_Letters___________________________________________________

Sorcery in the cathedral

One of the defining moments of the French Revolution was the erection of the statue of the “goddess of reason” on the altar of Notre Dame cathedral. The mob made use of a cathedral to show its disdain for God and to exalt human reason. Unfortunately the secular humanism of modern society has been inspired by the philosophic ideals behind the French Revolution. It is interesting to note that a Chinese Communist official was recently asked if he considered the French Revolution a success. His response: It’s still too early to tell.

Michael O’Brien pointed out in his excellent essay on the Harry Potter books (“Harry Potter and the Paganization of Children’s Culture,” April 2001), “When the supra-rational is denied, the result is not necessarily a more rational approach to life, but the virulent growth of the irrational.” Thus our very “rational” and often godless society is now sliding into the most blatant superstitions, as is evident in the growing acceptance of New Age and occult thought. 

This fall the movie version of Harry Potter will be released: a movie that was filmed in England in the venerable cathedral of Gloucester, a cathedral built by Catholic faithful 900 years ago. [The cathedral is now the property of the Church of England.] Because the old cathedral had the “proper atmosphere” (in the words of its current rector, no less), it was chosen to depict the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Sorcery: the school in which Harry Potter learns the dark arts. 

Imagine how those medieval builders would have felt had they known their cathedral would one day be used to depict a school of witchcraft and sorcery! And yet there is no modern outcry. Once again a cathedral is used in contempt of God, but this time, most irrationally, in order to exalt the occult. Can we doubt that the same diabolical inspiration has been behind both events?

—Betty Wittman of Manassas, Virginia

Tolkien and Rowling: common ground?

I follow the pronouncements of Michael O’Brien with special interest because I have been a professional in the science fiction and fantasy field for over 30 years. Because there is so much crammed into O’Brien’s Essay, I will just address one aspect: magic in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. O’Brien cites Letter #156 in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, which identifies Gandalf and his fellow wizards as incarnate angels. Tolkien explains that he calls them “wizards” for the connotative meaning of “those who know.” 

Note that Gandalf’s own magic ring goes unmentioned by O’Brien. And Letter #155, which O’Brien uses with suspicious selectivity, pointedly defends the lawfulness of the magic arts employed by Middle-earth. Speaking of magia (magic) and goetia (sorcery), Tolkien says: “Neither is, in this tale, good or bad per se, but only by motive or purpose or use. Both sides use both, but with different motives.” The ability to use magic “is an inherent power” in Middle-earth—just as in the secondary universe occupied by Harry Potter’s wizards and muggles, not to mention most contemporary genre fantasy.

Some other premises of Tolkien’s subcreation that diverge from Catholic teaching include angels that function as “gods,” an absence of cultic religion, a different version of the Creation and Fall, death as the Creator’s “gift” to men rather than their punishment, and reincarnation for elves.

O’Brien fears that Harry Potter will nudge children toward the occult. But contemporary neo-pagans routinely cite The Lord of the Rings as a work that predisposed them toward witchcraft. (They were also affected by a love of nature. Must we keep Catholic children away from trees lest they become Druids?) So if Tolkien were publishing now, O’Brien should logically have to condemn him in the same breath as J.K. Rowling. 

—Sandra Miesel of Indianapolis, Indiana

Michael O’Brien replies: Sandra Miesel raises significant points, though they are not untainted by her own somewhat selective reading of Tolkien’s letters. 

In letter #156, Tolkien does not call Gandalf and the other Istari incarnate angels, as she suggests. He is careful to put quotation marks around the word “angels” and to explain that its meaning is only in the sense of the root of the word, messenger, as in one who is sent. Gandalf’s powers are bestowed on him as a gift from Iluvatar, “the Father of All,” Tolkien’s mythological representation of God. This is a crucial point: the crucial distinction between Middle-earth and Potter-world. In the latter, all supernatural and preternatural powers are entirely naturalized. Rowling’s sub-creation is fundamentally immanentized—it is a glamorized Flatland. By contrast, Tolkien’s sub-creation is fundamentally hierarchical, representing a moral order that ascends from the incarnate all the way up to the throne of God Himself. 

Regarding Letter #155, Tolkien appears to be grappling with the question of magic (both magia and goeteia) as neutral power, as if he himself has not come to a clear understanding of it: “I have been far too casual about ‘magic’ and especially the use of the word...” He points out that the good characters in Middle-earth use magia sparingly, and goeteia as a kind of artistic exercise. The decisive point of this letter, however, reinforces my own position, for at its conclusion he says that “magic” (again in quotation marks) is not what we think of as magic in this world, which is obtained by lore or spells (the Gnostic seizing of secret knowledge). Rather, in Middle-earth it is “an inherent power not possessed or attainable by Men as such.” In other words it is a faculty of the higher ranks of creatures (Elves and Istari), bestowed on them by Iluvatar as a gift. In addition, it should be added that Middle-earth is a mythological pre-Christian age, and more than once in the epic it is stated that these powers must pass away from the world. 

