Either/Or: Thomas More

I said that when I finally was able to get a copy of the May issue of BBC History Magazine, I'd read and comment on the cover article by Joanne Paul on "Thomas More: Saint or Sinner?". I had to wait until the Friday of the long Memorial Day weekend to purchase my copy at our only Barnes & Noble in town.

As the subtitle on the cover states, Paul wants to depict "The real character of Henry VIII's controversial statesman". She begins with the dichotomy of saint and sinner, contrasting Catholic and Protestant views that are absolute. Paul cites R.W. Chambers and Robert Bolt as offering the modern Catholic interpretation of More as a saint (though neither of them was Catholic); Richard Marius, G.R. Elton, and Hilary Mantel as offering the modern Protestant interpretation of More as a villain (I don't know their confessional standings). The beginning and first few paragraphs of the article set out opposites: "flawless Catholic saint vs. cruel ogre"; "saintly scholar or stubborn zealot"; "self-righteous villain" and "saintly hero"; and then Paul offers an anodyne alternative: consider More as a "flesh-and-blood individual" as though that precludes sanctity or villainy. I know what she means, of course, but because the opposites are so extreme (and one of them is straw man), it seems weak to me as an alternative to the dictate: "We are told we must pick a side." I don't think that's where we should start at all. We should start with his life and times, not with a judgment as final as "saint or sinner?".

Joanne Paul follows the lead the of Richard Rex in his chapter for the Cambridge Companion to Thomas More (Chapter 5, "Thomas More and the heretics: statesman or fanatic?"). She proposes, for example, that More's prosecution of heresy cases as Chancellor and his writing of polemics attacking the heretics and apologetics defending Catholic Church teaching were part of his efforts to maintain unity and the common good: first in England, then in the Church, and then in Christendom. There is one odd line: "We cannot know how much of a personal hand More took in the fight against heresy in England." I think that Richard Rex and others have indicated how personally More took his fight against heresy in England--so much so that he wished his efforts were successful and therefore could be forgotten.

I mentioned that one of the alternatives is a straw man: the idea of a "flawless Catholic saint" and the tone of hagiography and the smell of incense in the biographies of Thomas More written by his proponents. Just reading the Catholic Truth Society pamphlet on St. Thomas More by Alvaro de Silva for the CTS Saints of the Isles series would show that's not the only view his admirers have of him. The Catholic Church does not require our saints to be perfect: if that were true, there would be only one saint: the Blessed Virgin Mary. More knew he was a sinner and that's why he spent his time in the Tower of London preparing for death, expiating his sins, and meditating on the Lord's Passion. Also, the sins of which More is accused today are according to modern, secular standards of tolerance and individual autonomy, and those standards will shift with time. Who knows of what sins our heroes will be accused in 400 or 500 years?

When I presented an "expert" talk for the Tudor Society, I also participated in a chat room, and this issue of Thomas More: Saint or Sinner came up. Discussing Catholic doctrine in almost twitter-length comments is difficult, and, of course, I thought of a good answer after the chat was over.

While those extreme views of Thomas More are deceiving and misleading, there is one set of choices that is not deceiving. For Catholics and Christians, there are two alternatives for eternal life: Heaven or Hell (remember that the Poor Souls in Purgatory are on their way to Heaven). Either Thomas More is in Heaven or Hell: the Catholic Church only proclaims that the dead are in Heaven; if someone condemns him to Hell (as a villain, zealot, or cruel ogre), he or she is taking on an authority that the Catholic Church has never dared to do. Jesus gave St. Peter and the Apostles authority on Earth and in Heaven; He never gave them authority over Hell and its denizens. The Catholic Church had every right to proclaim More a saint: reading his devotional works can't help but impress the reader that he loved Jesus and His Church; he died heroically dedicated to the unity of that Church: he is a martyr and a saint.

A Chestertonian Pope Francis?

William Oddie offers us another reading option to start connecting with Pope Francis, named in honor of St. Francis of Assisi: Chesterton's biography of that great saint. In The Catholic Herald, Oddie writes:

I had been told that Pope Francis was an admirer of Chesterton and was googling around trying to see if there was anything out there that might confirm it. I suddenly realised that it was I myself who over 15 years ago had written that Sunday Telegraph article. Suddenly I wondered: who was the archbishop who had signed the letter? Not a certain Archbishop Bergoglio, by any chance? If so, my own ambition that procedures towards Chesterton’s canonisation should indeed be initiated had just taken a major step towards being realised. But no: Pope Francis became archbishop only in 1998. But he was in 1995 a close colleague of his predecessor, as an auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires: did he too sign the letter? [Emphasis added.]

The web yielded just one nugget of possibly accurate information, and if anyone can verify it, it would be of considerable interest to me. It’s a little circuitous; according to the Italian Chesterton Society, the Societa Chestertoniana Italiana: “Pare che Papa Francesco sia socio della Società Chestertoniana Argentina”: “It seems that Pope Francis is a member of the Argentine Chesterton Society.” Unfortunately, that society’s website says nothing of this, but it looks to me as though it hasn’t been touched for some time, and may be moribund (it happens).

