Neocath Rage at Richard McBrien's Remarks on Converts

‘He had been religious since he left school. That is, he had addicted himself to a party in religion, and having done so had received the benefit which most men do who become partisans in such a cause.’ (Trollope, Barchester Towers)

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Like Trollope’s Mr. Arabin, a certain batch of recent converts to the Catholic Church are sustained by a high sense of mission that lends excitement to their lives. Their behavior has been striking in several ways. They have converted more to the right wing of the Church than to the Church as a whole, and they have converted more to an idealized ultra-conservative Church that no longer exists than to the actual living Catholicism of today. Immediately on entry into the Church they have set themselves up as judges over cradle Catholics, scourging them with accusations of not being real Catholics. “Dissidents,” “liberals,” “cafeteria Catholics,” “heretics,” and “apostates” have been the terms of abuse trotted out most frequently by these vocal converts.

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In a recent article (http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/062207/essays_text.htm), Fr Richard P. McBrien, has asked some sensible questions about these converts and their behavior. He contrasts them with the converts of the pre-Vatican II period:

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‘There were always Protestants attracted to the Catholic Church in the pre-Vatican II era for biblical, theological or historical reasons, all of which were carefully laid out in Father John O’Brien’s writings. With the Second Vatican Council, however, and with the ecumenical movement which the council and the popes had endorsed, it became practically impossible to present the Catholic Church any longer as “the one, true Church” and all other denominations as awash in error and falsehoods. And so the traditional apologetical tactics --- “demonstrating” that Catholicism alone is right, while Protestantism is completely wrong --- were generally abandoned... In the past two-and-half decades, however, we have seen something of a reversion to the pre-Vatican II approach. Many seeking entrance into the Catholic Church today do so as an act of rejecting their Protestant past and of embracing “the truth” found only in Catholicism.’

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Here he notes a disturbing feature of the new breed of converts. They despise the ecumenical labors of the last eighty years. An ex-Anglican like A. Kimel, for example, recycles Newman’s Difficulties of Anglicans on his weblog, ‘Pontifications,’ as if it were the last word on Anglican identity. The words ‘schism’ and ‘heresy’ are freely deployed to describe Protestantism, though such words have no place in contemporary ecumenical dialogue.

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McBrien continues: ‘More recently, however, high-profile Protestants and even a few Jews with strongly conservative opinions about religion, politics and social values have found their way to a Rome that one would have thought no longer exists. It is an authoritarian, triumphant, polemical, anti-Protestant Rome (non-Christians weren’t even considered) that flourished during the first half of the 20th century, but which experienced a thorough updating under Pope John XXIII. He convened the council in 1962 to open the windows and to let some “fresh air” into the Catholic Church.’

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Precisely that fresh air is what is so direly lacking in the neocath weblogs, with their rather sectarian titles such as ‘Pertinacious Papist’ or ‘Catholic and Enjoying It.’ The Church of these ideologues is an instrument in the US culture wars, but it is indeed a church that no longer exists. To conjure up the illusion of its existence, its advocates have to recycle arguments of the belligerent Belloc, the sophistical Chesterton, the supercilious C. S. Lewis and the cranky Waugh as if they were directly and immediately pertinent to contemporary Catholicism. Among recent theologians, Von Balthasar is almost the only respectable name that enjoys their favor. They prefer intellectuals like Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand, the ultra-reactionary Cardinal Avery Dulles, and a host of very minor figures who vie with one another in extreme conservatism. Those of them with a taste for theology profess for the most part an allegiance to the theologies of the past, such as neoscholasticism or its Byzantine equivalent, and discuss at length such topics as divine foreknowledge or deification, in complete disconnection from what Vatican II calls ‘the signs of the times.’ Radical pastness is the distinguishing mark of the ersatz theology these converts champion in their effort to summon into being a Church that no longer exists.

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McBrien refers to the poliitical leanings of some prominent converts. A Washington based Opus Dei priest has converted: ‘Robert Novak, the columnist who was at the center of the controversy over the disclosure of Valerie Plame’s identity as a covert CIA agent; Larry Kudlow, an on-air financial adviser; and Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, currently a candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidency of the United States... Conservative Protestants and Jews who convert to Catholicism, especially of the Opus Dei kind, rarely shed the religious, social and political biases they had in their pre-Catholic life. It is true of Mr. Novak and Mr. Kudlow, and it is equally true of Senator Brownback.’ It is a paradox that many of these converts to Rome are vocal defenders of positions opposed to Rome’s on war, capitalism, capital punishment, and even torture. It is as if they feel they have a mission to put us all right.

