son Rise Morning Show preparing for Blessed John Henry Newman's canonization on Sunday, October 13. Anna Mitchell and I will discuss "Newman and Church History" for a few minutes at 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central.

In his Apologia pro Vita Sua, Newman describes two books he read when he was 15 and the effects they had on him for many years:

Now I come to two other works, which produced a deep impression on me in the same autumn of 1816, when I was fifteen years old, each contrary to each, and planting in me the seeds of an intellectual inconsistency which disabled me for a long course of years. I read Joseph Milner's Church History, and was nothing short of enamoured of the long extracts from St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, and the other Fathers which I found there. I read them as being the religion of the primitive Christians: but simultaneously with Milner I read Newton on the Prophecies, and in consequence became most firmly convinced that the Pope was the Antichrist predicted by Daniel, St. Paul, and St. John. My imagination was stained by the effects of this doctrine up to the year 1843; it had been obliterated from my reason and judgment at an earlier date; but the thought remained upon me as a sort of false conscience. Hence came that conflict of mind, which so many have felt besides myself;—leading some men to make a compromise between two ideas, so inconsistent with each other,—driving others to beat out the one idea or the other from their minds,—and ending in my own case, after many years of intellectual unrest, in the gradual decay and extinction of one of them,—I do not say in its violent death, for why should I not have murdered it sooner, if I murdered it at all?

So on the one hand, Newman, influenced by Joseph Milner's The History of the Church of Christ (the book's full title), had learned about the Fathers of the Church, which would be in some ways the source of the final impetus of his becoming Catholic and on the other hand by Sir Isaac Newton's Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John he was convinced that Pope was the Antichrist and thus had a strong animus toward the Catholic Church. It would be through his study of the Fathers of the Church that he would first intellectually and then religiously cast aside that prejudice against the Catholic Church and the Pope. 

That's why he wrote at the beginning of his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine that "to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant". His reading of the Fathers of the Church and his interest in Church History led him to see as he famously summarized in the Apologia pro Vita Sua, that the Catholic Church had always upheld the true doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the Person of Jesus, the Divinity of the Holy Spirit, and that the Protestant Church or the Anglican Church would always choose the wrong side in those historic early disputes:

About the middle of June I began to study and master the history of the Monophysites. I was absorbed in the doctrinal question. This was from about June 13th to August 30th. It was during this course of reading that for the first time a doubt came upon me of the tenableness of Anglicanism. I recollect on the 30th of July mentioning to a friend, whom I had accidentally met, how remarkable the history was; but by the end of August I was seriously alarmed.

I have described in a former work, how the history affected me. My stronghold was Antiquity; now here, in the middle of the fifth century, I found, as it seemed to me, Christendom of the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries reflected. I saw my face in that mirror, and I was a Monophysite. The Church of the Via Media was in the position of the Oriental communion, Rome was where she now is; and the Protestants were the Eutychians. Of all passages of history, since history has been, who would have thought of going to the sayings and doings of old Eutyches, that delirus senex, as (I think) Petavius calls him, and to the enormities of the unprincipled Dioscorus, in order to be converted to Rome!

Now let it be simply understood that I am not writing controversially, but with the one object of relating things as they happened to me in the course of my conversion. With this view I will quote a passage from the account, which I gave in 1850, of my reasonings and feelings in 1839:

"It was difficult to make out how the Eutychians or Monophysites were heretics, unless Protestants and Anglicans were heretics also; difficult to find arguments against the Tridentine Fathers, which did not tell against the Fathers of Chalcedon; difficult to condemn the Popes of the sixteenth century, without condemning the Popes of the fifth. The drama of religion, and the combat of truth and error, were ever one and the same. The principles and proceedings of the Church now, were those of the Church then; the principles and proceedings of heretics then, were those of Protestants now. I found it so,—almost fearfully; there was an awful similitude, more awful, because so silent and unimpassioned, between the dead records of the past and the feverish chronicle of the present. The shadow of the fifth century was on the sixteenth. It was like a spirit rising from the troubled waters of the old world, with the shape and lineaments of the new. The Church then, as now, might be called peremptory and stern, resolute, overbearing, and relentless; and heretics were shifting, changeable, reserved, and deceitful, ever courting civil power, and never agreeing together, except by its aid; and the civil power was ever aiming at comprehensions, trying to put the invisible out of view, and substituting expediency for faith. What was the use of continuing the controversy, or defending my position, if, after all, I was forging arguments for Arius or Eutyches, and turning devil's advocate against the much-enduring Athanasius and the majestic Leo? Be my soul with the Saints! and shall I lift up my hand against them? Sooner may my right hand forget her cunning, and wither outright, as his who once stretched it out against a prophet of God! anathema to a whole tribe of Cranmers, Ridleys, Latimers, and Jewels! perish the names of Bramhall, Ussher, Taylor, Stillingfleet, and Barrow from the face of the earth, ere I should do aught but fall at their feet in love and in worship, whose image was continually before my eyes, and whose musical words were ever in my ears and on my tongue!"

Note that the Monophysites and the Eutychians denied the two natures of Jesus Christ, human and divine, in one Divine Person.

He still had to fight that old prejudice against Catholics and the Papacy, but Newman was on his way to becoming a Catholic. The history of the Early Church of the Fathers had been the basis of his efforts to build the Via Media of the Church of England. In July of 1839 he had become uncertain about those foundations; in August of 1839 they had crumbled beneath him after he had read Father Nicholas Wiseman in the Dublin Review, comparing Anglicanism to Donatism and citing St. Augustine of Hippo:

For a mere sentence, the words of St. Augustine, struck me with a power which I never had felt from any words before. To take a familiar instance, they were like the "Turn again Whittington" of the chime; or, to take a more serious one, they were like the "Tolle, lege,—Tolle, lege," of the child, which converted St. Augustine himself. "Securus judicat orbis terrarum!" By those great words of the ancient Father, interpreting and summing up the long and varied course of ecclesiastical history, the theory of the Via Media was absolutely pulverized.

The Donatists were schismatics in Africa from 311 to 411 with whom St. Augustine of Hippo contended.