It is important in assessing Tolkien’s impact on modern consciousness to situate The Lord of the Rings in the fuller context of the body of the author’s writings. The ring trilogy is only entirely comprehensible, and properly understood according to its author’s intention, in the light of his foundational work The Silmarillion. With some leeway for imaginative expansion on his themes, Tolkien has given us the “theological” foundation to Middle-earth—one that corresponds in essence to the book of Genesis. It’s all there: the Creator, the creation of the universe, the revolt of the fallen angels, Satan, the corruption of Man, the ensuing battle between good and evil in the incarnate world. The names have been changed and the details of the battles enlarged, but this is a dramatic portrayal of reality itself. If New Age devotees have to some degree co-opted Tolkien’s writings to their own purposes, this does not negate the author’s original intention. The New Age has attempted to co-opt sacred Scripture as well—the cults are notorious for this—but does this negate the original intention of the Author of the Bible? 

What is the context of J.K. Rowling’s Potter-world? What are its “theological foundations,” if you will? In a word, there are none. The Harry Potter series is a fantasy-projection of materialist man, homo sine deo, man without God, imagining himself to have god-like powers without any reference to the source of those powers, nor to any set of moral absolutes against which he can measure the rightness or wrongness of his thoughts and actions. 
Witchcraft is not so much about love of nature, as it is about love of control over nature. It is about power—god-like power without accountability to objective standards, without obedience to the Creator of nature. It is about our root sin, pride. It is about rebellion against God’s authority. 

Sandra Miesel’s reductio ad absurdum regarding keeping children from trees is clever, but self-defeating. A tree lives according to God’s intention for its ontological value and purpose. Druids and witches do not. The characters in Potter-world do not.

I have read The Lord of the Rings aloud to my children five times over the years, and I hope to read it to my grandchildren some day. A few of my children have gone so far as to purchase copies of the trilogy for themselves, and to read extensively in Tolkien’s other writings. While it is true that there are ambiguous elements in his vast and splendid sub-creation, these are minimal, and indeed at times have prompted fascinating discussions in our family. But we do not read Potter here. This is neither parental paranoia nor the ghettoization of the imagination. We know full well that there is no work of fiction that does not in some way fall short of a complete vision of reality. However, there is a great deal of difference between a flawed detail and a flaw in the fundamental vision. A house with a weak window frame is not the same thing as a house built on sand. No matter how beautiful the decor of the latter may be, it is a place I would rather not live. More importantly, it is a place where I will not take my children to live.

Fantasy, censorship, and temperance

It is certainly true that fantasy is being written to—what other word can I use—pervert its readers. In the United States, two main forces seem to be at work: a bias against Christianity and the attempt to proselytize homosexuality.

Look at what happened to the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Originally Buffy—a girl born with preternatural strength so that she could hunt vampires—always wore a cross and kept some holy water handy, and she and her friends were virgins. Her friend Willow, however, was bothered about using Christian symbols, because she was Jewish. Well, all that is no more. After losing her virginity, Buffy stopped wearing a cross. It would not have been a problem, however, because Willow converted from Judaism to Wicca, and now protects Buffy with her spells. And after the show’s creator had some talks with the folks at the Gay/Lesbian Alliance against Defamation, he turned Willow into a lesbian.

Oddly enough, the show once featured a dream sequence in which we found out that Willow’s inner self—the one that she was afraid to show anyone —wore what looked like a parochial-school uniform and read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. But we know that Willow would never convert to Catholicism, because the show’s producers are careful not to offend anybody. 

Yes, even children’s fantasy stories are being perverted these days. But that is because the culture war is raging everywhere. It is said that temperance consists not in avoiding the legitimate pleasures of this world but in moderating our use of them through a love of virtue. The same could be said about fantasy. It is more important that we see to it that our children have a solid grounding in the faith and are exposed to the beauty of the Church’s devotional life; that way they can judge for themselves what is good and bad in the stories they read. 

—Don Schenk of Allentown, Pennsylvania

Clarifications on Organ Transplants

CWR must be commended for publishing an outstanding and much-needed article on organ transplants (“Are Organ Transplants Ever Morally Licit?” March 2001). However a couple of minor clarifications are called for.