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What the neocath converts do not realize is that we cradle Catholics have already been where they are. We read Belloc, Chesterton, C. S. Lewis and Waugh as teenagers. We were indoctrinated in all the arguments against Protestantism (of course with due recognition of shared Christian truths, but always completely wrong when it differed from us). But we lived through the sea-change represented by Vatican II and understood that the mighty ship of Catholicism had to be refitted to sail forward on contemporary seas. The utter fatuity, the total hopelessness, of thinking that banging the same old medieval and sectarian drum was a tactic that would magically assure the triumph and relevance of the Church was something that became quite apparent to us over the years, and it is something that the converts have yet to discover as they advance toward a more mature Catholic identity.

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Needless to say, McBrien’s comments have drawn howls of rage from the beleaguered neocath camp! Amy Welborn does her practiced ‘turn a deaf ear’ or ‘can’t hear what you’re saying’ routine: ‘I read Fr. Richard McBrien’s latest column last night, and spent a few minutes teetering between feelings of “well of course he would say that” and “what is he saying?”‘ Then she misrepresents McBrien as ‘sneer[ing] at conversion because one believes the whole deal is true… The emphasis in RCIA has always been on lots of preparation - but in Fr. McBrien’s vision...why would that be important? If there’s no there, there, just do the largely meaningless ritual gestures and get on with it?’ Now not for a moment did McBrien suggest that people are not drawn to the Catholic Church by a movement of the Spirit, or that it is unworthy to embrace Roman Catholic tradition in its fullness (he is after all the author of a famous book titled Catholicism). What he did object to is the narrow cult of a certain kind of conversion, one charged with political and social conservatism, and stressing the glories of a past church, with the insinuation that Vatican II mixed dross with the precious gold of that idealized tradition. Amy Welborn has launched a meme, which has replicated itself in the blogosphere before you can say Jack Rabbit, the meme in this case being, 'McBrien thinks conversion should only be for pragmatic reasons, never a matter of recognizing truth.' Other such memes are the one directed at Bishop Trautman, 'Trautman thinks John and Mary Catholic stupid.' The neocaths here follow Ann Coulter's technique: asked by Mrs John Edwards to cease her personal attacks on the Edwards family, Coulter responded, 'Oh, I see. You are against my freedom of speech.'

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Amy Welborn’s combox abounds in similar slant and sarcasm: ‘You wonder if he just believes the church should die... It is just basic logic that converts are necessary for the survival of any church. How an intelligent man can completely miss that is beyond me.’ ‘Now, let’s see – what is that definition of heretic again?’ ‘When I become Catholic ten years ago I found there are still remnants of the “silly season” and malcontents such as Father O’Brien who for the life of himself can’t understand that there are people who really want to be Catholic, who appreciate the good their Protestant (or other) Christian upbringing gave them but found Catholic Christianity to be the bearer of the fullness of the Apostolic witness. I’m grateful my diocesan paper dropped him (although I’m beginning to have my doubts about his replacement, Father John Dietzen). Isn’t it about time for Father McBrien to retire? Or can’t someone banish him to a monastery?’ This convert is keen to censor anyone whose orthodoxy she has doubts about. Mark Shea chimes in, unwittingly verifying McBrien’s observations: ‘The Grand Old Man of pre-Vatican II apologetics, Chesterton, is much the same as the post V2 Catholic, by the by. He’s certainly not afraid to criticize the various Protestantisms when they contradict the Faith and are therefore, ‘ow you say, “wrong”. But the notion that he thinks the various Protestantisms “completely wrong” is preposterous. They are, for Chesterton, partly right.’ (http://amywelborn.typepad.com/openbook/2007/06/whatever.html)

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We need to hear much more from the converts about the close bonds uniting the Roman Church with the other churches in the one mystical body of Christ. As John Paul II writes in Ut Unum Sint: ‘To the extent that these elements are found in other Christian Communities, the one Church of Christ is effectively present in them. For this reason the Second Vatican Council speaks of a certain, though imperfect communion. The Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium stresses that the Catholic Church “recognizes that in many ways she is linked” with these Communities by a true union in the Holy Spirit.”