More about Newman and Church History on Monday. Here is some background on the two books Newman read when he was 15 years old. From the Dictionary of National Biography entry on Joseph Milner:

As a writer Milner is chiefly known in connection with ‘The History of the Church of Christ’ which bears his name, though the literary history of that work is a curious medley. The excellent and somewhat novel idea of the book is no doubt exclusively his. He was painfully struck by the fact that most church histories were in reality little more than records of the errors and disputes of Christians, and thus too often played into the hands of unbelievers. Perhaps the recent publication of Gibbon's ‘Decline and Fall’ (first volume, 1776) strengthened this feeling. At any rate his object was to bring out into greater prominence the bright side of church history. ‘The terms “church” and “Christian,”’ he says, ‘in their natural sense respect only good men. Such a succession of pious men in all ages existed, and it will be no contemptible use of such a history as this if it prove that in every age there have been real followers of Christ.’ With this end in view he brought out the first three volumes— vol. i. in 1794, vol. ii. in 1795, and vol. iii. in 1797. Then death cut short his labours; but even in these first three volumes the hand of Isaac as well as of Joseph may be found, and after Joseph's death Isaac published in 1800 a new and greatly revised edition of vol. i. Vols. ii. and iii. did not require so much revision, because they had been corrected by Isaac in manuscript. In 1803 appeared vol. iv., and in 1809 vol. v., both edited by Isaac, but still containing much of Joseph's work.

Newman is referring to Sir Isaac Newton's Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John. The Newton Project comments:

Like most radical Protestants, Newton was keenly interested in the interpretation of Biblical prophecy. However, he believed that God had specially chosen him to deliver the truth about how prophetic texts were to be understood. A central plank of his general prophetic outlook was that images of the vials and trumpets described in the Book of Revelation referred to key events in the downfall of Roman Catholicism. In another remarkable treatise that can be dated to the late 1680s, Newton discussed what he believed would happen to the elect during Jesus’s thousand year reign immediately after his Second Coming. He suggested that Christ would reign with saints over a kingdom of mortals on Earth that would continue to produce successive generations of people until the end of time.

From The Reformation to the Present Day

AN Wilson reviews Roy Hattersley's The Catholics: The Church and its People in Britain and Ireland, from the Reformation to the Present Day for The Catholic Herald:

So, Hattersley starts with two advantages. One is his own personal involvement with the subject. The second is the fact that this is a history with a beginning and an end. The Church he is describing, and the story which begins with the heroism of the recusants in Tudor times and takes in the romance of Jacobitism and the coming of the 19th century, has really come to an end. Of course, the Church itself has not come to an end – there is still a pope, there are still sacraments and saints. But Catholics really are – more or less – like everyone else. One senses Hattersley’s wistful sadness at this.

He devotes far more time to English recusant and penal times than he does to the 19th century or the modern Church. The story starts with the sacrifice of the martyrs. A gentle intelligence, Hattersley prefers the self-deprecating scholar Fisher to the “celebrity” More, but sees how absolutely key their martyrdom was in inspiring the Catholics to remain true to their faith. His account of the arrest and execution of Campion is haunting. He does not echo the late Auberon Waugh, who called annually upon the pope to canonise Guy Fawkes; but then Hattersley is a distinguished parliamentarian. The martyrdom of Oliver Plunkett in 1681 is told in a way that makes you ashamed to be English.

The dukes of Norfolk do not get much of a look-in to Hattersley’s story. But the 18th century is explored with a pleasing combination of sensitivity and gusto: Bishop Challoner, “the Forty-five” and the Gordon Riots. Was this English Catholicism’s Golden Age?

To put it another way, was the 19th century, seemingly a season of the famous Second Spring, actually sowing the seeds of modern British Catholics’ problems? Wiseman is affectionately evoked here, but did he do the Catholics any favours by setting up an elaborate system of dioceses and (quite often rather cruddy) cathedrals?

Please read the rest there. From the publisher:

The story of Catholicism in Britain from the Reformation to the present day, from a master of popular history - 'a first-class storyteller' The Times

Throughout the three hundred years that followed the Act of Supremacy – which, by making Henry VIII head of the Church, confirmed in law the breach with Rome – English Catholics were prosecuted, persecuted and penalised for the public expression of their faith. Even after the passing of the emancipation acts Catholics were still the victims of institutionalised discrimination.

The first book to tell the story of the Catholics in Britain in a single volume, The Catholics includes much previously unpublished information. It focuses on the lives, and sometimes deaths, of individual Catholics – martyrs and apostates, priests and laymen, converts and recusants. It tells the story of the men and women who faced the dangers and difficulties of being what their enemies still call ‘Papists’. It describes the laws which circumscribed their lives, the political tensions which influenced their position within an essentially Anglican nation and the changes in dogma and liturgy by which Rome increasingly alienated their Protestant neighbours – and sometime even tested the loyalty of faithful Catholics.

The survival of Catholicism in Britain is the triumph of more than simple faith. It is the victory of moral and spiritual unbending certainty. Catholicism survives because it does not compromise. It is a characteristic that excites admiration in even a hardened atheist.

I browsed the Kindle sample was not as impressed as Wilson by Hattersley's "bona fides"--his personal connections to the Church are weak and confused. He does seem to admire the Church rather in spite of himself and the harshness and rigidity he sees in the Church. Hattersley seems to accept that lack of compromise and the "spiritual unbending certainty" as the source of strength for the Catholic martyrs of England and the Church through the centuries. Since he is an atheist--"a hardened atheist" he recognizes the strength he values in himself as the source of the Church's survival. It also means that he cannot be accused of special pleading. If I received a review copy of this book I'd be interested in reading it as a Catholic looking from the outside in, when I am usually looking at Church history from the inside in. The perspective is intriguing.

Henri Daniel-Rops: A Fight for God

I am reading A Fight for God: 1870-1939 by Henri Daniel-Rops. First he sets out all the dangers to the Catholic Church in that period: atheism, Communism, revolution, secularization, and interference by the State in Church administration (Bismarck's Kulturkampf, etc). Then he examines the personalities and characteristics of the four popes who confronted these problems and others: Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius X, Pope Benedict XV, and Pope Pius XI. I've read those parts of the book and his history of Pope Leo XIII's reign. I'm reading about Pope Pius X now. This is the penultimate book in his ten volume series on Church History.

Henri Daniel-Rops described his career thus:

Perhaps this is a good time to explain how it happened that while I was an essayist and novelist up to 1939, I then found myself orientated in an entirely new direction, that of religious history. Here again, it was a providential introduction to someone that changed the course of my writing career. In January of 1941, a friend of mine, the historian Octave Aubry, asked me if I would care to write a volume of history for a series he was editing. From the outset I was very interested, but I was uncertain what subject I should choose. This was at the time when the Nazis had forced the Jews to wear the yellow star to distinguish them from the other races. That had made me very angry, especially when I thought of all the Jews who were my friends. And so my answer to Octave Aubry was: "I accept, on condition that I may write a history of Israel." He immediately agreed to my choice of subject.

