The Thoughts of Dr. Gray

I'm reading The Blindness of Dr. Gray by Canon Sheehan, which was published in 1909. Canon Sheehan was an Irish priest-novelist, who died in 1913. His works were very successful in Ireland during his lifetime, and indeed afterwards. I remember my Catholic school's library had a whole series of his novels in gilt-edged, leather bound editions. Of course, I had no interest in him at that time. I simply noticed the name.

I've started several of his books but only finished one, which is The Triumph of Failure. He writes rather in the style of Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott or Anthony Trollope, and he has all the faults of this kind of author; occasional mawkishness, excessively broad humour, melodrama, redundant sub-plots, fixation on female chastity, etc. He's at his best when he writes about religion, but he seems determined to cram in a lot of other stuff, to prove how Homeric he is.

There is a sub-plot about gypsies and vagabonds in The Blindness of Dr. Gray which is incredibly dull; but whenever the story turns to Dr. Gray himself, a severe but dedicated parish priest, and his more broad-minded (but equally devout) curate, it holds my attention. The conversations between the two priests are absorbing, as are their private reflections.

In one particular scene, Dr. Gray takes his curate to task for his worldly occupations: playing the piano, and reading literature (Goethe and Jean Paul Richter) who Dr. Gray considers profane and useless. I was very moved by the subsequent description of Dr. Gray's views. I can even identify with them, even though I doubt this is what Canon Sheehan attended. I'm torn between an abiding attraction towards "culture" for its own sake and an intermittent conviction that human culture is trash, that only sacred studies are worth anything. Much as I love poetry, I'm dogged by the idea that all "literature" is decadent by its very nature. The excerpt is lengthy, but I'm going to transcribe it all:

When Dr. William Gray reached his home that afternoon, he was in one of those moods of agitated thoughts that were so frequent with him, and in which he had to walk up and down the room to regain composure. He was one of those serious and lofty thinkers that looked down upon literature and art as only fit for children dancing around the Maypole. He could not conceive how any priest could find an interest in such things, which he regarded as belonging so exclusively to a godless world that he regarded it as high treason for any of the captains of the Great Army to be attracted or drawn to them. He felt exactly towards the  literary or accomplished priest, as a grim and wrinkled old field marshal would feel if he had heard that a young subaltern had stolen out of camp at midnight and gone over to the enemy's lines to listen to the strains of some Waldteufel waltz. He would accept no hint or suggestion of compromise with that mysterious "world", which, with all its wiles and magic, has been to the imagination of such ruthless logicians something like the vampire witches of medieval romance, from whose diabolic charms there was no escape but in instant flight. The meditation of the "Two Standards", and its terrific significance, was always before his eyes. Here was the Church, stretching back in apparently limitless cycles and illimitable, if variable power, to the very dawn of civilization. Here was the mighty fabric of theology, unshakable and unassailable, and founded on the metaphysic of the subtlest mind that had ever pondered over the vast abysses of human thought. Here were its churches, built not to music, but to the sound of prayer-- great poems and orisons that had welled out of the heart of Faith, and grown congealed in eternal forms. Here was its music, solemn, grave, majestic, as it fell from the viols of seraphs into the hearts of saints. Here was its mighty hierarchy of doctors and confessors-- pale, slight figures in dark robes, but more powerful and more aggressive than if they carried the knightly sword, or moved in the ranks of armoured conquerors. Here was its Art breathing of Heaven and the celestial forms that peopled the dreams of saints. Its literature was one poem and only one; but it lighted up Heaven, Earth and Hell.