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Carl Olson of Ignatius Press suggests that McBrien is ‘clueless about nearly everything having to do with Catholicism… I am one of those former Protestants who he scoffingly describes as having “conservative opinions about religion, politics and social values,” as though this is some sort of freakish, abnormal condition.’ ‘And what about that old-fashioned silliness about the one true Church, happily done away with by modern exegesis and a palpable lack of faith?’ Here Olson quotes Lumen Gentium: ‘the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic… subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure.’ He ignores the crucial distinction between subsistit in and est, and the consequence drawn further on in the text: ‘It follows that these separated Churches and Communities, though we believe that they suffer from defects, have by no means been deprived of significance and value in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church.’ At one neocath blog (http://closedcafeteria.blogspot.com/2007/06/those-pesky-new-converts.html) we find a remarkable exegesis of the Vatican II text by one Fabio P. Barbieri: ‘The relevant statement, if I remember correctly, was that the Divine archetype of the one Church “subsists” in the Catholic Church; that is, that the Catholic Church is on earth what the idea of a Church is in the mind of God in Heaven. Far from diminishing the uniqueness of the Catholic Church, this statement deepens it. Funny how these defenders of the supposed spirit of the Council always lie about the letter of what the Council taught’ (italics mine). On the rare occasions when neocaths challenge McBrien on his own theological terrain, they fall flat on their face in the most embarrassing way. Naturally, the more accomplished neocaths avoid this danger. Their tactic is to ventilate theological rage and suspicion without ever descending to the dangerous territory of actual theological argument.
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‘McBrien’s notion of a simplistic “Catholic right, Protestant wrong” approach allegedly taken by Protestants who become Catholic is contradicted by the ecumenical endeavors of many former Protestants, including Peter Kreeft, Mark Brumley, Scott Hahn, and, more recently, Francis Beckwith, all of whom speak highly of the many good things found in (specifically) Evangelicalism, even while not refraining from frank talk about real differences that do indeed exist and must continue to be addressed with both clarity and charity’ (some of these people write for dismal rags like the New Oxford Review – which has of course no connection with the University of Oxford). The convert Olson describes the seasoned Catholic theologian McBrien as ‘a man whose erroneous teachings about the Catholic faith have been documented many times over.’ Quoting criticisms of Cardinal Ratzinger from McBrien’s pen, Olson ironizes: ‘Presumably, McBrien would like to explain Catholicism to the Pope. Fortunately, though, the new Holy Father well understands McBrien’s theology, and he can see through its shallow dishonesty.’ This spluttering blunderbuss rant betrays how much McBrien’s incisive characterization of neocath converts has got under Olson’s skin. (http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2007/06/richard-clueles.html)

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‘Those converts take very seriously the moral and theological teachings of the Catholic Church. Why can’t the same be said of Fr. McBrien…? Why does he deny that Jesus founded the Catholic Church? Why does he say the Catholic Faith is not the one true religion? Why does he describe original sin as a “myth”?’ What Olson is expostulating over here is of course a know-nothing caricature of the middle-of-the-road theological views that McBrien represents. McBrien has been exposed to much investigation by episcopal committees as a result of the hullabaloo raised by rightist Catholics, yet all they have found him guilty of is such inanities as ‘doctrinal minimalism’ – it was an axiom of J. H. Newman that the task of theologians was to reduce to the necessary minimum the extent and that binding force of dogmas – and favoring the new over the old. Heresy-hunters have not a clue as to what broad orthodox catholic vision is. In their efforts to convict McBrien of heresy, they would do well to reflect on a word found in the Bible: shibboleth. They would also do well to reflect on the gospel scenes in which Pharisees, scribes, lawyers seek to trap Jesus in his speech.

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Olson insultingly asks: ‘Is there anyone who has become a Catholic—loyal to the Magisterium and the teachings of the Church—because of the witness and work of Fr. Richard McBrien?’ The answer to his question is quite probably, ‘Yes, many,’ given the wide influence of McBrien as writer and teacher. But of course it is a loaded question, since ‘loyal to the Magisterium’ for Olson means being a Humanae Vitae Catholic, totally uncritical of the Vatican (except when the Vatican is not right wing enough). The question underlying McBrien's remarks, but which he refrains from posing bluntly is this: How genuine are neocath conversions? Are they just investments in an ideologically juicy tactic -- to move into a Church, remake it in their own rightwing image, and divisively denounce its hierarchy and theologians as dissidents of the Vatican II stamp whose day is done? We have seen similar take-over bids affecting all Christian churches in the USA, often with financial backing from right-wing foundations. (I vaguely recall that the US Government pursued similar tactics in Latin America.)