I must say here that I had long regretted the fact that in our schools we study the Greek and Roman classics but neglect the important if not basic classic of our western civilization, the Bible. At last I was offered the opportunity of making an extensive study of it. And so I wrote l'Histoire Saints (Sacred History). It was published in Paris on July 1, 1943, just twenty days before the Nazis arrived, when it was immediately confiscated by the Gestapo and the plates destroyed, without doubt because Hitler recognized himself in Nabuchodonosor!

From that time on, this historical series became my constant preoccupation. Begun on January 19, 1941--on my fortieth birthday--this series is still in progress and, God willing, it will continue for at least five more years. If anyone had mentioned to me in the beginning that I would write seven thousand pages, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have hesitated to undertake such a task. But, as I said, it was Providence that prompted me; one is guided thus.

Preoccupation, did I say . . . . After l'Histoire Sainte came Jesus et Son Temps, the success of which greatly Surprised me: actually in France alone 400,000 copies have been sold mid the work has been translated into fourteen languages.

Having written of Jesus, was it possible not to be moved to write of the work born of the Son of God and which is His visible sign upon earth, the Church? And so L'Histoire de I'Eglise du Christ came slowly into being. Without being too egotistical, may I say that the response which I have received for this work has been most encouraging for me in the long and arduous writing of the series. I would like at this time to especially acknowledge the kindness of the late Pope Pius XII who often asked me about my writing and who was most generous in counseling me, and also His Holiness Pope John XXIII who likewise conferred a papal honor upon me.

Let me repeat that I am enthused with my work as well as completely immersed in it. In my future there was to be a little book, Missa Est. Under the title of This is the Mass, thanks to the promotion of my American publisher, Hawthorn Books, and the kindly cooperation of the Most Reverend Bishop Fulton Sheen, it has also been very well received.

And there was to come the founding of my monthly review, Ecclesia [similar to The Catholic Digest] in 1949 and so now is more than twelve years old. There was to come, too, L 'Encyclopedie du Catholique au XXeme siècle (The Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism), "Je sais, Je crois." For me to conceive, to organize and to launch this last work fulfilled one of my highest ambitions.

And so you see the apple tree continues to produce its apples. Of what value are these apples it is not for the tree to say. But how can one do other, dear God, than try to produce good fruit, keeping in mind the fig tree of the Gospels which, when it was found to be barren, was fit only to be cast into the fire?

But I have already spoken too long about myself. Nevertheless this backward glance, which I have been asked to make, has enabled me to take stock of what I have tried to do. And I feel that my work will not have been in vain if the reader, after pouring over so many pages, will find in them just one sentence which will influence him for eternity, one sentence which will move him to forgive and forget all that is worthless in them and so destined to disappear some day one sentence which will send him back to the words of the Evangelist who summed it all up: 'To whom shall we go, Lord? You alone have the words of eternal life."

More about Daniel-Rops and his popularity in mid-twentieth century Catholic France here. In the USA, his series on Church history was published by Dent Dutton in hardcover and then by Doubleday Image in paperback.

"Psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles"

St. Paul exhorted the Ephesians in chapter 5, verses 18-19 to be "filled with the Holy Spirit", and to share "psalms, and hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord" (Douai-Rheims). Suddenly, hymns are a common topic among Catholic book publishers, with EWTN re-marketing a book by Father George Rutler, TAN publishing Anthony Esolen's Real Music, and Emmaus Road Mike Aquilina's How the Choir Converted the World: Through Hymns, With Hymns, and In Hymns. I am reading Real Music now.

We watched Father Rutler's series on hymns years ago and purchased the VHS tapes (!); he gives the historical and biographical background to a hymn and its composer or lyricist, and then plays the melody on a piano on the set, speak-singing the hymn. The book and the DVD are separate items, however. The book was originally published by Ignatius Press with the title, Brightest and Best: Stories of Hymns. You can see a sample of the hymns Father Rutler discusses in the TV series here.

Anthony Esolen's book Real Music has an advantage over Father Rutler's book because the musical selections are included on a CD with it, as the publisher notes:

Real Music by Anthony Esolen – and the accompanying CD of 18 hymns recorded by the St. Cecilia Choir of St. John Cantius Church in Chicago - is a comprehensive and fascinating guide, in print and song, to the great hymns of the Church. It shows that, unlike much of what is sung in too many Catholic churches today, good music, “Real Music”, combines great poetry with doctrinally sound lyrics and beautiful melody.

With noted Catholic author Anthony Esolen as your guide and the St. Cecilia Choir as your muse, join the Catholic Musical Renaissance which is truly a recovery of the best that has been sung and prayed down through the ages. You’ll be glad you did.

Real Music is arranged by events in the life of our Lord and the seasons and Sacraments of the Church. This book/CD set will teach you much about poetry, music, and the Catholic Faith itself. What better way to learn your Faith than through beautiful music!

Whether at home in your favorite easy chair, or among friends in an informal class at your parish, Real Music will bring you deep into the lyrics and melodies of the great hymns that so magnificently offer praise and honor to God.

Real Music is meant to be savored; first by reading Esolen’s masterful explication of the poetic, melodic, and doctrinal elements of a hymn and then listening to the hymn itself on the accompanying CD.

Finally, there's Mike Aquilina's book, which Emmaus Road Publishing describes briefly:

Music is the most effective delivery system for feelings—love, joy, sadness, glory. The early Church Fathers knew that music also has power over minds, and they used that power to maximum effect, writing hymns through which the early Christians would learn, retain, and spread the Gospel message. In How the Choir Converted the World, best-selling author Mike Aquilina demonstrates how the earliest Christians used music to transform a world that desperately needed transforming. As Aquilina suggests, “If we did it once, we can do it again.”

As Mike Aquilina has focused so much on the Fathers of the Church throughout his publishing career it makes sense that this book, with an introduction by John Michael Talbot, is about the early Church and how the Fathers, like St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, and others, emphasized the role of singing the psalms of the Old Testament, and the hymns of the Church, in forming their congregations in the faith.

When I've finished reading, and listening to, Real Music, I'll review it here.

Rodney Stark's "Bearing False Witness"

Rodney Stark is not a Catholic but he wants to tell the truth about Church History for the sake of history itself: not to let it be used in the cause of deceit and hatred. In his latest book, he debunks "Centuries of Anti-Catholic History", dealing with the common topics and events that are usually cited as attacks upon the Catholic Church--some of the same topics I covered a few years ago for Homiletic & Pastoral Review. As his publisher, Templeton Press, describes the book:

As we all know and as many of our well established textbooks have argued for decades, the Inquisition was one of the most frightening and bloody chapters in Western history, Pope Pius XII was anti-Semitic and rightfully called “Hitler’s Pope,” the Dark Ages were a stunting of the progress of knowledge to be redeemed only by the secular spirit of the Enlightenment, and the religious Crusades were an early example of the rapacious Western thirst for riches and power. But what if these long held beliefs were all wrong?

