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Catholic
Instincts, Catholic Imagination
A supernatural outlook can and
should influence the way we perceive the secular world.
John is a Catholic.
John reads.
Therefore John is a Catholic reader.
CWR readers will recognize the problem with that syllogism, I hope. When we say
that someone is a “Catholic reader,” we are referring to his habits of mind, not
his baptismal status. A “Catholic reader” is one who immerses himself in the
Catholic intellectual tradition.
By that definition many Catholics—indeed many faithful, practicing Catholics—are not “Catholic readers.” They may read voluminously, but their intellectual habits—the things they read, and the way they read them—are indistinguishable from those of their Protestant or agnostic neighbors. Regrettably, young Catholics are graduating from Church-affiliated schools without having acquired any taste for (or even acquaintance with) the great writers of our tradition: Newman and Knox, Chesterton and Belloc, Dawson and Sheed.
To say that someone is a “Catholic writer” does not necessarily imply that he writes about the Church. Nor is a “Catholic reader” especially interested in clerical affairs. (In fact I have no doubt that the relentlessly “churchy” tone of diocesan newspapers has driven thousands of readers away from genuine Catholic literature.) Oddly enough it seems possible to be a “Catholic writer” without ever entering the Church of Rome; C.S. Lewis comes immediately to mind. And certainly non-Catholics can become absorbed by the Catholic literary classics. The acquisition of Catholic habits of mind is often the prelude to a religious conversion. And that, of course, is one more compelling reason why we should promote Catholic literature.
A Catholic perspective
Each month, CWR looks out at the same world that is covered by secular magazines
and newspapers. We see the same trends in current events, and yet we report them
differently. Why?
From time to time we notice gross inaccuracies in the way the major media cover news events, or clear omissions in the popular coverage. But ordinarily the difference between a “Catholic” news report and the secular version is a matter of perspective.
Viewing the world through the prism of faith, we emphasize some issues (such as religious persecution) which the secular media find less interesting. We concentrate on some long-term trends (such as the struggle between the ‘culture of life’ and the ‘culture of death’) which the daily papers prefer to ignore. We work to form genuine “Catholic readers,” who can understand current events in the light of their faith, and perceive a seamless connection between their faith and their daily activities.
When faith is alive, it reaches out to govern every aspect of our lives. A devout Catholic is not merely a member of the Church; he is in love with the Church. He wants not only to pray like a Catholic, but to think like a Catholic, to walk and talk like a Catholic, to react to the news like a Catholic. In happier days, every Catholic editor and educator saw the need to form Catholic readers, Catholic politicians, Catholic lawyers, Catholic soldiers, Catholic engineers.
The Catholic mind
In this issue of CWR, we pay homage to the great Catholic novelist, J.R.R.
Tolkien. As Joseph Pearce and Michael O’Brien remind us, there is nothing
overtly religious—let alone sectarian—in his masterful trilogy, The Lord of the
Rings. Yet that entire work is suffused with a deep and abiding sense of the
faith. No one who reads the works carefully could doubt that Middle-earth is the
product of a Catholic imagination.
What are the characteristics of the Catholic imagination? What are the habits of the Catholic mind? A few common traits are easy to discern:
• a readiness to look beyond the circumstances of one’s own time and place, and to identify with people from other continents or other centuries;
• a comfortable acceptance of traditional structures and legitimate authority;
• an unblinking willingness to recognize the reality of sin and death, without seeing them as reasons for discouragement;
• a bias toward the wisdom of experience, and a mistrust for intellectual fads and rationalistic schemes;
• a disposition to see life as a single drama stretching across the centuries, in which every individual plays a potentially pivotal role.
The man who develops these intellectual tendencies certainly cannot claim that his salvation is assured. But he can hope that his habits of mind will nurture his growth in prudence, the first of the cardinal virtues. And he may rightly claim that he is learning to think with the mind of the Church, which is the mind of Christ. “By living with the mind of Christ,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us (2046), “Christians hasten the coming of the reign of God, ‘a kingdom of justice, love, and peace.’”
—By Philip F. Lawler
Back to Catholic World Report December 2001 Table of Contents