It wouldn’t, however, surprise me at all if the claim were true. The obvious link could be Chesterton’s great work on St Francis. I thought immediately of one passage which seemed to be directly relevant to the Pope’s clear determination not to be steered spiritually off course by the power and dignity of his new position. It begins with a discussion of why St Francis called his followers friars (which Chesterton translates as “Little Brothers”) rather than monks:

“Presumably he was already resolved… that they should take the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience which had always been the mark of a monk. But it would seem that he was not so much afraid of the idea of a monk as of the idea of an abbot. He was afraid that the great spiritual magistracies which had given even to their holiest possessors at least a sort of impersonal and corporate pride, would import an element of pomposity that would spoil his extremely and almost extravagantly simple version of the life of humility. But the supreme difference was concerned, of course, with the idea that [his] monks were to become migratory and almost nomadic instead of stationary. They were to mingle with the world; and to this the more old-fashioned monk would naturally reply by asking how they were to mingle with the world without becoming entangled with the world. It was a much more real question than a loose religiosity is likely to realise; but St. Francis had his answer to it, of his own individual sort; and the interest of the problem is in that highly individual answer.”

Monastic humility, says Chesterton, in this new Franciscan version, is to be attained by mingling with the world: St Francis, too, doubtless, would have taken public transport rather than the official limos which would no doubt today be offered, and he certainly lived simply (as did Archbishop Bergoglio) rather than in the luxury he could have had.

I love that comment: "I suddenly realised that it was I myself who over 15 years ago had written that Sunday Telegraph article." Any excuse to read or re-read Chesterton! More on his book on St. Francis of Assisi here, from Dale Ahlquist and the American Chesterton Society.

Another View of St. Hildegard of Bingen

From Crisis Magazine, by Brennan Pursell, author of History in His Hands:

St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) is a wonder of the past, a historical phenomenon in her own right, and a direct challenge to all who bother to learn about her and from her now in the twenty-first century. In short, Hildegard’s life and writings pose a stark question: did God speak through this woman, not only to people of her day but to all mankind for all time, or was she one very sick woman?

Hildegard spent almost the whole of her long life in the valley of the Rhine, near where the River Main flows into it. The middle Rhineland valley is one of the most fertile parts of Germany, with a mild, temperate climate, where people have lived in communities for millennia. The Rhine forms a natural highway from its origins in the Alpen lands to its mouth in the English Channel and North Sea. The paradox of Hildegard’s life is that she was a solitary, contemplative soul, living on a major highway, so to speak, where she became the center of attention. . . .

Hildegard’s life changed radically when she was forty-two. She had the most powerful vision yet, one not just of lights and images, but of inspiration, of understanding, an infusion of knowledge about the meaning of Scripture and the whole content of the faith. She also received the command to write down what she learned. Feeling unequal to the task, Hildegard fell gravely ill. Volmar told her to write, and the abbot of the adjacent monastery concurred. Her illness lifted, and she began to write of what she had seen, in Latin, which she had not learned very well, working with Volmar, who assisted her for the next thirty years. Her first and greatest work, Scivias, tells in three books of God and all of his creation, of redemption, the Church, and the devil, and finally about the whole history of salvation. First the abbot read portions of it, then the archbishop of Mainz, then St. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Pope himself, Eugenius (1145-1153), who read her writings himself out loud to a synod held in the German city of Trier. The word was out. A true prophetess lived on the Rhine. Hildegard’s solitude, as limited as it had been, was over. . . .

Read the rest here.

Book Review: Illuminations by Mary Sharratt

The author Mary Sharratt posted a response to a National Catholic Register story about the canonization of Hildegard of Bingen by Pope Benedict XVI (confirmation of her cult) and his proclaimation of St. Hildegard of Bingen as the fourth woman Doctor of the Church (the other three are St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Therese of Lisieux--I'm hoping that St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) will be added to the list someday). She offered bloggers an opportunity to receive a review copy of her book, Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen, so I followed up with her. I received the review copy in exchange for my honest opinion about the book. One thing I liked right away about the book was the cover--the designer did not cut off the tops of the heads as so many cover designers do when using portraits or paintings!

I recommend the novel highly as an excellent historical novel, one built on the relationships of men and women in a religious milieu, representing the world of medieval Germany, yet also resonating with very human and common themes. Once I started reading it last weekend, I read it straight through. St. Hildegard von Bingen appears throughout the novel as a person of great integrity and dedication, resiliency and growth. As the first part of novel began, with young Hildegard being immured as an acolyte of the anchorite Jutta, I wondered how the narrative would develop from what seemed to be a deadend for the main character! A little girl of eight, walled up in a monastery, expected to endure physical deprivations and take part in religious services far beyond her age--but it was through little Hildegard's developing relationship with Jutta and with a young monk, Volmar that the story took off. From the small space of that anchorite's cell, all of Hildegard's future relationships developed, in fact--with Volmar, with the Benedict abbot, with the new anchorites brought by the von Stade family, and of course, with the celestial visions Hildegard experienced, the love of nature she nurtured, and books! It's from that anchorite cell that Hildegard gathers her community and begins her quest for a life of virtue and service suited to her talents.