In this stunning, powerful, and ultimately persuasive book, Rodney Stark, one of the most highly regarded sociologists of religion and bestselling author of The Rise of Christianity (HarperSanFrancisco 1997) argues that some of our most firmly held ideas about history, ideas that paint the Catholic Church in the least positive light are, in fact, fiction. Why have we held these wrongheaded ideas so strongly and for so long? And if our beliefs are wrong, what, in fact, is the truth?

In each chapter, Stark takes on a well-established anti-Catholic myth, gives a fascinating history of how each myth became the conventional wisdom, and presents a startling picture of the real truth. For example,

• Instead of the Spanish Inquisition being an anomaly of torture and murder of innocent people persecuted for “imaginary” crimes such as witchcraft and blasphemy, Stark argues that not only did the Spanish Inquisition spill very little blood, but it was a major force in support of moderation and justice.
• Instead of Pope Pius XII being apathetic or even helpful to the Nazi movement, such as to merit the title, “Hitler’s Pope,” Stark shows that the campaign to link Pope Pius XII to Hitler was initiated by the Soviet Union, presumably in hopes of neutralizing the Vatican in post-World War II affairs. Pope Pius XII was widely praised for his vigorous and devoted efforts to saving Jewish lives during the war.
• Instead of the Dark Ages being understood as a millennium of ignorance and backwardness inspired by the Catholic Church’s power, Stark argues that the whole notion of the “Dark Ages” was an act of pride perpetuated by anti-religious intellectuals who were determined to claim that theirs was the era of “Enlightenment.”

In the end, readers will not only have a more accurate history of the Catholic Church, they will come to understand why it became unfairly maligned for so long. Bearing False Witness is a compelling and sobering account of how egotism and ideology often work together to give us a false truth.

Much of what Stark does in this book is familiar to me; the important thing about this book is that it's written by a non-Catholic and a respected scholar. When a Catholic, even using the same evidence and sources, defends Church History, the reader can accuse him or her of special pleading--'of course you defend your Church; you're blinded by loyalty'--but with a non-Catholic standing up for the truth, perhaps someone otherwise inclined will listen. Nevertheless, if the reader is motivated by hatred against the Catholic Church for whatever reason, no rational explanation will probably influence them. Hatred and bigotry will probably blind such a reader and he or she will persist in, as Stark cites one misguided historian on the Spanish Inquisition, despising the Catholic Church. Highly recommended.

Pope Benedict XVI on St. Bede the Venerable

During his series of addresses on the Doctors of the Church during his weekly general audiences , Pope Benedict XVI spoke about St. Bede the Venerable on February 18, 2009:

The Saint we are approaching today is called Bede and was born in the north-east of England, to be exact, Northumbria, in the year 672 or 673. He himself recounts that when he was seven years old his parents entrusted him to the Abbot of the neighbouring Benedictine monastery to be educated: "spending all the remaining time of my life a dweller in that monastery". He recalls, "I wholly applied myself to the study of Scripture; and amidst the observance of the monastic Rule and the daily charge of singing in church, I always took delight in learning, or teaching, or writing" (Historia eccl. Anglorum, v, 24). In fact, Bede became one of the most outstanding erudite figures of the early Middle Ages since he was able to avail himself of many precious manuscripts which his Abbots would bring him on their return from frequent journeys to the continent and to Rome. His teaching and the fame of his writings occasioned his friendships with many of the most important figures of his time who encouraged him to persevere in his work from which so many were to benefit. When Bede fell ill, he did not stop working, always preserving an inner joy that he expressed in prayer and song. He ended his most important work, the Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, with this invocation: "I beseech you, O good Jesus, that to the one to whom you have graciously granted sweetly to drink in the words of your knowledge, you will also vouchsafe in your loving kindness that he may one day come to you, the Fountain of all wisdom, and appear for ever before your face". Death took him on 26 May 737: it was the Ascension.

Sacred Scripture was the constant source of Bede's theological reflection. After a critical study of the text (a copy of the monumental Codex Amiatinus of the Vulgate on which Bede worked has come down to us), he comments on the Bible, interpreting it in a Christological key, that is, combining two things: on the one hand he listens to exactly what the text says, he really seeks to hear and understand the text itself; on the other, he is convinced that the key to understanding Sacred Scripture as the one word of God is Christ, and with Christ, in his light, one understands the Old and New Testaments as "one" Sacred Scripture. The events of the Old and New Testaments go together, they are the way to Christ, although expressed in different signs and institutions (this is what he calls the concordia sacramentorum). For example, the tent of the covenant that Moses pitched in the desert and the first and second temple of Jerusalem are images of the Church, the new temple built on Christ and on the Apostles with living stones, held together by the love of the Spirit. And just as pagan peoples also contributed to building the ancient temple by making available valuable materials and the technical experience of their master builders, so too contributing to the construction of the Church there were apostles and teachers, not only from ancient Jewish, Greek and Latin lineage, but also from the new peoples, among whom Bede was pleased to list the Irish Celts and Anglo-Saxons. St Bede saw the growth of the universal dimension of the Church which is not restricted to one specific culture but is comprised of all the cultures of the world that must be open to Christ and find in him their goal.

Pope Benedict certainly did not ignore Bede's importance as a Church historian:

Another of Bede's favourite topics is the history of the Church. After studying the period described in the Acts of the Apostles, he reviews the history of the Fathers and the Councils, convinced that the work of the Holy Spirit continues in history. In the Chronica Maiora, Bede outlines a chronology that was to become the basis of the universal Calendar "ab incarnatione Domini". In his day, time was calculated from the foundation of the City of Rome. Realizing that the true reference point, the centre of history, is the Birth of Christ, Bede gave us this calendar that interprets history starting from the Incarnation of the Lord. Bede records the first six Ecumenical Councils and their developments, faithfully presenting Christian doctrine, both Mariological and soteriological, and denouncing the Monophysite and Monothelite, Iconoclastic and Neo-Pelagian heresies. Lastly he compiled with documentary rigour and literary expertise the Ecclesiastical History of the English Peoples mentioned above, which earned him recognition as "the father of English historiography". The characteristic features of the Church that Bede sought to emphasize are: a) catholicity, seen as faithfulness to tradition while remaining open to historical developments, and as the quest for unity in multiplicity, in historical and cultural diversity according to the directives Pope Gregory the Great had given to Augustine of Canterbury, the Apostle of England; b) apostolicity and Roman traditions: in this regard he deemed it of prime importance to convince all the Irish, Celtic and Pict Churches to have one celebration for Easter in accordance with the Roman calendar. The Computo, which he worked out scientifically to establish the exact date of the Easter celebration, hence the entire cycle of the liturgical year, became the reference text for the whole Catholic Church.