St. Augustine states that man’s primary obligation is to abstain from moral evil. Then he should do as much good as possible. Whereas to abstain from moral evil is always obligatory, this does not always apply to doing good. (For example to sacrifice one’s kidney in order to save the life of another person is a morally good act, pleasing to God, but it is not obligatory.) The fact that “good ought to be done,” mentioned first in the article, could lead to misunderstandings.

The authors state that “evil may not be done that good might come of it.” They obviously refer to moral evil (which is a sin and an offense against God, such as murder, theft, impurity, or injustice). For there are numerous cases in which “evil” can be done that good might come of it. When a father justly punishes his child—and punishment brings pain, which is an evil—he is doing his duty as a parent. When a surgeon operates on a patient in the hope of saving his life, he inflicts pain (which is harmful and an evil), but it is morally legitimate. It is important to stress that it is moral evil (to kill a patient in order to save the life of another) which is to be condemned in all places, at all times, in all circumstances.

—Alice von Hildebrand of New Rochelle, New York 

Accepting death and transplantation

The Holy Father has newly described death as “the total disintegration of that unitary and integrated whole that is the personal self. It results from the separation of the life principle (or soul) from the corporal reality of the person.” The Pope declares licit the transplantation of the heart and other single organs after this marker has been passed. The Essay in CWR’s March 2001 issue dares to differ. 

The article sidesteps the Pope’s marker of death, then spins its wheels on a home-made mantra: “If organs live, the body is not dead.” On the contrary we respond: “The sum of the parts that was once a body, is no longer a living whole.”

The heart, of course, may continue to beat after the unitary and integrated whole of the body’s life has disintegrated. But a beating heart does not a body make.

Comparisons help. When a suicide terrorist explodes his body into a thousand pieces, scattered organs may show signs of life for a limited time. But all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put it together again to live a second life. When a member of a high trapeze team loses his grip, the team tumbles. Members save their individual lives (we hope), but the act with its integrated function has failed. Puncture a balloon: its flabby remains lie there, impotent to plug the hole and refill itself. In brief, body parts may function as island pieces of a has-been body even after the unifying principle has departed, but the organs are now no longer parts of a living body. 

The authors claim that the clearly determined parameters commonly held by the international scientific community to which the Pope refers do not exist. There is a bit of hair-splitting here. Criteria and tests are known among transplant agencies globally. 

There are guidelines here and there and everywhere. What the Pope refers to, we can assume, is not so much a codified international agreement on the specific criteria and the manner of testing. What is substantial and crucial is the mandatory use of criteria and tests to be applied to every transplant donor, by which doctors, in every part of the world, can arrive at moral certitude that this body no longer functions as an integrated unity, and that the sum total of the organs cannot be maneuvered back into the lost life for a second run.

The Holy Father has provided us with a valid marker for death. It is time to move on.

—Father Anthony Zimmerman of Nagoya, Japan

We do not claim to have provided the final word on the morality of organ transplants; in fact, we published the March Essay in the hope of provoking a debate on the topic. But surely, given the general climate of contempt for human life, it is dangerous to assume that simply because someone is setting guidelines and criteria for the definition of death, those guidelines and criteria do not bear further scrutiny. 

—The Editor

Prophetic or predictable preaching

Diogenes is, of course, completely accurate in “The Deal in Place” (Last Word, April 2001) regarding the understanding that goes on between parishioners and pastors nowadays. I have often been struck by the irony that if it were not for the secular media and their hatred of the Church, most Catholics would never know what the Church’s teaching is. In the past 30 years I have heard zero sermons on contraception, homosexuality, or extramarital sex. I have heard two that I recall on divorce. One of them was a defense of the American “Catholic divorce” of easy annulments; and the other was on how, although the Church did not permit divorce, we must be compassionate to divorced Catholics.

On the other hand, within a couple of months, I heard three “courageous” sermons against the death penalty, which cited the Pope but implied (contrary to the teaching of the ordinary magisterium) that the penalty was immoral. You also hear pastors speak boldly against pollution, against drugs (but not alcohol), against greed, and especially against racism, sexism, and “intolerance” in general.

So yes, moral teaching does go on from the pulpits, in the seminaries, and in CCD classes. But it is the moral teaching of the new morality of the 1960s, not official Catholic doctrine. When the two more or less coincide, the Catholic teaching is transmogrified into a “me too” version of what you hear in the secular universities and the press.

—George A. Blair of Cincinnati, Ohio

Proper Titles for Eastern Prelates

Thanks for the great coverage of Ukraine and Russia (“In Moscow’s Shadow”) in the April 2001 edition. 

