All Roads: Roamin’ Catholic Apologetics

All Roads: Roamin’ Catholic Apologetics.  By Dale Ahlquist, ACS Books, 2014.

 

Dale Ahlquist, the president of the American Chesterton Society (Chesterton.org), has written a new book on the Catholic Church and how to live one’s faith and defend it.  Most of Ahlquist’s previous works have revolved around G.K. Chesterton.  Chesterton is a constant presence in All Roads, but he is not the central character.  Perhaps Ahlquist is the main figure in this new book, or perhaps Jesus is.  Chesterton is a significant supporting character, as are other figures ranging from writers to popes, all filtered through the amiable light of Ahlquist’s prose.  Indeed, Ahlquist notes that, “You will also note my glorious weakness in quoting my friend Mr. Chesterton to illustrate nearly every point, though sometimes I lapse into quoting the Church Fathers, or even, in extreme cases, Scripture.  It is the part of my apologetics for which I make no apology.”  The heart of this book comes from Ahlquist’s happy descriptions of becoming Catholic and explaining what it means to be Catholic.

 

In his introduction, Ahlquist writes:

 

“Becoming Catholic was the most difficult decision of my life.  It was a decision I had to defend at the time I entered the Church and again almost every day since.  And it was a decision I have never once regretted.

 

In this book, I will begin with an unnecessarily long prologue telling the story of my conversion.  But the rest of it is composed of mercifully short and hopefully sweet accounts of some of the encounters that happened afterwards, the opportunities where I have had the pleasure of defending the faith that I have embraced.  There is always someone or something fighting the Catholic Church, and I have found it nothing less than sublime to give them the fight they are asking for.  But while defending the faith provides the exhilaration of battle, it also provides a certain serenity, a peace of mind that comes from having the truth reaffirmed at every turn.  “If Christianity should happen to be true,” says G.K. Chesterton, “then defending it may mean talking about anything or everything.  Things can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is false, but nothing can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is true.” Anything and everything.  That is what these short meditations are about.  The doctrines and teachings of the Catholic Church relate to every conceivable subject, but conversely, every subject, every idea, every issue is a ready opportunity to demonstrate the truths of the Catholic Church.  Everything has a way of pointing to the truth.  I suppose another way of saying it is that all roads lead to Rome.”

 

The introduction to this book is a lengthy overview of Ahlquist’s spiritual development.  It is personal, revealing, and ultimately proves to be an effective means of explaining why Ahlquist would become a Catholic apologist and a Chesterton popularizer.  Ahlquist tells how an in-law (a Christian musician) introduced Ahlquist to Chesterton’s writings after learning of Ahlquist’s interest in C.S. Lewis, and then pointing out that Lewis was deeply inspired by Chestertion.  After the first essay, fifty-six much shorter essays follow.  Many of them are revised versions of articles that were published on various websites and other venues such as the magazine Gilbert.  The articles cover a very wide swath of topics, ranging from theology, to history, to Church traditions, to modern art, to the family, to other religions. 

 

Some of the essays serve as editorials, while others ruminate on current events.  In one of the most memorable chapters, Ahlquist draws upon a recent controversy at a Minnesota museum, where a beloved and beautiful painting was sold by the institution, despite the pleas of fans and art lovers to keep the artwork.  William Adolphe Bouguereau’s Bohémiennewas one of the most-liked and celebrated paintings at the museum, but the management of the Minneapolis Art Institute decided that for various reasons, the Bohémienne no longer deserved to have a place at the museum, and would be sold in order to buy other pictures that the curators believed better deserved wall space at the MAI.  The curators listed various reasons why the portrait ought not be viewed with reverence, leading to disgust from fans and charges that the modernist art critics were incapable of appreciating a work of humanist realism.  The controversy spiraled, fans offered to donate large sums of money if the MAI would keep the painting, but these objections and efforts were ignored. (See http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2004/Minneapolis/shameful.php for further information on the controversy.) Ahlquist notes that a lovely painting that thousands of people enjoyed was now in a private collection where hardly anybody would ever see it again.  This incident becomes a metaphor for the heart of the book’s commentary of contemporary culture.  The self-styled “elites” of the modern world have contempt for the glories of the past, and average people who appreciate the beautiful and unique wind up getting cheated through no fault of their own.  The truth gets lost amongst the prejudices of people in position of influence, and the broader culture is weakened as a result.

 

Ahlquist’s cultural criticism moves beyond the art world and into theological debates:

 

“There is, however, a creeping error within Christianity, even among Catholics, called Universalism, the idea that everyone will go to heaven no matter what.  This is clearly contrary to the teaching of the Church, and yet we see in many places an increasing resistance to talk about hell and the “tragic possibilities” that accompany the glory of free will.  The Universalists have done the Protestants one better.  The Protestants reduced the scheme of salvation to “faith alone,” but the Universalists have dumped even faith.  It is inclusiveness taken to the extreme.