Read the rest of his address here.

Rodney Stark and "Distinguished Bigots"

Rodney Stark is  Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University, co-director of the university's Institute for Studies of Religion, and founding editor of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion. He has written over thirty (30) books including his latest: Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History.

The publisher, Templeton Press, describes the book:

As we all know and as many of our well established textbooks have argued for decades, the Inquisition was one of the most frightening and bloody chapters in Western history, Pope Pius XII was anti-Semitic and rightfully called “Hitler’s Pope,” the Dark Ages were a stunting of the progress of knowledge to be redeemed only by the secular spirit of the Enlightenment, and the religious Crusades were an early example of the rapacious Western thirst for riches and power. But what if these long held beliefs were all wrong?

In this stunning, powerful, and ultimately persuasive book, Rodney Stark, one of the most highly regarded sociologists of religion and bestselling author of The Rise of Christianity (HarperSanFrancisco 1997) argues that some of our most firmly held ideas about history, ideas that paint the Catholic Church in the least positive light are, in fact, fiction. Why have we held these wrongheaded ideas so strongly and for so long? And if our beliefs are wrong, what, in fact, is the truth?

In each chapter, Stark takes on a well-established anti-Catholic myth, gives a fascinating history of how each myth became the conventional wisdom, and presents a startling picture of the real truth. For example,

• Instead of the Spanish Inquisition being an anomaly of torture and murder of innocent people persecuted for “imaginary” crimes such as witchcraft and blasphemy, Stark argues that not only did the Spanish Inquisition spill very little blood, but it was a major force in support of moderation and justice.

• Instead of Pope Pius XII being apathetic or even helpful to the Nazi movement, such as to merit the title, “Hitler’s Pope,” Stark shows that the campaign to link Pope Pius XII to Hitler was initiated by the Soviet Union, presumably in hopes of neutralizing the Vatican in post-World War II affairs. Pope Pius XII was widely praised for his vigorous and devoted efforts to saving Jewish lives during the war.

• Instead of the Dark Ages being understood as a millennium of ignorance and backwardness inspired by the Catholic Church’s power, Stark argues that the whole notion of the “Dark Ages” was an act of pride perpetuated by anti-religious intellectuals who were determined to claim that theirs was the era of “Enlightenment.”

In the end, readers will not only have a more accurate history of the Catholic Church, they will come to understand why it became unfairly maligned for so long. Bearing False Witness is a compelling and sobering account of how egotism and ideology often work together to give us a false truth.

Carl E. Olson, editor of Catholic World Report interviewed Stark via email:

CWR: You begin the book by first noting your upbringing as an American Protestant and then discussing "distinguished bigots". What is a "distinguished bigot"? And how have such people influenced the way in which the Catholic Church is understood and perceived by many Americans today?

Dr. Rodney Stark: By distinguished bigots I mean prominent scholars and intellectuals who clearly are antagonistic to the Catholic Church and who promulgate false historical claims.

CWR: How did you go about identifying and selecting the ten anti-Catholic myths that you rebut in the book? To what degree are these myths part of a general (if sometimes vague) Protestant culture, and to what degree are they encouraged and spread by a more secular, elite culture?

Dr. Stark: For the most part I encountered these anti-Catholic myths as I wrote about various historical periods and events, and discovered that these well-known ‘facts” were false and therefore was forced to deal with them in those studies. These myths are not limited to some generalized Protestant culture—many Catholics, including well-known ones, have repeated them too. These myths have too often, and for too long, been granted truthful validity by historians in general. Of course secularists—especially ex-Catholics such as Karen Armstrong—love these myths.

The interview concludes with this great exchange:

CWR: You emphatically state that as a scholar with a Protestant background working at a Baptist university you did not write your book as "a defense of the Church" but "in defense of history." Why is that significant? And, finally, do you think most Americans actually give more credence to history than to the Church? 

Dr. Stark: I think the distinguished bigots will have a hard time accusing me of being a Catholic toady, trying to cover up the sins of the Church. The only axe (sic) I have to grind is that history ought to be honestly reported. As to your final point: I don’t think ‘most Americans’ will ever know that this book was written. I can only hope that I will influence intellectuals and textbook writers—maybe.

The Catholic Enlightenment: Yes, There Was One

From The Imaginative Conservative, Bradley Birzer reviews another book I'd love to read someday:

The Catholic Enlightenment: The Forgotten History of a Global Movement, by Ulrich L. Lehner (Oxford University Press, 2016)

The Catholic Enlightenment is a great book. Indeed, no recent academic work on Catholicism has raised my hopes this high for the current level of scholarship since first having encountered the writings of Christopher Dawson a decade and a half ago. And, while I am no expert (nor do I even know enough to pretend to be) on the history of European Catholicism between the Counter Reformation and the French Revolution, Dr. Lehner’s latest book, The Catholic Enlightenment, not only raises some of the most important questions about the faith and about the West, but it also fills in some critical gaps in our understanding of each.

The sum of Dr. Lehner’s argument is this: contrary to popular and secular mythologies, the Church possessed a number of critical personalities and intellectual leaders who actively engaged the ideas of democracy, individualism, liberalism (properly understood), and what would be called, ultimately, modernity. All of this happened between the Council of Trent and the end of the French Revolution. Surprisingly, at least to me, Catholic scholars and theologians considered, studied, and digested the importance of the thought of John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and even Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Indeed, they not only took the ideas of non-Catholic scholars seriously, they actually attempted to meld secular thought with Catholic theology. Dr. Lehner, much to his credit, never over-makes his case. He recognizes that there were many, many “Enlightenments” during the few centuries leading up to the French Revolution, just as our own John Willson stresses the need to acknowledge many “Foundings” in the American Founding period. Additionally, Dr. Lehner never claims that these Catholic Enlighteners—as he calls them—dominated scholarship or the thinking of the Church as a whole. Rather, he notes, time and time again throughout his book, they attracted attention, bonded with one another, and changed, shaped, and delimited the philosophical and theological discussion within the Church.

Read the rest there. Dr. Lehner has a rigorous publication schedule ahead of him, per an interview Dr. Birzer conducted:

Birzer: Second, what’s the next book?

Lehner: My first follow up comes out in July with Fortress Press: On the Road to Vatican II: German Catholic Enlighteners and Reform of the Church, where I explore in more detail the German scene.

Birzer: Third, and after that?