And there in the opposite camp was the "world"-- that strange, mysterious, undefinable enemy, taking its Protean forms from climate, race and language. There were its theatres, coliseums, forums, opera-houses with all their pinchbeck and meretricious splendour, where all the vicious propensities of the human heart towards lust and cruelty were fanned and fostered by suggestive pictures or erotic verses or voluptuous music. There, too, were its philosophic systems, vaporous, fantastic, unreal as the smoke that wreathes itself above a witch's cauldron, or the ashes that lie entombed in the urns of dead gods. There again is its Art, fascinating, beautiful, but picturing only the dead commonplaces of a sordid existence, or the fatal and fated loveliness of a Lais or a Phryne. And there is its main prop and support-- this literature, aping a wisdom which it does not understand, or dealing with subjects that reveal the deformities and baseness, instead of the sacredness and nobility, of the race.

Liberal Catholicism and Conversion

Recently, I've been developing a new conviction about liberal Catholicism. For a long time, I believed the liberal Catholic was simply naive and wrong-headed. I thought that he, or she, truly believed that a greater liberalization of the Catholic faith would reverse the fortunes of the Church in the West-- that new converts would flood into the Church, and that lapsed Catholics would return, the less emphasis there was on "thou shalt not" prescriptions and the more emphasis there was on the warm fuzzies.

What I wondered was: how? How could they think this? How could they think this, when the post-Vatican II era had witnessed such a spectacular exodus from the priesthood and religious orders, and such a dramatic decline in congregations? How could they think this, when the Church of England, which had implemented most of the reforms they wished for, has all but disappeared? Was it simply delusion, wilful blindness?

Increasingly, I've come to believe that many (most?) liberal Catholics do not expect that liberalizing the Church will reverse its decline. They don't particularly care about reversing the Church's decline. Perhaps they are even happy to see it decline.

A liberal Catholic is not a Catholic who is liberal, but a liberal who is Catholic, or who identifies with the Catholic "faith tradition". Their allegiance is not primarily to the Faith, but to liberalism. They are interested in using the resources and the moral weight of Catholicism to further the various liberal measures they support. What happens to Catholicism itself is of subsidiary importance.

This surely explains the attitude of so many religious orders, who seem blithely unconcerned with their imminent demise and their inability to attract new members. They are so intent upon their left-wing activism that it's simply not a priority for them. Their work will go on-- whether it is conducted by missionaries or NGOs is not important.

Behind all this I identify the "death of God" theology which sees the renunciation of Christianity itself as the ultimate act of Christian sacrifice. How far can Christians imitate the self-giving of Christ-- even beyond the sacrifice of their lives? Well, to sacrifice their very claim to be right, to sacrifice their claim to a revelation. Liberal Christianity is Christianity turned against itself, humble and contrite where it should be most proud and unapologetic. It agrees with Nietzsche: "To take upon oneself, not all punishment, but all guilt-- only that would be godlike."

Rod Dreher on "Dialogue"

Thanks to Hibernicus of the Irish Catholics Forum for drawing my attention to this article from Rod Dreher on the liberal attitude towards "dialogue".

I feel mildly vindicated by this article. I've been sounding the alarm about political correctness for quite some time now. I really do believe its impossible to exaggerate just how insidious, how cancerous it is. And "dialogue" is the false flag under which political correctness loves to march. "Dialogue" sounds so harmless, so reasonable, so non-committal. But it ain't!

Writing and Faith

As I've mentioned before, I've been keeping a diary for more than two years. Every now and again, I spend some time browsing it. I was browsing it this evening and I came across this passage (actually something I posted on Facebook at the time):

I like how people look when they are walking outdoors. It's like there is a thicker outline around them. There is something more deliberate and cautious about them. This becomes even more pronounced if they are walking somewhere they have never been before. This occurred to me when someone asked me the direction on campus today. You can recognise when people are in a place that is unfamiliar and I think there is something very endearing about the sight.

This is probably why I like fish out of water films, like Crocodile Dundee, the best movie of the eighties (after The Breakfast Club, of course).

Reader, what do you think of that? I can't remember if many people reacted to it on Facebook, but I don't think they did.

Re-reading it, I find myself once again contemplating the act of faith required in writing-- faith in one's own ideas, their value.