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Olson’s combox is rife with name-calling and ridicule: ‘Richard McBrien is a talented man, he dons reddish hair, a red nose and while juggling theological issues becomes Bozo the Theologian.’ ‘there once was a priest that wore suits/who didnt like cath-lic recruits.’ ‘One needs only glance at the picture of this priest to know immediately that something has gone wrong.’ (Yes, this is the level of paranoia reached by neocaths – they suspect that such and such a priest does not look like a priest – something must be wrong – such magical thinking is of course laced with a deep anti-clericalism. Indeed nobody uses the word "Father" -- often in ironic scare-quotes -- with such dripping contempt as your zealous neocath) ‘‘McBrien strikes me as a man whose driving belief is a profound sense of shame and guilt over the Church he nominally belongs to - perhaps driven with a desperate desire for secular approval. Everything he says makes more sense once seen through that lens; to speak of pathologies like nominalism, Kant, Rahner, transcendental Thomism or Schleiermacher is really just embroidery.’ McBrien must feel honored to be denounced in the same breath with Rahner, probably the greatest Catholic theologian of the last century. Much more of the same uninformed vituperation and vile name-calling can be found at the other neocath sites, whose unanimity in lambasting McBrien is not that of the Spirit but that of the Gadarene Swine: http://wantonpopery.blogspot.com ; http://thursdaynightgumbo.blogspot.com/2007/06/woodward-catholics-need-not-apply.html ; http://shakingoffsleep.blogspot.com/search/label/Theologians ; http://anamchara.blogs.com/anamchara/2007/06/mcbrien-again.html ;

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=12141388&postID=8181558394662747919 ; http://richleonardi.blogspot.com/2007/06/help-me-understand.html ; http://darwincatholic.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html ; http://www.splendoroftruth.com/cgi-bin/mtype-ceaster.cgi?entry_id=8145. While these bloggeries are a fine documentation of the moronic depths to which neocath populism descends, their shrill tone again testifies that McBrien has touched a sore spot.

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The rants greeting McBrien’s comments suggest that neocaths prefer to write than to read; they are constantly on the look-out for targets of their juvenile rage against imagined heterodoxy; for the most part they show very little acquaintance with theological literature, least of all with that produced by the thinkers they have put on their black list. Entire schools of theology, among the most glorious in Catholic thought, are irresponsibly dumped into the trash bin – notably Liberation Theology and Transcendental Thomism (which the trashers seem to link with Kantian skepticism, in complete ignorance of the facts).

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I hope McBrien will return to the charge and call a halt to the hijacking of the notion of ‘conversion’ by right wing zealots who want to make the Roman Catholic faith their ideological or political football.

Comments

[mj anderson]

Can you possibly be serious with this diatribe?

For all your patronizing descriptions of some Catholics as radtrads, do you not recognize that McBrien is a radical liberal? His obsession is to dismantle anything that remains of the Church of his youth.

You confuse the terms orthodoxy and "neocath". Orthodoxy is simply correct; it is not left or right, conservative or liberal.

And, for curiosity's sake, do you imagine that McBrien will be read and revered in a 100 years? Of course not. But Waugh, Belloc, Lewis and Newman surely will be.

[RDS]

I didn't think it was possible to see "Catholic and Enjoying It!" like this. It's the very definition of a "breath of fresh air!"

[David Bennett]

"While these bloggeries are a fine documentation of the moronic depths to which neocath populism descends, their shrill tone again testifies that McBrien has touched a sore spot...The rants greeting McBrien’s comments suggest that neocaths prefer to write than to read; they are constantly on the look-out for targets of their juvenile rage against imagined heterodoxy..."

Yes, neo-catholics show an unhealthy disdain for McBrien (and others), but this post certainly shows an unhealthy disdain for neo-catholics. Had this post been written about McBrien, rather than about the "neo-caths," it would have been a great contender for your list of rage-filled neocath postings.

[Dale Price]

"Rage"? Pot, kettle, black.

Disdain and disgust, to be sure. Most of the time, Catholics of a conservative bent ignore Fr. McBrien's content-impaired exercises in well-poisoning. His cut-and-paste broad-brushes invariably involve McBrien beating the snot out of a scarecrow that exists only in his mind.