 

But human dignity depends on the doctrine of free will.  Chesterton says that another name for free will is moral responsibility: “Upon this sublime and perilous liberty hang heaven and hell, and all the mysterious drama of the soul.”  The drama of the soul is this amazing possibility that “a man can divide himself from God.”  But even more dramatic is that a man can be reconciled to God.  It is not logical– or theological, for that matter– that we can be reconciled with God if we cannot be separated from him.

 

Hell is not a subject to be avoided; it is a place to be avoided.  Not thinking about hell is a great danger.  We might even fool ourselves into thinking there is no hell.  But thinking about hell is a very good idea.  It is a good way to keep ourselves out of it.”

 

Ahlquist’s approach to Catholic apologetics is to explain the Church’s teachings, and then explain why they make perfect sense.  The “commonsensical” tactic that Ahlquist uses is meant to make Catholic morality, which is often branded as a relic of medieval times or an arbitrary set of restrictions, an obvious approach to dealing with a muddled world and the quest towards Heaven.  As the above quote indicates, universalism, taken to a conclusion, indicates that actions ultimately do not have consequences.  It therefore might obviously make one wonder if there is any reason to choose virtue over vice, if the eternal reward is the same at the end of both paths.  Throughout the book, Ahlquist cites conversations where he raises questions that certain morally complacent people never dreamed of asking.  Ahlquist argues that finding accurate answers requires the ability to think up relevant questions, a habit that many people have never developed because of a blind reluctance to challenge certain principles. 

 

“Chesterton says, “Becoming a Catholic does not mean leaving off thinking.  It means learning how to think.”  I can scarcely convey how astounding that comment is from someone like Chesterton, who was not exactly a dunce before his conversion.  But I discovered firsthand that the Catholic faith was not only central to Chesterton’s profound thought, it is central to everything.”

 

Ahlquist’s earlier books were largely reworked versions of his television series The Apostle of Common Sense, turning the teleplays into essays.  By going beyond Chesterton’s world, Ahlquist has actually managed to explore Chesterton’s world better.  Since there was virtually no topic that escaped the attention of Chesterton’s pen, there is no reason why one of Chesterton’s biggest fans and supporters ought not to take the same approach to apologetics.  The Catholic Church becomes a magnifying glass that is used to see the world and everything in it with great clarity and detail, with previous misconceptions being jettisoned in favor of firm understandings.  Adopting a Catholic mindset, Ahlquist argues, is more than just regurgitating statements that the Church has compelled its members to memorize.  Catholic thinking means approaching a question with a mind well trained in common sense and logical thought, leading to an intelligent and clear conclusion.  Ahlquist’s book is the story of a journey, but even though his work has taken him around the world, it is the sort of journey that takes place mostly inside one’s head and heart, and he wants his readers to go on a comparable odyssey in order to find the truth in a muddled world.

 

 

–Chris Chan

Fioretti– The Little Flowers of Pope Francis

Fioretti– The Little Flowers of Pope Francis.  By Andrea Tornielli, Ignatius Press, 2014.

 

Over the past year and a half, it has become increasingly apparent that if people want to get a better idea of what Pope Francis is saying and doing, then the traditional media is definitely not a good place to go for information.  Time after time, the religion reporters of the major papers and news services have been caught distorting the Pope’s messages, deliberately misrepresenting his statements, and potentially making comments up out of whole cloth.  This has given many individuals, ranging from staunch Catholics to disinterested nonbelievers, erroneous perceptions about Pope Francis’s goals for his papacy and his message for the world.  

 

People from all walks of life are raising questions.  Is the Pope radically changing Church teachings on certain subjects?  Is the Pope in danger for taking such radical stances?  What does this mean for the future of the Church?  Increasingly, religious bloggers have become the go-to source for reliable information and educated commentary about Pope Francis and his papacy, providing factual correction for the radically distorted narratives widely disseminated in the media, such as the alleged “blistering attack on the Curia” at Christmas (Dawn Eden gives a much more nuanced examination of that statement here, stressing that it wasn’t the lambasting that many news stories asserted it was: http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2014/12/24/did-pope-francis-really-give-his-own-curia-a-blistering-attack-for-christmas) to the recent “all dogs go to heaven” story that was later proven to be a largely baseless non-story created by unscrupulous reporting (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/12/pope-francis-didnt-say-dogs-can-go-to-heaven.html).  The corrections have gotten minor attention in the general press, and not nearly as much ink and air time as the original, debunked stories, especially since the retractions tend to come a few days after the first news stories break.