However, speaking as a Byzantine Catholic, I must protest that it is a slight against us when publications refer to our patriarchs or major-archbishops, who happen also to be cardinals, as “Cardinal X”—as you did to Major-Archbishop Lubomyr Cardinal Husar. I have seen other Roman Catholic newspapers refer to Patriarch Nasrallah Cardinal Sfeir, of the Maronite Catholic Church, as “Cardinal Sfeir.” This is inexcusable, and calling the Eastern hierarchs as such downgrades their dignity and respect as heads of sui juris Eastern churches in union with the Pope and in communion with the universal Catholic Church. Latin-rite Catholic thinking ranks cardinals higher than archbishops, but the same is not necessarily so for Eastern-rite Catholics. Please respect the dignity and rank of the leaders of the Eastern Catholic churches.

As to the complaints by the Russian Orthodox Church about Catholic “proselytizing,” they should admit of their collusion in forcing Eastern Catholics into their ranks, and stealing our churches, with the backing of the Communists. They should also admit to the ongoing Orthodox “proselytizing” in traditionally “Catholic” countries such as Poland (yes, there is a Polish Orthodox Church) and Mexico (yes, there is an exarchate in Mexico). We Catholics recognize their sacraments; they do not recognize ours. It is right for us to proclaim individual conscience as to church membership, whether Catholic or Orthodox. 

—Daniel Joseph Barton of Fayetteville, North Carolina

CWR does make every effort to “respect the dignity and rank of the leaders of the Eastern Catholic churches.” Our task is complicated, however, by the fact that most of our readers are not well acquainted with the Eastern Catholic churches. We do our best to use terminology which will neither slight the members of the Eastern churches nor confuse our other readers. 

—The Editor

Chaos in the seminaries

Reading the Essay by Michael Rose (“A Self-Imposed Shortage,” February 2001) and all the letters you published from people concerning the issue (Letters, April 2001), we must realize that this is more than a problem; it is chaos! The Church is being destroyed from within. 

Bishops and priests are responsible for the welfare of the Church; they are the pastors of the flock. When all these seminarians, anti-Catholic and homosexual, are ordained, they will be guiding the Church. The priority of the Pope should be to clean out the unclean bishops, priests, and seminarians. His trips to most of the countries in the world are not going to save this chaotic situation; the issue has to be approached directly. 

—Sylvia Tamames of Key Biscayne, Florida

Why not transfer?

Concerning the letters about the shortage of priests, it shudders the soul to read the heart-wrenching comments by so many who have experienced rejection at seminaries because of adherence to Catholic teaching on the moral and dogmatic beliefs of the Church. It stuns the senses.

I’m curious why your correspondents didn’t just attend seminaries in those dioceses where orthodoxy prevails. Surely these seminaries would pay no heed to the blackballing of these candidates by the offending institutions. Transfers to other colleges are widespread, why not to other seminaries?

—John Materazzo of Roxbury Crossing, Massachusetts

The Real Presence and valid ordination, I

The letter of Father David Wechter in the April issue raises a deep concern with me. I am a layman who has witnessed the healing power of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. If there are bishops in our country who do not ordain deacons to the priesthood if they believe in transubstantiation, why are not their names made known to Rome?

It is one thing to acknowledge the inability of any term, including transubstantiation and transelementation, adequately to describe the profound mystery and reality of Jesus in the Eucharist. It is quite another to deny the Real Presence, or to reduce its meaning to “transignification” or a similar term.

It seems that many in the West have lost sight of the profound faith and mystery with which Eastern Catholics and the Orthodox approach the reality of Jesus in the Eucharist. Informing on a bishop is not an enterprise that anyone should relish; however, the issue of faith that is at stake is not trivial!

—Steve Shelly of Fremont, California

The Real Presence and valid ordination, II

The April edition contains a letter from Father David Wechter that will surely confuse the faithful. He raises questions about the validity of orders when an ordaining bishop does not believe in the Real Presence. Father Wechter seems to have overlooked an important teaching in sacramental theology: Jesus Christ is the primary celebrant of the sacraments.

Father Wechter’s difficulty stems from the intent of the minister to “at least do what the Church does.” Keep in mind that the bishop lays his hand on the deacon and passes on a share in the apostolic authority that he himself received when he was ordained a bishop. The bishop, through his actions, intends to do at least what the Church does, and the deacon becomes a validly ordained priest. If my catechism lessons from long ago still serve, all the minister has to do is to perform the religious action, and the sacrament is effected ex opere operato—that is, by the action performed. 

—Joan Deutsch of Odessa, Texas

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