The only reason this drew attention is that it was a patronizing smear of converts who refuse to think as he does. Such persons are tend to be overrepresented in Catholic blogdom.

We'll go back to ignoring him in a week or so.

[Mark Gordon]

Wow, what fury. What rage and bitterness. What pride. I think, good Father, that you have just provided a vivid example of the "Spirit of Vatican II." Thanks for the reminder of what's at stake in our battle to recover the authentic teaching of the Council.

[Joseph O'Leary]

"For all your patronizing descriptions of some Catholics as radtrads, do you not recognize that McBrien is a radical liberal? His obsession is to dismantle anything that remains of the Church of his youth."

Radtrads is a word I picked up from the neocaths, a different category.

McBrien is no radical liberal, but a middle of the road theologian.

A radical liberal would be someone who holds a non-realist view of God (Don Cupitt), radically undercuts the historicity of the Gospels ( -- I hesitate to give names) or denies the divine mission of the Church or questions the objective reality of the Trinity and the Incarnation or the Real Presence.

McBrien is very obviously none of these things. In fact, he errs on the side of conservatism in my opinion.

As to the "church of his childhood", that is the Church that Vatican II radically transformed. Currently people are trying to undo that transformation, but their efforts will not bring back the past -- restorationism never does -- it always creates something new, usually something diminished, ugly, rancid.

[Joseph O'Leary]

"Wow, what fury. What rage and bitterness. What pride."

Where? Look at my post and you'll see I give exhibits of neocath rage against McBrien. Surely their arrogance and pride are on display when they ritually refer to him as "Father" McBrien in scare quotes?

Mark Gordon, do you want to be an apologist for such stalinistic methods of denigration?

[Rusty]

Father,
I'm not sure what kind of Catholic you would call me. I'm a convert from years of doubt, yet raised in the Protestant tradition. I want to be faithful to God, and I want the Church to form "me", rather than the other way around. However, why is it 'wrong' to say that in those things that other traditions are lacking, they are *truly* lacking?

[Brother Charles]

Hi. I linked over here from somewhere, I now forget where, and got to this post via your tag list.

I did enjoy your well-constructed essay, but as a convert (of 15 years or so)who is, I suppose, a "neocath," as you say, I can't help but want to deliver an apology for myself.

I came to a point in my life, having grown up amidst late modern liberal relativism, in which I felt I had to stand for something. I came across the Gospels and confessed Jesus Christ. After this, and I make no apologies for this, I was baptized according to the Catholic Church, at least in part because I wanted the Truth. It was the time of the first war in the Persian Gulf, and truth was the first casualty. I wanted the truth, and I wanted to be set free from violent men.

I also confess guilty to the accusation of being "into" more ancient theologians. But it's only because when I read Thomas or Bonaventure I see a lot of depth and suppleness that their own disciples and defenders have usually missed.

I also confess that I am guilty of being leery of current ecumenism. This isn't because I don't believe we should be working towards unity with the other Churches or with the restoration of ecclesial communities; I read Ut unum sint with joy and I want to take the Lord himself seriously in his prayer for our unity at the Last Supper. On the other hand, our theological language has become sloppy, and our practice is sure to follow. Recently I heard a priest describe an American Thanksgiving service attended by Jews, Muslims, and Christians as ecumenical. "Ecumenical," is, of course, a term with Christian specificity. What we do with our older and younger brothers and sisters in Abraham is something else. It is "inter-religious dialogue, I suppose, if you believe in this genus "religion," which I don't.

Thanks for the post, and have a blessed Advent.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

Thanks for your comments, Brother Charles. I would not call the dialogue with Judaism inter-religious dialogue. It is something much more pressing and more intimate than that. I don't see any problem with viewing our dialogue with Judaism and Islam as modeled on ecumenism. The shared creed, the shared hurts, the bitter history, and the need of friendship and mutual understanding in respectful dialogue are quite similar to the situation of intra-Christian ecumenism.

As to the genus "religion," I agree. "Religion" is merely a nominalist expression; there is no satisfactory definition of "religion". But willingness to rejoice in shared insights between Christians and Hindus or Buddhists opens a wide adventure of human encounter that has little to do with the dusty abstractions of "theologies of religion." Interreligious encounter is as multifarious as interhuman encounter in general.