 

In Fioretti, Tornielli is trying to explain to readers what Pope Francis is really saying and doing.  As a longtime journalist at the Vatican, Tornielli provides a professional’s view of what is being said and done, as well as providing extensive quotations as to what is really being preached.  As he explains his goals in publishing this books, Tornielli describes his work as follows:

 

“This book contains incidents, excerpts from homilies, testimonies, encounters, telephone calls that have Pope Francis as their protagonist.  The title echoes the Little Flowers of St. Francis, the famous collection of stories about the beloved Francis of Assisi, whose name the Pope adopted for himself.  The present work makes no claim to completeness, nor does it intend to offer a systematic account of the first months of Francis’ pontificate or to present analyses and commentaries.  It merely tries to offer a collection of fragments, a little selection which page after page, may help the reader to become better acquainted with the Bishop of Rome who came “from the end of the earth.”” (p. 15).

 

The purpose of Fioretti is to present a picture of what Tornielli sees as the real Pope Francis, who comes across as a man of great kindness and charity who is determined to not allow the world and the Church to remain in ineffective old patterns and bad habits.  Early in the book, Tornielli writes:

 

“The message that Francis considers most important, as he himself said in his homily at the Mass in the Vatican parish of St. Anna on March 17, is the message of mercy.  “Without mercy,” he said to the Brazilian bishops during his journey to Rio de Janeiro, “we have little chance nowadays of becoming part of a world of ‘wounded’ persons in need of understanding, forgiveness, love.”  He added, “We need a church able to make sense of the ‘night’ contained in the flight of so many of our brothers and sisters. … We need a church unafraid of going forth into their night… a church capable of meeting them on their way.”  (pp. 12-13).

 

The Pope’s words are quoted extensively as a means of creating a patchwork quilt of Pope Francis’s  “greatest hits,” so to speak, thereby creating a mega-sermon with commentary by Tornielli, who comes across as a staunch supporter of the Pope, who in turn comes across as a man of preternatural warmth and kindness.  In Fioretti, the “little flowers” are examples of how love needs to be an integral component of religious life and evangelization.  The following words are from Pope Francis:

 

“The structural and organizational reforms are secondary– that is, they come afterward.  The first reform must be the attitude.  The ministers of the Gospel must be people who can warm the hearts of the people who walk through the dark night with them, who know how to dialogue and to descend themselves into their people’s night, into the darkness, but without getting lost.  The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials.  The bishops, particularly, must be able to support the movements of God among their people with patience, so that no one is left behind.  But they must also be able to accompany the flock that has a flair for finding new paths.

 

Instead of being just a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open, let us try also to be a church that finds new roads, that is able to step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quit or are indifferent.  The ones who quit sometimes do it for reasons that, if properly understood and assessed, can lead to a return.  But that takes audacity and courage.” (pp. 13-14).

 

Tornielli observes that sometimes the most dangerous impediments to faith and spiritual improvement come from within the hearts of average individuals.  Sometimes the barriers that stand in the way of someone finding comfort or fulfillment inside the Church are self-imposed, and though Tornielli’s message ought to provoke guilt in those who are not accustomed to introspection, it serves as a profound set of directions for self-help, even though the path to holiness is not an easy one.

 

“We live in a society where we become less and less accustomed to acknowledging our responsibilities and blaming ourselves for our mistakes: indeed it is always someone else’s fault.  Other people are always the immoral ones; someone else is always at fault, never me.  We also experience a certain view of the Church that sees her only imposing requirements and prohibitions that stifle freedom and weigh down everyday life, which is already burdensome.  The message of mercy knocks down both clichés at the same time.

 

There is no doubt that these words of the Pope made an impression on the hearts of many people.  Above all on the fallen-away, on those who have distanced themselves from the Church and from the practice of their faith.  Many pastors from all parts of Italy have testified to this, speaking about the increase in the number of confessions in the Easter season and about the fact that many penitents specifically cited Francis’ words about mercy.”  (pp. 22-23).

 

This is a short book, and at times Tornielli cites the same quotes by Pope Francis multiple times.  This is not meant to be a thorough analysis of the Pope’s sermons and homilies, but it does select some recurring themes that have proven crucial to the pontiff’s worldview and agenda.  This little volume is meant to be a rebuttal to the unpleasantly common view that Pope Francis is reducing the Church’s teachings to a simple “be kind and follow your conscience.”  Instead, Tornielli’s selections from Pope Francis’s writings come across as a far more complex and challenging argument, indicating that nothing is being taken away from the Church’s teachings, but instead, the blinding sins and foibles that people carry with them and nuture through poor decisions need to be torn away in order for people to be brought closer to Christ.

 

 

–Chris Chan

Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms

Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms.  By Holly Ordway.  Ignatius Press, 2014.

 

Holly Ordway’s memoir is a conversion story as she recounts her development from a nonbeliever to a theist.  Like other recent conversion autobiographies published by Ignatius Press, like Jennifer Fulwiler’s Something Other Than God, Ordway’s Not God’s Type tells the story of how Ordway discovered Christ, told with refreshing honesty, humor, and humility. 

 

This book covers Ordway’s development with a heavy emphasis on the intellectual and mental ways that Ordway came to Christianity.  This is important, because Ordway is a scholar specializing in literature.  Ordway’s book is all about how she moved from being someone who was completely indifferent to all things spiritual, from someone who centered her life around her faith.