Before I read the book I did consult the marketing materials included in the package sent by the publisher--they almost put me off from reading the book because they used conflict with the Catholic Church as the main selling point for the context of the novel--a context I didn't see present in the book at all. A lesson in Church History provides greater insight here. Many saints, male and female, have endured conflicts with the hierarchy of the Church on matters of theology, but even more on practical matters of vocation and projects. Blessed John Henry Newman, for example--his life as a Catholic is filled with misunderstandings and failed projects (the Oxford Oratory, the Catholic University of Ireland, the English translation of the Holy Bible, etc). Nevertheless as he stated, in spite of those thwarted public plans, his spiritual and devotional life was blessed with progress in the virtues and consolation. And, in addition to the conflict and failure he endured, he received support and encouragement from members of the hierarchy, and ultimately, approval from Pope Leo XIII. Hildegard herself was aided by Pope Eugene III, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and others in the hierarchy. St. Hildegard, like John Colet in England and many saints after her, rightly warned the clergy of their failings; that does not necessarily make her a proto-Protestant or a feminist. As Sharratt depicts her address in Cologne, St. Hildegard envisioned the holiness of the Church as the guide for the clergy and all believers.

In the marketing materials, the author states that "Pope John Paul II, who had canonized more saints than any previous pontiff, steadfastly ignored Hildegard's burgeoning cult", evidently unaware of this 1979 document in the first year of his reign! He referred to her as holy Hildegard and as "a light for her people and her time”. The author uses the political term conservative with regard to Pope Benedict XVI, who confirmed her cult earlier this year and proclaimed her a Doctor of the Church on October 7, 2012; he is "one of the most conservative popes in recent history". Compared to whom? Pope Benedict XVI teaches nothing different than what Blessed John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I, or Blessed John Paul II taught; those words mean nothing. The materials also mention that Benedict "reportedly . . . has long admired Hildegard": that's easy to confirm, as he presented two General Audiences on St. Hildegard (as he called her then) in 2010. Read the second one here.

Once I ignored those marketing materials and the proposed hook for stories about this novel and St. Hildegard of Bingen and just read the book, I thoroughly enjoyed this story of a great visionary, foundress, musician, and saint. One of the sections I enjoyed most was when St. Hildegard faced her own limitations of love, realizing that she had tried too hard to control her great illuminator, Richardis von Stade, who had helped her with the preparation of Scivias, Hildegard's great book of visions. Like any follower of Jesus, Hildegard had to deal with her own desires, as throughout the novel, she tests her plans to assure herself and her community that they are fulfilling God's will, not merely their own. A fascinating and transporting read.

Happy Birthday to a Hagiographer!

Father Alban Butler was born on October 10, 1710. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "he shares with the venerable Bishop Challoner the reputation of being one of the two most prominent Catholic students during the first half of the dreary eighteenth century, when the prospects of English Catholics were at their lowest."

I just spoke of the "dreary" Long Eighteenth Century, and Father Butler's work during it, on my radio program last Saturday on Radio Maria US.

More about Father Butler, from the same source:

[He was born] at Appletree, Northamptonshire, England; [and died] at St-Omer, France, 15 May, 1773. . . . After the death of his father in 1712, he was sent to the celebrated "Dame Alice's School", at Fernyhalgh, in Lancashire. From thence while still young he was transferred to the English College at Douai, where he went through the full course, and was ordained priest in 1735. He had already gained a reputation for extraordinary diligence and regularity, and was asked to remain at the college as professor, first of philosophy, later on of theology. During his years at Douai, he devoted himself to what became the great work of his life, "The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints". His mastery of ancient and modern languages fitted him specially for a task which involved such wide reading, while his unremitting industry and steady perseverance enabled him to overcome all obstacles. He also assisted Dr. Challoner, by preparing matter for the latter's "Memoirs of Missionary Priests", the standard work on the martyrs of the reign of Elizabeth and later. Butler's notes are still preserved at Oscott College.

In 1745 Alban Butler was chosen to accompany the Earl of Shrewsbury and his two brothers, James and Thomas Talbot, both afterwards bishops, on a tour through Europe. On his return he acted as mission priest in various parts of the Midland District, to which he belonged by origin. Though ever seeking leisure for study, we are told that he was precise in the discharge of all his duties, and his time was always at the disposal of the poor or others who had a claim upon him. We next find him acting as chaplain to the Duke of Norfolk, whose nephew (and heir presumptive), the Hon. Edward Howard, he accompanied to Paris as tutor. During his residence there, Butler at length completed his work on the "Lives of the Saints", on which he had been engaged nearly thirty years. It contains biographies of more than 1,600 saints arranged in order of date; and is a monument of work and research. It was published anonymously, in London, in 1756-59, nominally in four, really in seven octavo volumes. This was the only edition which appeared during the author's lifetime; but there have been many others since, and the work has been translated into Italian and French.

Read the rest here. There are now many editions of "Butler's Lives of the Saints", updated and edited, and some might be far from his original work.