Christians see all this as heading to a final goal. As Paul VI memorably said on Christmas Eve 1975: "I see the religions of the world converging on the crib in Bethlehem; and as I say this my voice trembles, not with uncertainty, but with joy -- la mia voce trema, non d'incertezza, ma di gioia!

The Church today very urgently needs to recapture the prophetic vision of Paul VI, the pope of the Council.

[Jack Cobb]

"Fr." Richard McBrien is a certainly a man of many talents; he is, after all, both a heretic and an apostate all at the same time. Quite efficient at multi-tasking, if you ask me. What's that famous tome he authored some years back, oh yes, he had the chutzpah to title it "Catholicism"; he would have done much better to just call it what it is: "Heresy".

"Fr." McBrien is so typical of the modernists who don't have the common decency to leave a Church they long ago lost any semblance of faith in. Well, I suppose in one sense they've already left the Church; the Catholic Church that is, since he and his fellow-travelers no longer belong to the Catholic Church, but to the Novus Ordo Sect, the accursed spawn of the invalid Vatican II Robber Council.

I pray that "Fr." McBrien, who still seems to possess a keen intellect, will someday return to the faith he once swore fealty to; he can still do a world of good in the time that appears left to him.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

Classic neocath rage from Mr Cobb. "Catholicism" is a useful compendium of Catholic theology, quite conservative in fact. Has Mr Cobb read it? One must admire Fr McBrien's perseverance, his lifelong service of the Church, despite the constant bilge and bile that is poured on him by quite unqualified people.

[Rat-biter]

"...supercilious C. S. Lewis.."

## Who was not a Catholic, BTW. just in case there were any doubt.

Far more important, he is one writer to whom I for one owe far more than I could ever repay. Many others, Catholics & Protestants, also owe him a great deal - as their weblogs, sites, and posts make clear.

"Supercilious" ? This is far too dismissive to be fair - Lewis's writings are worth all those of "professional" (!) theologians alive today. Far too much modern theology is verbose, clogged with ugly jargon, written in excruciatingly bad English, and while it may be cheap, the books containing it are not; they cost a small fortune.

Lewis OTOH is within anyone's capacity; he knew how to write well, and reason clearly; and some of his profoundest theology is in his Narnia books & his scientifiction trilogy. He doesn't supply everything, but what he does supply is beyond price.

[Rat-biter]

"And, for curiosity's sake, do you imagine that McBrien will be read and revered in a 100 years? Of course not. But Waugh, Belloc, Lewis and Newman surely will be."

## Lewis can safely be added to the list, I think :) And Father R. A. Knox. Despite the medium chosen, or perhaps because of it, Tolkien should be included as well; & Dorothy Sayers:

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1267

[Spirit of Vatican II]

Well, Waugh and Lewis are of course great figures (though I dislike children's literature and a certain know-it-all quality to Screwtape etc.). Chesterton hardly bears rereading, yet when one does look at him one is always rewarded with a flood of brilliant remarks. Belloc, I'm not sure about; Tolkien -- not my cup of tea. The trouble is the reactionary uses all these people are put to, and the highlighting of their least attractive side. Newman is a very great figure who comes wrapped in Victorian ecclesiastical trappings, and it seems to me that his admirers idolize the dead trappings and obscure the living mind.

[Rat-biter]

"Well, Waugh and Lewis are of course great figures (though I dislike children's literature and a certain know-it-all quality to Screwtape etc.). Chesterton hardly bears rereading, yet when one does look at him one is always rewarded with a flood of brilliant remarks. Belloc, I'm not sure about; Tolkien -- not my cup of tea. The trouble is the reactionary uses all these people are put to, and the highlighting of their least attractive side. Newman is a very great figure who comes wrapped in Victorian ecclesiastical trappings, and it seems to me that his admirers idolize the dead trappings and obscure the living mind."

## It's fascinating to see how tastes differ :)

I like some Chesterton (there is plenty to like), but I'm uneasy with how he stresses the Church, and not Christ; not that he is alone in that, of course. And one of the problems with being a brilliant epigrammatist is that one can easily treat very knotty subjects in a very shallow way; something he does not always avoid.

Belloc is a good read - but, as you say of Tolkien, "not my cup of tea", not as much as Lewis (I like stories, a lot - and I take Lewis' view on books: that one should not be embarrassed to read fairy stories). If there is such a thing as a Wavian, I'm not one; which is not a denial of his stature.