 

In her introduction, Ordway writes:

 

“I wrote the first version of this book just two years into my Christian journey, noting that as time went on, I would surely see more than I did at the time of writing, and that, as I continued to reflect, the story would gradually become clearer. Indeed, this has turned out to be the case.

 

Following the publication of Not God’s Type, I gave many interviews and presentations on ‘an atheist’s journey to faith,’ and was asked perceptive questions: What was my childhood experience of faith? How did I become an atheist in the first place? What changed so that I became willing to listen to arguments about the truth of Christianity?

 

I realized that the answers to these questions were found in the work of grace, starting much further back in my life than I had at first realized. More needed to be said about the early stages of my journey.

 

As I became increasingly involved in apologetics, I also recognized the importance of imagination as both the catalyst and the foundation of my rational exploration of the Faith.  It was imagination that made Christian concepts meaningful to me.  Until words like ‘God’ and ‘Jesus’ and ‘Resurrection’ became meaningful– literally, filled with meaning– rather than abstract signifiers, arguments about religion were just intellectual games, with no real-world significance.”

 

As Ordway writes, the recent Ignatius Press edition is a substantially revised version of the original Not God’s Type. The reason for this is that in the first edition of Not God’s Type, Ordway recounted her journey from atheism to Protestantism.  Since then, Ordway has continued her religious explorations and converted to Catholicism.  She has also changed the focus of her academic work significantly, leaving her West Coast career as an English professor and moving to Texas, still teaching literature, but this time leading a program specializing in Christian apologetics.

 

Ordway muses on the unexpected direction that her life took, writing:

 

“Expect the unexpected” seems to be a useful approach to the Christian life.  When I wrote the first version of the book, I was an Episcopalian and a tenured English professor in Southern California, getting an apologetics degree from a Protestant university; as I write this, I am a Catholic and director of the M.A. in Cultural Apologetics at Houston Baptist University in Texas.  You can’t make this stuff up…”

 

Indeed, there is something utterly genuine about Ordway’s book.  Ordway does not claim to have been converted through some miraculous divine revelation, or that the material aspects of her life have all been enriched through conversion and that everything is now perfect in her life.  Rather, Not God’s Type  explains how Ordway’s life has become spiritually richer, more joyful, and more purposeful thanks to her newfound faith, and her personal conversion left her much the same person in many ways, though spiritually renewed, and driven by the goal of finding ways to evangelize the Word of God, particularly to the seemingly disinterested.

 

In today’s debates over ideas and opinions, people tend to think that “winning” means shouting down or humiliating your opponents, or bullying someone you don’t like into silence, or coming up with a catchy quip that serves as a substitute for in-depth thinking.  Not God’s Type realizes the folly of such an antagonistic means of argument, especially when it comes to trying to create new Christians.  

 

The Holy Spirit does not work through intimidation, but instead it touches souls through love and the amazing transformative power of God.  Ordway realizes this, and the purpose of Not God’s Type is not to hammer out new arguments or to give believers a catchphrase to shout, but instead serves as a walk through her own life, and an illustration of how the beauty and intellectual and spiritual richness of Christianity can win over even the most secular hearts.  This book was written with the hope of making new friends in Christ, and Ordway makes her approach of winning converts by displaying the love and charity of God clear.  She writes:

 

“Too often in apologetics today, Christians are tempted to look for the silver-bullet argument, the right thing to say at the right time so that the other person will concede, “I’ve been completely wrong all along!  Give me a Bible!”  Or worse, apologists may treat argument as a rhetorical kung fu move to ‘defeat’ or ‘crush’ and atheist.  Other times Christians press people to recognize the existence of God and acknowledge their own sinfulness, quickly declaring it evidence of hardness of heart when the skeptic resists.  We forget that the Christian and the unbeliever often lack shared meaning for words like ‘God’ and ‘sin.’  All too often, we talk past the very people we are trying to help.”

 

As Ordway’s life proves, proselytizing is nothing if it only seeks to rack up converts as statistics, much like McDonald’s lists the numbers of beef patties they’ve sold (“Over 1 Billion saved!”).  Bringing people to the Church is a battle where ideally everybody will wind up a winner.  Ordway was an avid fencer for years, and in many instances throughout the book, the discussions of faith take the form of a swordplay exercise, where a duel is fought not to kill or wound an opponent, but to engage in the great thrill of engaging in an innocent and exhilarating test of skill, determination, and discipline.

 

In the end, the following passage aptly sums up Ordway’s personal spiritual experiences in a far more concise way than any amount of analysis might be able to achieve.  Ordway’s faith reflects how a Christian worldview forever altered the way she looked at every aspect of her life.

 

“Recognizing God as Creator and the Source of all goodness meant rethinking everything: nothing was exempt from that terrible scrutiny.  Recognizing him meant admitting utter and complete failure to live up to the real standard of what is good.”

