One of the ideas that has animated this blog since its very beginning is that my understanding that a "Catholic reader" does not simply imply being a Catholic who likes to read nor that one prefers to read works written by Catholic writers or intended for Catholic audiences. In fact, in the sense I have always used the term on this blog, being a "Catholic reader" means having "catholic tastes"-- reading widely, not narrowly; being willing to confront ideas one does not already embrace, and to sift works for any truth they may contain. In fact, if the term means nothing else, being a Catholic reader means reading for truth even more than for enjoyment, truth being found even in works that don't pretend to be factual. I have often made the case that fiction and poetry are capable of conveying deeper truths than most nonfiction. Explicitly, I have presented a method for discerning the truth found in works of nonfiction, and implicitly, through my own discussion and analysis of imaginative literature, I have conveyed the way we can discern and weigh the truths such works may contain.
Being "A Catholic Reader"
One of my personal aspirations for this blog is the hope that what I write here will provide a model of what it means to be a "Catholic reader," so that others will be encouraged to read more broadly, more deeply, and with greater profit. However, I also believe that readers need to be educated in how to read well, so that they may be able not only to derive the greatest benefit, but also to read works full of bad ideas with discernment and without being damaged by those ideas. I can recall, not without a shiver, more than a few books I read in my childhood and adolescence that I never should have laid eyes on at that age, lacking as I did both worldly experience and intellectual and spiritual discernment that might have allowed me to absorb much of the good they may have contained while remaining shielded from the evil. Fortunately, I retained a degree of innate innocence that protected me from being attracted to the evil presented, even if I didn't know how to digest such works for to derive the good they might have provided. Eventually, thanks to good teachers who showed discretion but didn't believe in pre-digesting literature for their students, I learned the art that I now call "reading like a Catholic."
This idea that readers need to be specially trained and equipped to read certain kinds of works is not a new one -- it has existed for as long as the study and teaching of literature has existed. In fact, one might define "literature" as any writing that yields its greatest benefits to those who have learned to read carefully and well. (One of these days I hope to write about the way that, for millennia, people were trained to write simply by first being trained to read with discernment and understanding, a practice that has virtually disappeared in the modern world.)
The Church has long understood that literature works on levels that are not immediately apparent, levels that can affect spiritual wellbeing as well as intellectual understanding. For this reason, for several centuries, beginning at the birth of the modern era, the Church maintained a list of books that ordinary Catholics were forbidden to read without permission, the index librorum prohibitorum (or simply the Index). Immediately following the Protestant revolution that so deeply shook the Church, the function of the Index originally was to combat the rapid spread of heretical ideas (a possibility that arose from the recent invention of the printing press), but the Index continued well into the twentieth century, listing all sorts of books that were deemed dangerous to Catholic readers or injurious to the Church. However, these books were not absolutely prohibited -- Catholics who had a real need to consult them could do so, with permission of the competent religious authority. That permission, ordinarily given by one's local bishop or immediate religious superior, was extended to those who could demonstrate that they possessed both the intellectual and the spiritual maturity to read the proscribed work with benefit and without harm. (By the way, in those days many libraries similarly maintained "closed stacks," and readers had to submit a request for books to be retrieved -- permission that might have been denied with cause.)
My purpose today is not to debate whether we are now better off without the Index. Catholics today are certainly freer to read anything we choose, with little guidance from the Church other than the vague suggestion that we should read (as we should do anything else) with "an informed conscience" and avoid anything dangerous to faith and morals. But, as anyone who has ever struggled with the problem of free will knows, this simply shifts the burden of discernment and responsibility from Church authorities (who presumably would know what is and isn't spiritually and morally deleterious) onto the individual (who often does not). So one might debate whether the Church has done us any favors in abandoning the Index.
How do we inform our conscience? By knowing, believing, and internalizing at a deep level the Catholic faith; by "putting on the mind of Christ." (Another area in which, arguably, the Church has given little assistance in recent decades.) If we have done a good job of this, we will be able to recognize harmful trash when we encounter it and will reject it with disgust. However, under the burden of this same freedom, timid and tender pious souls may choose to remain within the cozy confines of the "Catholic literary ghetto," thus avoiding much that is harmful but also remaining ignorant of more challenging books that actually contain a great deal that is instructive and beneficial. Meanwhile these poor souls are stuck reading only books written by, and intended for, Catholics, more than a few of which trivially inoffensive and sometimes even downright banal. (Flannery O'Connor had some very acid comments about this sort of "pious trash.") For myself and for you, dear reader, I wish better than that, which is why I will soldier on here at A Catholic Reader, endeavoring to expose you to a better choice of reading material and better reading habits that will equip you to get the most out of it.