The next book is an edited collection of essays on Women, Catholicism and Enlightenment—because nobody has paid much attention to the female Enlighteners who were Catholic (out next year with Routledge). Simultaneously, I am writing two monographs, one a systematic study on asceticism and moral formation, and a book on Catholicism during the Nazi time.

Oxford University Press posts this description of The Catholic Enlightenment:

"Whoever needs an act of faith to elucidate an event that can be explained by reason is a fool, and unworthy of reasonable thought." This line, spoken by the notorious 18th-century libertine Giacomo Casanova, illustrates a deeply entrenched perception of religion, as prevalent today as it was hundreds of years ago. It is the sentiment behind the narrative that Catholic beliefs were incompatible with the Enlightenment ideals. Catholics, many claim, are superstitious and traditional, opposed to democracy and gender equality, and hostile to science. It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that Casanova himself was a Catholic. In The Catholic Enlightenment, Ulrich L. Lehner points to such figures as representatives of a long-overlooked thread of a reform-minded Catholicism, which engaged Enlightenment ideals with as much fervor and intellectual gravity as anyone. Their story opens new pathways for understanding how faith and modernity can interact in our own time.

Lehner begins two hundred years before the Enlightenment, when the Protestant Reformation destroyed the hegemony Catholicism had enjoyed for centuries. During this time the Catholic Church instituted several reforms, such as better education for pastors, more liberal ideas about the roles of women, and an emphasis on human freedom as a critical feature of theology. These actions formed the foundation of the Enlightenment's belief in individual freedom. While giants like Spinoza, Locke, and Voltaire became some of the most influential voices of the time, Catholic Enlighteners were right alongside them. They denounced fanaticism, superstition, and prejudice as irreconcilable with the Enlightenment agenda.

In 1789, the French Revolution dealt a devastating blow to their cause, disillusioning many Catholics against the idea of modernization. Popes accumulated ever more power and the Catholic Enlightenment was snuffed out. It was not until the Second Vatican Council in 1962 that questions of Catholicism's compatibility with modernity would be broached again.

Ulrich L. Lehner tells, for the first time, the forgotten story of these reform-minded Catholics. As Pope Francis pushes the boundaries of Catholicism even further, and Catholics once again grapple with these questions, this book will prove to be required reading.

Doctor Lehner has also posted on the OUP blog, discussing the quality of Catholic mercy through the centuries.

Church History Apologetics: December Edition

This morning on the Son Rise Morning Show, at about 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central, Matt Swaim and I will conclude our Church History Apologetics series for the year with a consideration of the Legend of Pope Joan. Every so often there's a new book--or redesigned reissue of an older one--or a cable network documentary about the legend, which was first recounted in the thirteenth century, of a woman disguised as a man, who became pope in the eleventh century.

The old Catholic Encyclopedia entry sums up reputable historical reaction to the legend:

This alleged popess is a pure figment of the imagination. In the fifteenth century, after the awakening of historical criticism, a few scholars like Aeneas Silvius (Epist., I, 30) and Platina (Vitae Pontificum, No. 106) saw the untenableness of the story. Since the sixteenth century Catholic historians began to deny the existence of the popess, e.g., Onofrio Panvinio (Vitae Pontificum, Venice, 1557), Aventinus (Annales Boiorum, lib. IV), Baronius (Annales ad a. 879, n. 5), and others.

It is, nevertheless brought up again and again as a way to attack the male-only priesthood in the Catholic Church and the office of the Pope, the hierarchy of the Church, etc.

Church History Apologetics: The Bad Popes

Matt Swaim will appreciate that we are not discussing The Bad Popes, a band in Greenville, SC. Instead we are going to talk about how to answer questions about "The Bad Popes" of Church history, popes who lived scandalously corrupt personal lives, committing nepotism, violating their vows of celibacy, etc. Listen live here after the 6:45 a.m. Central time news break with Annie Mitchell.

As the chaplain at St. Paul's Parish-Newman Center, Father William Carr, reminded us when he taught us Church History, the Pope is infallible in matters of faith and morals; he is not impeccable, unable to err or sin. Popes can and have sinned personally, made errors in judgment, failed in good management, etc. Mike Aquilina expresses it well in his introduction to Good Pope, Bad Pope: Their Lives, Our Lessons:

What do we mean when we say the pope is infallible?

We certainly don't mean that he's always right about everything. The pope is a human being like everyone else. He may be uncommonly good. In the last few centuries, we have had more popes who were uncommonly good than otherwise. But there have been times when the pope was an uncommonly bad man. And even an uncommonly good pope can still trip over the carpet or mispronounce a word. If he falls flat on his face, he doesn't have to pick himself up, brush himself off, and say, "I meant to do that," in order to maintain the truth of papal infallibility.

Papal infallibility is something much more limited and much more comforting. Because Christ promised that the Holy Spirit would protect the Church from error — and because Christ keeps his promises — we know that when the pope, acting in his official capacity as leader of the Church, defines a doctrine that is a matter of faith or morals, he cannot teach error. But the pope can be wrong about astronomy. He can be wrong about biology. He can be wrong about all sorts of things, and — being human — he frequently is.

This distinction is important when somebody points to a notoriously corrupt pope and asks, "How can you say your pope is infallible?" No one has any trouble with the obviously good popes, the ones like St. Leo the Great, who steered the Church through perilous waters and stood up heroically for the faith against long odds. But it's really the bad popes who make the best argument for infallibility.

When we read history, it's clear that God's graces do not depend on our works. He makes his sun rise on the evil popes and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (see Matthew 5:45). Bring on the worst popes in history! If even they, with all their power, haven't been able to make a dent in Catholic truth, then it really does look as though something more than natural is going on. The Spirit really must be protecting us, because even the legendarily immoral Benedict IX and Alexander VI never managed to teach error in matters of faith and morals.

One of the bad popes Chamberlin put in his 1969 book was Pope Clement VII, the pope who did not grant Henry VIII the decree of nullity he sought re: his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. Clement VII was  not a nepotist, although he had benefited from his cousin Pope Leo X's "enjoyment" of the papacy. He may have been too much of a Medici and picked the wrong sides in the conflicts between France and the Holy Roman Empire, etc., but he was not a morally reprehensible man. He did uphold the validity of Henry and Katherine's marriage.

Some authorities have thought that Pope St. Pius V erred with the Papal Bull Regnans in Excelsis, both in timing and in content, deposing Elizabeth I and encouraging her subjects to rebel against her, depose and replace her; it came too late to aid the Northern Rebellion and provoked Elizabeth and her Government to pass stricter recusant laws and persecute Catholics.

The other bad popes Chamberlin identifies:

• Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.
• Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.
• Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy
• Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy
• Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.
• Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.
• Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony

Next month: the Legend of Pope Joan.