 

More information about Holly Ordway can be found at her website, http://www.hieropraxis.com/.  This blog, featuring guest posts and podcasts, discusses subjects connected to Christian apologetics and provides a useful list of Ordway’s other works.

 

 

–Chris Chan

Non-Negotiable: Essential Principles of a Just Society and Humane Culture

Non-Negotiable: Essential Principles of a Just Society and Humane Culture.  By Sheila Liaugminas.  Ignatius Press, 2014.

 

Sheila Liaugminas is a broadcaster and journalist, whose coverage often specializes in religious issues.  She is a host on Relevant Radio, and her new book, Non-Negotiable: Essential Principles of a Just Society and Humane Culture is an attempt to explain Catholic social teachings and how they apply to everyday life and the most controversial issues facing American society today.

 

Towards the beginning of Liaugminas’s book, she opens by explaining that this book is meant to explain why certain principles are held by nations and religions, and that being a member of a social group such as a country or a faith requires an understanding as to why that group holds the ethics that it does.  She writes:

 

“How does a nation, or any large community of peoples, determine what is true, right, and good in structuring its governing documents?  To what authority to drafters of those guiding principles refer, and to what end?

 

The Declaration of Independence appealed to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” in its opening statement, “to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station” to which God entitles them.  The very next line claims and orders that entitlement: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.””  (pp. 12-13).

 

Liaugminas flatly dismisses the common belief in moral relativism that states that one perspective is just as good as any other, and that new perceived rights trump older rights.  The heart of Non-Negotiable is a clash of principles, an older set of morals and values being challenged by a newer one that holds the older ways in contempt and seeks to marginalize or obliterate such perspectives from the public sphere.  This is not a particularly angry or polemical book.  On the contrary, it is generally light on emotion, although at times it seems as if Liaugminas is finding it challenging to limit her annoyance at other people’s obtuseness or bullying tactics. Liaugminas writes that she is not pleased with the current political, intellectual, and moral climates of the country and the world, writing that:

 

“The United States as a nation and the United Nations as a body of global representatives have within them powerful forces passing laws and advancing agenda that totally violates a number of the principles established in both declarations.

 

How did this happen?  How can a ruling class so boldly disregard “self-evident truths” and return to having “disregard and contempt for human rights,” ignoring declarations that should ground their every action?  How can they have constructed a new set of priorities that violate their founding principles, and advance them under the language of “rights” based on nothing more than shifting cultural relativism?”  (p. 14).

 

Non-Negotiable addresses numerous topics.  Debating the notion of what constitutes dignity, life and death, marriage and the family, the role of personal conscience in daily life, and the role that religion ought to play in society are all discussed in this book, and particular stress is played on how each subject affects all of society and the world when principles (or a lack of principles) are put into practice.

 

“As Pope Benedict XVI also said often, we live in a culture unmoored from its Judeo-Christian roots, an increasingly secular culture unmoored from its Judeo-Christian roots, an increasingly secular culture with no reference to God.  In this environment, he warned, tolerance has degenerated into indifference toward permanent values.  But even though Christians are reluctant to make a public witness to faith in this prevailing secular culture, he also warned that resigning ourselves to public indifference to truth was the heart of the crisis of the West.  If truth does not exist, Benedict said many times, then mankind cannot distinguish between good and evil.

 

That seems self-evident.  But so did the truths declared by the Founding Fathers.  They no longer are.”  (p. 16).

 

Liaugminas generally gives the impression that this book is not really about her, but rather about the ideas and principles that control the direction that society takes.  Still, at times there are instances where her personality– or perhaps her conscience– manifests itself in her work.  Throughout the book, there is a very strong sense that Liaugminas is motivated by an incredibly strong and unshakeable moral compass, where certain actions are indefensible and others are unquestionably right.  Non-Negotiable is possibly the culmination of a lifetime of following her conscience.  She recounts the following anecdote, writing:

 

“Decades ago, a little girl accompanied her father on his only business trip to the deep South, her first time to leave their Midwestern town.  Besides the new and different and “strange” sights, there was the ominous, the different way people reacted to each other.  They were in a drugstore in Alabama, and she saw a fountain with the sign “No Coloreds Allowed,” and she was outraged.  In the loud voice of an indignant child who doesn’t think of or care about the setting or context but only the boiling need to cry out, she shouted, “Dad!  They can’t do that!  They can’t treat people that way!  That’s not right!”

 

That was her initiation into “social activism.”  She didn’t know much about John F. Kennedy but was glad a Catholic was elected president and that he emphasized service.  She followed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and admired his peaceful protests and soaring sermons and addresses.  And his noble dignity.  That impression left an imprint on this little girl’s conscience.

 

True story.  That little girl was me.

 

I continued to work for peace and social justice through the Church and the profession of journalism.  I landed in adulthood during a turbulent time when social morals and values, bedrock principles, and Gospel truths about human dignity and equality got contorted out of recognition.  Why are we seemingly closer to world war than world peace, after the lessons of the twentieth century should have been so obvious that we could not repeat its mistakes?” (pp. 16-17).