When I think about the idea I've outlined above, I get terribly excited. It seems important to me. It suggests so much, although I can't say exactly why. Getting excited about such an idea is like finding yourself in a passage which may lead to a cavern, or finding a hidden panel that opens onto...who knows what?

I realize how strange this seems. Very, very often, for as long as I can remember, I've found myself getting very excited about some idea which I can barely articulate, and desperately wanting to convey that idea in some kind of written form.

At the same time, I'm a deeply insecure person, and I'm always dogged by the question: "Why should anyone else care about your strange enthusiasms? Perhaps you struggle to convey this idea because there is quite simply nothing to convey?"

I'm deeply envious of the writers who manage to take their inspirations and convey them to thousands, tens of thousands, millions of people. I imagine that it requires a tremendous amount of faith, of faith in the validity of their own thoughts. Because surely anything that's original, that's creative, started out as simply being odd. I once read an interview with Sue Townsend, writer of the Adrian Mole books, in which she recalled that, when she was younger, she often found herself pointing out things to other people which they found completely uninteresting-- they didn't know why she would be pointing them out in the first place. I found a lot of consolation in that!

Hurray for Culture Night

Tonight is the thirteenth Culture Night in Ireland. It's an institution which has gained momentum over the years (I certainly hadn't heard about it thirteen years ago) and has now reached the stage where people ask each other: "What are you doing for Culture Night?" As a lover of traditions, I approve of this.

On this one night of the year, cultural institutions give free admission or put on special events.

The Central Catholic Library is open for it and has a display about writers of the Irish Literary Revival.

I moan about modern Ireland enough, so I like to celebrate the good when I can.

Doubtless we will have a horror movie set on Culture Night if it becomes popular enough!

Time and Eternity

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways: 
Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,
Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;
And thine own sadness, whereof stars, grown old
In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,
Sing in their high and lonely melody. 
Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate,
I find under the boughs of love and hate, 
In all poor foolish things that live a day,
Eternal beauty wandering on her way.

Come near, come near, come near—Ah, leave me still
A little space for the rose-breath to fill! 
Lest I no more hear common things that crave;
The weak worm hiding down in its small cave, 
The field-mouse running by me in the grass,
And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass; 
But seek alone to hear the strange things said
By God to the bright hearts of those long dead... 

That's Yeats, of course, in "To the Rose upon the Rood of Time". The lines often come to my mind, because I'm very familiar with the conflict they describe. I've always been familiar with it. I've written about it on this blog before, especially in this post.

I suppose I could describe it as "love of the world, versus hatred of the world". Or love of eternity, as opposed to the love of time.

The mystical side of me, the side that is drawn towards romantic nationalism and poetry, craves all that is elevated and elemental; ritual, hierarchy, idealism, nature, solemnity, poetry, proverbs, mythology, high romance...

But then there is the other side of me, the lover of the ordinary; of news bulletins, diaries, the hum of voices on the air, pop songs playing in supermarkets, nerds of every description, Hallmark shops, newspaper cartoons, election posters, cinemas, all human life in all its delicious banality...

One side of me thrills to "The Passing of Arthur" by Tennyson ("clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful"), while another part of me thrills to "Snow" by Louis Macneice ("the drunkenness of things being various").

Part of me is the highest of High Tories, while another part of me feels very home in liberal democracy. (By liberal I do not mean anti-life, anti-family, or anti-religion. I mean the messiness  of liberal democracy.)

Part of me wishes to withdraw from all pop culture and current affairs, and part of me loves to gorge on three hour TV documentaries with titles like "The One Hundred Scariest Movie Moments".

I have been tossed between these two extremes all my life, and I'm really beginning to think that is my fate unto death.

The Heelers Diaries

There is an Irish blog called The Heelers Diaries which has been regularly updated since 2005. This is sterling dedication to the cause of the Catholic faith and to poetry (which are the two main themes of the blog).

The blog's slogan is: "The fantasy world of Ireland's greatest living poet".  I thought that was me!

There is no blog quite like it and I'm ashamed I haven't plugged it yet.