Tomorrow on the Son Rise Morning Show: The Bad Popes

Perhaps you remember the days before amazon.com when the Barnes & Noble catalog came in the mail with lists of bargain books. One of the remainders they listed--and stocked in their brick and mortar stores--was E.R. Chamberlin's book, The Bad Popes.

Matt Swaim and I will continue our series on Church History Apologetics on the Son Rise Morning Show, held over by Annie Mitchell demand, tomorrow morning at 7:45 a.m. Eastern time/6:45 a.m. Central time.

I will continue to occupy this time slight every third Monday of the month as we discuss different historical issues. Please note that Monday, October 19 is also the anniversary of St. Philip Howard's death as a martyr in chains, held in the Tower of London, in 1595, so I will be certain to mention him too.

Listen live here, on Sacred Heart Radio.

Historical Apologetics Series on the Son Rise Morning Show

Matt Swaim and I will close out our series on Church History and Apologetics with another of the positive contributions of the Church to Western Culture: the establishment of the university (and Church contributions to education in general). You'll have to listen on-line or with the Sacred Heart Radio app, because my 6:45 a.m. Central/7:45 a.m. Eastern time slot isn't carried by EWTN anymore.

As Thomas E. Woods, Jr., explained in his book How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization the Church's development of the university should put to rest the claim that the culture of the Middle Ages was anti-intellectual and superstitious (the Dark Ages):

It was, after all, in the High Middle Ages that the university came into existence. The university, which developed and matured at the height of Catholic Europe, was a new phenomenon in European history. Nothing like it had existed in ancient Greece or Rome. The institution that we recognize today, with its faculties, courses of study, examinations, and degrees, as well as the familiar distinction between undergraduate and graduate study, comes to us directly from the medieval world. And it is no surprise that the Church should have done so much to foster the nascent university system since, according to historian Lowrie Daly, it was "the only institution in Europe that showed consistent interest in the preservation and cultivation of knowledge."

The precise origins of the very first universities are lost in obscurity, though the picture becomes ever clearer as we move into the thirteenth century. We cannot give exact dates for the appearance of universities at Paris and Bologna, Oxford and Cambridge, since they evolved over a period of time — the former beginning as cathedral schools, and the latter as informal gatherings of masters and students. But we may safely say that the process occurred during the latter half of the twelfth century.

In order to identify a particular medieval school as a university, we look for certain characteristic features. For one thing, a university possessed a core of required texts, on which professors would lecture and to which they would add their own insights. A university was also characterized by well-defined academic programs lasting a more or less fixed number of years, as well as by the granting of degrees. The granting of a degree, since it entitled the recipient to be called master, amounted to admitting new people to the teaching guild. Although the universities often struggled with outside authorities for self-government, they generally attained it. They also desired and received legal recognition as a corporation. . . .

The university and the intellectual life it fostered played an indispensable role in Western civilization. Christopher Dawson observed that from the days of the earliest universities "the higher studies were dominated by the technique of logical discussion — the quaestio and the public disputation which so largely determined the form of medieval philosophy even in its greatest representatives. "Nothing," says Robert of Sorbonne, "is known perfectly which has not been masticated by the teeth of disputation," and the tendency to submit every question, from the most obvious to the most abstruse, to this process of mastication not only encouraged readiness of wit and exactness of thought but above all developed that spirit of criticism and methodic doubt to which Western culture and science have owed so much."

According to historian of science Edward Grant, the creation of the university, the commitment to reason and rational argument, and the overall spirit of inquiry that characterized medieval intellectual life amounted to "a gift from the Latin Middle Ages to the modern world…though it is a gift that may never be acknowledged. Perhaps it will always retain the status it has had for the past four centuries as the best-kept secret of Western civilization."

In his Historical Sketches, Blessed John Henry Newman traced the history of the development of the university from the Academy of Athens, through the Schools of Charlemagne, to Paris and Oxford. He wrote The Rise and Progress of the Universities while working on the Catholic University of Ireland. In the chapter on the collegiate system of Oxford he provided some details of the room and board provided during the Middle Ages:

Accordingly, one of the earliest movements in the University, almost as early as the entrance into it of the monastic bodies, was that of providing maintenance for poor scholars. The authors of such charity hardly aimed at giving more than the bare necessaries of life,—food, lodging, and clothing,—so as to make a life of study possible. Comfort or animal satisfaction can hardly be said to have entered into the scope of their benefactions; and we shall gain a lively impression of the sufferings of the student, before the era of endowments, by considering his rude and hardy life even when a member of a College. From an account which has been preserved in one of the colleges of Cambridge, we are able to extract the following horarium of a student's day. He got up between four and five; from five to six he assisted at Mass, and heard an exhortation. He then studied or attended the schools till ten, which was the dinner hour. The meal, which seems also to have been a breakfast, was not sumptuous; it consisted of beef, in small messes for four persons, and a pottage made of its gravy and oatmeal. From dinner to five p.m., he either studied, or gave instruction to others, when he went to supper, which was the principal meal of the day, though scarcely more plentiful than dinner. Afterwards, problems were discussed and other studies pursued, till nine or ten; and then half an hour was devoted to walking or running about, that they might not go to bed with cold feet;—the expedient of hearth or stove for the purpose was out of the question.

Church History Apologetics Series: The Catholic Church and Art

Anna Mitchell and I will continue our discussion of Church History and Apologetics on the Son Rise Morning Show tomorrow (Monday, August 24) at 6:45 a.m. Central time; 7:45 a.m. Eastern time--right after the quarter hour news headlines. Listen live online here.

We are a week later than usual because she was on vacation last week. This month's topic is a little different than the others: we are going to look at the Church's positive contribution to culture in art and architecture and how that often turns into an attack.

When we think of the glories of Gothic art and architecture or the great achievements of Renaissance and Baroque churches in all the great capitals of Europe, we must recognize that the Church, through its patronage and with the assistance of contributors rich and poor, built those churches and cathedrals, commissioned those paintings, mosaics, and statues for the honor and glory of God. At the same time that many appreciate the beauty of those works, some wonder about their source and value. As I noted a couple of years ago in an article for Homiletic and Pastoral Review:

The strange flipside of these achievements, however, is that someone might say that the Vatican, and the churches around the world, should sell priceless artwork, using the money to eliminate poverty. That adjective “priceless” points out one of the flaws of that argument: who could afford to pay what it’s worth? But, even if other museums, and private collectors, could pay what that vast treasure of beauty is worth, would it really be enough to take care of all the poor? What happens when that money has been distributed, and the problem of poverty has still not been solved?