 

Non-Negotiable will serve as a particularly useful resource for people who need help understanding the Catholic Church’s teachings on certain issues and who need explanations and justifications for why the Church requires its members to behave a certain way, both publicly and privately. Liaugminas draws upon religious and historical arguments to advance her points, and she does a very strong job of explaining why certain positions are promoted by the Church and why others are rejected.

 

While Non-Negotiable is bound to be a useful guide and reference for individuals who are sympathetic to what the Church teaches, it may not prove an effective means of changing the minds of the people who are fiercely opposed to these arguments. Liaugminas’s work is based on defining the Church’s perspectives and providing additional reasons why the Church is right and others are wrong.  There are few rhetorical flourishes or catch slogans of the kind that tend to be so prevalent in today’s discourse.  If someone is looking for a book that will convert people who previously were hostile to the Church’s teachings, this book may not provoke a reversal of such views, but Liaugminas might be able to help explain issues to people who are confused about Church doctrine, and to give the faithful some additional help in a debate.

 

 

–Chris Chan

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light.  By Mother Teresa with Brian Kolodiejchuk, Image, 2009.

 

“If I ever become a Saint–I will surely be one of “darkness.” I will continually be absent from Heaven–to light the light of those in darkness on earth.”

–Mother Teresa of Calcutta

 

Mother Teresa is a saint of modern times, known for dedicating her life to the poorest of the poor.  She is also a largely misunderstood figure.  Many of her admirers think of her as a big round yellow smiley face in a white habit with blue trim, and her few critics have leveled all sorts of allegations against her works and character.  The criticisms will be ignored here, as they largely are in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, since Mother Teresa’s own words and thoughts are her best possible defense, except perhaps for the words of the people whose lives she has improved.  The picture of the subject matter in this book will not shatter the opinions of Mother Teresa’s fans one whit, but it will help them learn a more complex and nuanced perspective of a remarkable woman who improved the world little by little.

 

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light is a biography, made richer and more accessible by the heavy use of quotes from her own personal writings, including a great deal of her personal reflections, expressed in her letters to her spiritual advisor.  Mother Teresa’s thoughts and feelings are clear, purely and passionately expressed.  One can feel the emotion in them, as well as the excitement that comes from living a life that helps others and leads others to happiness. 

 

Early in the book, we learn about Mother Teresa’s before she earned the title of “Mother,” and see hear early years starting out in her apostolate:

 

 “If you could know how happy I am, as Jesus’ little spouse.  No one, not even those who are enjoying some happiness which in the world seems perfect, could I envy, because I am enjoying my complete happiness, even when I suffer something for my beloved Spouse.” (p. 18).

 

Several years ago when this book was first published, there was a minor media splash, where Mother Teresa’s periods of “spiritual darkness” were revealed and presented in some media circles as evidence of agnosticism or even atheism.  A careful reading of the book indicates that this is not the case– a sense of feeling distanced from God is a very different matter from disbelief. Kolodiejchuk notes that Mother Teresa’s spiritual life was not always a matter of sweetness and light, but the “darkness” she felt was a classic pathway in many holy people’s spiritual development.

 

“Interior darkness is nothing new in the tradition of Catholic mysticism.  In fact, it has been a common phenomenon among the numerous saints throughout Church history who have experienced what the Spanish Carmelite mystic St. John of the Cross termed the “dark night.”  The spiritual master aptly employed this term to designate the painful purifications one undergoes before reaching union with God.  They are accomplished in two phases: the “night of the senses” and the “night of the spirit.”  In the first night one is freed from attachment to sensory satisfactions and drawn into the prayer of contemplation.  While God communicates His light and love, the soul, imperfect as it is, is incapable of receiving them, and experiences them as darkness, pain, dryness, and emptiness.  Although the emptiness and absence of God are only apparent, they are a great source of suffering.  Yet, if this state is the “night of the senses” and not the result of mediocrity, laziness, or illness, one continues performing one’s duties faithfully and generously, without despondency, self-concern, or emotional disturbance.  Though consolations are no longer felt, there is a notable longing for God, and an increase of love, humility, patience, and other virtues.”  (p. 22).

 

After reading this book, it is clear that Mother Teresa consistently acted through the power of her faith.  As the biography covers the development of her charity work, she learns about the great joy that can come through compassion for those in need of help, and finding ways to alleviate terrible situations.  Mother Teresa realized through experience that she was most needed where poverty and illness were the most dire.  God was calling her to go where she was needed most.

