As hopeless as it may be to make this request, I sincerely call upon commenters on this thread to consider whether their knee-jerk embrace of the reflexive censoriousness of at least a hefty minority—perhaps even a majority—of CI members toward literature and the fine arts is wise or even Catholic. Literally nothing in the history of orthodox catechesis can be found to support the sweeping, benighted claims made on this thread by Mr. Gray and others. Inability to understand or enjoy the fine arts is one thing (however unfortunate it is, it has been the condition of the great mass of mankind throughout the ages), but to judge and find wanting an entire aspect of human history on an utterly irrational and distorted basis—i.e., that the private lives of the writers or artists fail to meet the "authority's" standards of moral conduct or doctrinal orthodoxy—is quite another thing, indeed a lamentable and disgraceful thing.
Put otherwise, closed-mindedness, especially when it stems from pig ignorance, is not a virtue, nor has the development and refinement of a sensitivity and openness to arts and letters ever been adjudged a universal bar to the attainment of sanctity or hence to salvation. On the contrary, John Bosco is not the only saint, merely a widely known recent examplar, who has lauded literature and the arts for their capacity to cultivate the soil of human sensibility so as to make it more receptive to God's grace. Anyone who thinks, for example, that the saint couldn't possibly have loved Verdi's music had he had an inkling of Verdi's fierce anticlericalism or his highly irregular private life needs to do some reading. Of course, there is a simpler path: just call John Bosco and several dozen earlier saints protomodernists and cross their names out of one's personally approved canon!
In closing and summary, I say this: nothing at CI over the past four or five years has disheartened me more than reading the ignorant and puritanical (hence presumptively heretical) comments from scores of commenters about literature (poetry especially), music (real music), and the representational arts, which have been central components of every worthwhile civilization in recorded history. One need not be a saint or a scholar to understand that, whether by design or circuмstance, the life of the typical man or woman contains little that is uplifting, joy-giving, and capable of exercising the mental and emotional attributes which God Himself has given to every creature and which (cf. the Parable of the Talents) man scorns only at his peril. So why jump up in delight and in support of the uninformed counsel of more or less anonymous commenters in preference to that of orthodox saints and scholars and of such a living figure of ecclesial authority as Bishop Williamson?
The miseries of human life are earnest and grave things. Since Christ's time it has been the hope of Christians that patient endurance of these miseries will bring heaven as the reward. But it should never be forgotten that these miseries are defects and ills, not things to be desired for their own sake. Not every thing that lessens their weight is to be adjudged a good, of course, but the contrary attitude, exemplified by this thread, is far, far less to be approved.
Topic: Catholic Poems (Read 4935 times)