As nearly every guidebook comments about each great European capital with a Catholic heritage, the cathedrals and churches are a great free refuge and resource for the weary tourist. They offer shelter from heat and rain, a place to rest, and a feast for the eyes to see great artwork by Titian, Raphael, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Rubens, Tintoretto, and many others, especially that great and prolific artist, “Anonymous.” What about justice to the benefactors who gave artwork to the Church for the purpose of praising God in beautiful churches? Is it fair to their memory? Once the artwork is in private hands, for example, who will have access to it? The poor? Not likely.

I've encountered this rather twisted view of how the Church should sell this artwork--as if it belongs to the Church in the first place--often. When Pope Francis spoke about a poor Church for the poor, there were several comments (see this one in The Catholic Herald for example) that suggested he should sell off these priceless works. Even The National Catholic Reporter, with an article by John Allen, showed how ridiculous such an idea is:

To begin with, the legendary wealth of the Vatican is to some extent more myth than reality. The Vatican has an annual operating budget of under $300 million, while Harvard University, arguably the Vatican of elite secular opinion, has a budget of $3.7 billion, meaning it's 10 times greater. The Vatican's "patrimony," what other institutions would call an endowment, is around $1 billion. In this case, Harvard's ahead by a robust factor of 30, with an endowment of $30.7 billion.

The Vatican bank controls assets estimated at more than $6 billion, which is nobody's idea of chump change, but most of that isn't the Vatican's money. It belongs to religious orders, dioceses, movements and other Catholic organizations, and is managed by the Institute for the Works of Religion to facilitate moving it around the world.

Of course, these figures don't include the value of masterpieces of Western art housed in the Vatican, such as Michelangelo's "Pietà." The Vatican considers itself custodians of these items, not their owners, and it's a matter of Vatican law that they can never be sold or borrowed against. As a result, they have no practical value and are listed on the Vatican books at a value of 1 euro each.

National Geographic years ago published a special issue on great human artistic achievements: of all the buildings and sites mentioned, it was only in the article about St. Peter's Basilica that the author thought everything should be sold and given to eliminate poverty. Does anyone ever suggest that the National Cathedral in Washington or the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, two Episcopalian churches, should sell all their artwork and give the proceeds to the poor? 

Such a comment always reminds me of the episode of Jesus at Bethany being anointed with costly perfume: in St. John's Gospel, Judas Iscariot protests that the nard should have been sold to feed the poor, in St. Matthew and St. Mark, the disciples make the same comment, but Jesus defends her action: she has done something good for Him and they should not begrudge it.

Church History Apologetics: Blessed Junipero Serra

It's the third Monday of the month, so I'll be talking Church History Apologetics with Matt Swaim on the Son Rise Morning Show during the last national segment on EWTN: after the 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central news break with Annie Mitchell. We'll discuss the controversy over Blessed Junipero Serra and Spanish colonization in California.

Pope Francis will canonize the Mallorca-born missionary priest when he visits the United States in September this year. There has been some controversy about this because some people accuse Blessed Junipero Serra of abusing the natives in California while establishing the missions. The first thing to establish is that critics are chronologically confused, according to Professor Ruben Mendoza of California State University, Monterey Bay, in this National Catholic Reporter article:

The professor has been involved in research and conservation projects at several California missions founded by Serra. He said many of the Spanish missionary's critics are confusing the impact of Spanish colonizing and missionary activity on the native communities with what happened after California became a U.S. territory in 1848.

"A decimation of the Native American population," Mendoza said, occurred "in the period after 1850; Serra had no connection to that phenomenon. Those who criticize Serra the most tend to conflate the American period with that of the missionaries."

Another major objection to Serra's canonization involves reports that Native American adults at his mission were beaten.

"There is no documentation that Serra himself abused any Native American," Mendoza said. "The system under which he operated did use corporal punishment, but that was also used for transgressors from all walks of life, including soldiers."

Mendoza supports the canonization and said he believes it "has much to offer the peoples of Latin America, especially those of us of Mexican-Indian heritage who currently live under a shadow of doubt and denigration."

Just as with St. Thomas More during the Wolf Hall controveries, I've seen some articles with the headline or comment: "Saint or sinner?" and the answer, just as with St. Thomas More, is: both! Sainthood does not mean that the canonized confessor or martyr was perfect or never sinned; it means that the Church has determined that the confessor practiced the theological virtues heroically and that, by evidence of both devotion and miracles through the intercession of the saint, the Church is certain that the confessor is in heaven. Everyone in heaven is a saint, canonized and recognized by the Church or not; that's one reason we have the glorious feast of All Saints Day.

As the head of the Knights of Columbus noted, these attacks on Father Serra are part of the "Black Legend":

The “black legend” is a term historians use to explain a propaganda war of English speaking nations against Spain. It originally arose when Spain had a vast empire and England was competing with Spain.

We all know, for example, the story of the Spanish Armada trying to invade England. It has come down through history as a prejudice against Spaniards as being unusually cruel, unusually greed, unusually untrustworthy. . . .

The presumption of the black legend is that the Indians — the native peoples — were treated cruelly, maybe were tortured, were exploited. When the fact of the matter is, what drove and motivated Junípero Serra and the other missionaries was the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe, that these people have dignity. When she appeared to Juan Diego, she said: “Am I not your Mother?” Did she not come with their appearance, as one of them. She also said: “I have the honor to be your mother.”

Disciples of Our Lady of Guadalupe understand that she is coming out of respect. And therefore, evangelization does not mean domination; it doesn’t mean exploitation. It means bringing the Gospel to people and cultures that you respect.

And Carl Anderson notes that it was the State of California, in the days of the 49ers, that abused the natives:

And that’s the key to understanding Junípero Serra. In fact, many of the horrible things that people want to say occurred under the Spanish missionaries actually occurred after Spain and Mexico were driven out of California. It is during the gold rush — in 1849 and 1850 — that you see the suppression of the Indian people, i.e. the natives of California. . . .

You even have the governor of the time saying the Indians must be exterminated. There was no thought of treating the native people with the kind of respect and multiculturalism that Junípero Serra wanted. The governor stated this quite clearly and used the word ‘extermination’, so it’s very clear what was going on.

The Black Legend is one of those sloppy, easy ways to think (or not think) about history, using some simplistic, generalized framework to sort out the heroes and the villains. We know that history is more complex than that but this propaganda device is hard to dislodge from popular culture.

A final aspect of this issue is the statue of Blessed Junipero Serra in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection (pictured above/public domain)--there was a move to have it replaced with one of Sally Ride, but that has been put on hold, at least until after Pope Francis' visit. St. Damien of Molokai, the Leper priest, is the other Catholic saint depicted in the hall. Do you know which historic figures represent your state? Perhaps I'll quiz Matt on who represents Ohio!