 

“On Sundays, she used to visit the poor in the slums.  This apostolate, which she herself chose, left a deep impression on her:

 

Every Sunday I visit the poor in Calcutta’s slums.  I cannot help them, because I do not have anything, but I go to give them joy.  Last time about twenty little ones were eagerly expecting their “Ma.”  When they saw me, they ran to meet me, even skipping on one foot.  I entered.  In that “para”– that is how a group of houses is called here– twelve families were living.  Every family has only one room, two meters long and a meter and a half wide.  The door is so narrow that I hardly could enter, and the ceiling is so low that I could not stand upright… Now I do not wonder that my poor little ones love their school so much, and that so many of them suffer from tuberculosis.  The poor mother [of the family she visited] did not utter even a word of complaint about her poverty.  It was very painful for me, but at the same time I was very happy when I saw that they are happy because I visit them.  Finally the mother said to me: “Oh, Ma, come again!  Your smile brought sun into this house!”

 

To her friends back home in Skopje, she disclosed the prayer she whispered in her heart while returning to the convent: “O God, how easily I make them happy!  Give me strength to be always the light of their lives and so lead them to You!”  She could not imagine that less than a decade later her prayer would be answered: she would dedicate not just her free time, but her entire life to the poor, becoming a beacon for them through her love and compassion.” (p. 27).

 

Reading about Mother Teresa’s life may create a moral inferiority complex in many people.  After all, most people cannot (or at least do not) devote so much of their time and their energy into helping those in need.  But the point of reading a book like this is not to learn about a standard of sanctity and holiness that the average individual cannot possibly achieve, but the life of Mother Teresa is meant to shine as a guiding beacon to help people find their way through the challenges of life, inspiring them to do what they can to make the world a better place.

 

“Mother Teresa’s help, guidance and intercession are for everyone, especially those who find themselves in darkness for whatever reason.  As she had pledged, she would be “absent from heaven” to bring them light.

 

Having taken to heart Christ’s words “Love one another as I have loved you,” and made them a reality in her life, she invites us to travel along the same path:

 

“And today God keeps on loving the world.  He keeps on sending you and me to prove that He loves the world, that He still has that compassion for the world.  It is we who have to be His love, His compassion in the world of today.  But to be able to love we must have faith, for faith in action is love, and love in action is service.”

 

Mother Teresa’s life shows us that holiness can be reached by simple means.  Starting by loving the unloved, the unwanted, the lonely closest to us, in our own homes, in our communities and neighborhoods, we can follow her example of loving until it hurts, of always doing a little more than we feel ready to do.”  (p. 338).

 

There is a “Peanuts” comic strip where Linus declares that, “We’re studying the epistles of Paul in Sunday school…  I must admit it makes me feel a little guilty. I always feel like I’m reading someone else’s mail!”  Linus’s sentiments are the only slight shadow cast upon the book.  Reading this book can provoke feelings similar to Linus’s.  Mother Teresa asked that her spiritual reflections be kept secret or destroyed, but they were released with the belief that their contents could help people.  Hopefully Come Be My Light can be of comfort and encouragement for many readers.

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

Christendom and the West: Essays on Culture, Society and History

Christendom and the West: Essays on Culture, Society and History.  By Thomas Storck.  Four Faces Press, 1999. 

 

Thomas Storck is an essayist and cultural commenter who writes extensively on subjects such as religion and American society.  Christendom and the West: Essays on Culture, Society and History is an anthology of fourteen of his essays on assorted topics, such as “Faith and Culture,” “Is Poetry Possible?,” “The American as Universal Man,” and “The Meaning of the Catholic Intellectual Revival.”  The essays in this volume are all fairly brief, and can be read in minutes.  They can be excellent conversation starters, or can also serve as useful starting points for self-reflection.

 

The essays are designed to challenge the reader, and it is possible that a reader may find himself nodding along with the author over the course of a couple of paragraphs, only to be shaken by a confusing or thought-provoking point, or irked by the sudden introduction of an opinion with which he disagrees.

 

All of Storck’s essays are of similar levels of quality, though their content is quite wide-ranging.  In “What is Western Culture?,” Storck raises the question of what exactly the “West” is, and what went into making the modern mindset.

 

“It is interesting that modern man sees his ancestors as having been more parochial than he, whereas in fact, the opposite is true. Traditional European man was more cosmopolitan, but at the same time more rooted in place than we are. Though intensely nationalistic and looking at things though the eyes of our partial and one-sided cultures, we have very little sense of place. The patriotism of the nation-state that we cultivate is hardly the same as the local patriotism of the medievals and ancients. We have got everything exactly backwards. Because of the lack of strong nationalistic bonds and of such supra-national forces as the Latin language, a largely international academic and intellectual life, and international dynastic ties, traditional Western man rightly regarded all of Europe and the West as his home. But at the same time, he had much more of a sense of place than we have, who are apt to move about, especially within our own countries, and in fact to carry our national prejudices with us wherever we might go. If it is possible to have parochial cosmopolitans, than the modern world has managed to produce them!”

                                                                                                –“What is Western Culture?”

 

Storck repeatedly emphasizes the fact that the societies, governments, and mindsets of today are all heavily shaped by the past.  Ideas, cultures, and political policies from centuries ago all serve to shape today’s world, and it is remarkable how little the average individual knows about the long chain of events and ideas that molded the present.  Storck’s work is particularly intriguing for scholars of intellectual history, for he often contemplates how a standard mindset might be different from one century to another, and just how much people are shaped by their surroundings, both tangible and intangible.

 

Throughout his work, Storck asks the big questions: Who are we and how did we become what we are?  How does what happen in our minds affects the world around us?  Are we free to choose our own paths, or does all that came before us weight us down to a predetermined groove?  How does religion affect the mind, body, and soul?  In “The United States as a Cultural Vacuum,” Storck does not bash American culture so much as explore how the nation, ruling ideologies, and ways of life were created and evolved to the present day.

 

“The definition of what it means to be a human person that is proposed by the United States is implicit in the image we commonly have of this country. Our history as a political entity extends back only to 1776, at which time, for many, perhaps most, of us, not one of our ancestors lived within the bounds of the thirteen English colonies. But, we are told, this should not trouble us. We are all generously invited to appropriate for ourselves the status of descendants of those rebellious colonists and to make their tradition our own, and indeed to extend it back to the first English settlements in North America, to the Pilgrims and Jamestown, and back even further to England to capture such events as the signing of Magna Carta, events that are held to have contributed to the formation of the American historical and political tradition. But in reality, as we all know, our actual histories are many and disparate, some indeed to England, most to other European countries, many to Africa, increasingly many to Asia. And to an important element of the population, the Hispanics, the historical tradition extending ultimately to Europe has been incarnated for over 500 years in other parts of the Americas and with very different historical landmarks and memories.”

            –“The United States as a Cultural Vacuum”

 

At the heart of Storck’s work is the firmly stressed point that nothing stands completely on its own.  Social revolutions and cultural change do not just spring up suddenly, they are the product of what comes before them.  Furthermore, Storck frequently takes note of the fact that the historical and cultural narratives that the average person is familiar with are often factually flawed or based on false assumptions.  It is also wrong to assume that changes in society simply happen and are inevitable.  Changes in mores and expectations occur because people make decisions or assumptions, and to riff on Alexander Pope’s famous line, whatever is, is NOT necessarily right.

 

One of the most passionate essays in the volume is “The Mixed Legacy of the 1960’s,” which analyses one of the most talked-about decades of the twentieth century and explores the reasons for the alterations in accepted social mores and cultural standards.  Storck is a fierce critic of the 1960’s, but he repeatedly raises the important point that history occurs because human beings make decisions and that actions invariably have consequences.

 

“And as the counterculture's decade gave way in the 70s to another era, the use of sex to tear down the edifice of hypocrisy became more and more an act of hypocrisy itself. For the establishment culture no longer bothered to pretend that sex did not exist or pretend to chaste use of it. The establishment types simply decided that there was nothing wrong with all the sex of the counterculture, so why shouldn't they join in the fun too? It was the same with drugs. They no longer were the outward sign of a confused search for community, but now just something to do to keep from being bored. The establishment found that promiscuous sex and drugs could coexist well with MBAs and corporate jets. And as the members of the counterculture moved into their late twenties, they found there was little or nothing in their principles which prevented them from enjoying the best of both worlds too. Keep the sex and drugs and take the money too. It was too good to resist. Had there been much of intellect in the 60s rejection of the establishment, instead of intuition and feeling, then more people might have seen through the massive sellout that occurred. Or had many turned to the Catholic faith, the only living thing in Western culture capable of withstanding the bourgeois spirit, then the recent history of our country and our civilization would have been very different. But as it is the enduring value of the 60s lies in what the era can show us about actually living in a non-bourgeois manner, not in any living survivals of its spirit. With a few exceptions - of which this journal is in part an instance - what was valuable in the 60s has not survived, but the good that was achieved, amidst all its errors and excesses, always remains as an inspiration and illustration of what might be done. Even in the midst of the new bourgeois age, those who learned well the lessons the 60s had to teach, and have rejected its errors, can themselves point out truths our culture has never absorbed and thus can never transmit.”

­                          –“The Mixed Legacy of the 1960’s”

 

Christendom and the West is a fairly quick read– most of the essays are only eight or nine pages long, often including footnotes.  Many of these essays are most likely to appeal to people who already share the Church’s opinions on various social, political, or cultural matters, so the effectiveness of the book as a persuasive force is unknown.  Storck’s work will, however, help people sympathetic to the role of Christianity and Catholicism in the world understand a very important point: that ideas have consequences in the world, and the consequences often are more far-ranging than might be expected at first thought.  Storck’s essays may assist readers in crafting better critical works and opinion pieces themselves, for they are narrowly focused, routinely stress the author’s thesis, and cite evidence frequently to back up important points.

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

For more information on Thomas Storck, see http://www.thomasstorck.org/.  At this time, Christendom and the West has limited availability, and is sold primarily at http://www.chesterton.org/shop/christendom-and-the-west/