Forbidden Ideas -- or Idealogy?
All of which brings me to the matter that inspired me to write this post. It's Lent and, like many Catholics, I have taken on some additional spiritual reading during this holy season, the better to inspire my soul and inform my conscience. One of the books I'm reading is Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange's Life Eternal (published originally in French in 1950 and in English two years later). Father Garrigou-Lagrange (or G-L, if that's easier to read) was a brilliant Dominican priest and spiritual theologian, not to mention one of the finest twentieth-century interpreters of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas. The topic of Life Eternal is eschatology, something one seldom finds treated in more recent books, and then only glancingly; having read a large portion of G-L's vast masterwork, The Three Ages of the Spiritual Life (massive but extremely lucid), I was eager to learn what he has to say about the Last Things.
The book, as I say, came out a few years after the end of the Second World War. Its original French title is L'Éternelle vie et la profondeur de l'âme. Soon after it appeared, a Benedictine called Patrick Cummins produced the English translation, Life Eternal, subtitled (by the publisher, I suppose) "A theological treatise on the Four Last Things--Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell." This was published by B. Herder Books (now defunct, but then an important publisher of Catholic books in America) in 1952; after Herder went out of business two or three decades ago, TAN Books reprinted the title in 2009. In 2016, however, Baronius Press sued TAN Books over copyright violations of various titles to which they said they owned the rights, including a number of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange's books. The suit concluded in favor of Baronius in 2019, and since that time even tattered old copies of Life Eternal have become virtually impossible to find. Those few that are offered for sale command astronomical prices. However (sshh, don't tell Baronius Press!), you can read what appears to be the version reprinted by TAN Books online in the EWTN online library. Before I became aware of the copyright controversy, I was able to locate a PDF scan of the TAN reprint which I subsequently turned into a MOBI file that I can read on my Kindle.
I would spare you all of this boring business about the book's publishing history if not for a problem I discovered in the English translation when I compared it to the original French edition. That problem is a significant discrepancy between the two, one that I hope will be addressed by any future English edition. [If you read French, you can verify what I'm about to point out by comparing the version of Life Eternal in ETWN's library with the original French version, also available online, L'Éternelle vie et la profondeur de l'âme, which, as far as I know, does not violate French copyright. Traditionally, theological and spiritual works written by members of religious orders have been offered to the Church -- and the world -- free of copyright.]
Since the art of translation are inevitably interpretations, it has long been my practice, whenever possible, to read any book in which I am seriously interested in the language in which it was written. This is why, despite the convenience of being able to read the English version on my Kindle, I decided to buy a print edition of the French original. I was fortunate to find a beautifully bound hardback copy of the French original, which had been retired from the library of the School of Divinity at Saint Louis University. (Their loss is my gain.) I've been nibbling at both English and French versions, which is a bit awkward because chapter numbering differs somewhat between the two. A couple of days ago, when I was trying to switch from the French back to the English (hoping to read in bed after lights-out, on my Kindle Paperwhite), I discovered that the section I had reached in the French edition simply does not exist in the English one. It has been deliberately excised (by the publisher or by the translator? Can't tell).
I had finished the first two sections of the book, the first on the soul in this present life and the second on death and judgment, and had arrived at the section on Hell. The first chapter of this section lays out the Scriptural basis for believing that Hell (a) exists and (b) is a permanent state, providing first the Old Testament warrants and then the testimony of the New Testament. The final part of the chapter, in the French original, is headed: "Note: Confirmation," with the subheading, "La Maçonnerie, qui nie l'enfer, est une preuve de son existence." This is the part that does not appear in the Cummins translation -- at least, not in the version reprinted by TAN Books. Why not? Well, one can only speculate, but the subheading of the section may provide a clue -- for those of you who don't read French, this subheading introduces the section as "Masonry, which denies Hell, is a proof of its existence." You can read my translation of the entire passage here.
Now, "Masonry" is one of those things that is never discussed these days in mainstream Catholic media; to do so will immediately brand one as some kind of loony fringe element, possibly a "rad Trad," certainly someone who has failed to imbibe the "spirit of Vatican II." Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, however, was not some fringey loon but an eminent spiritual theologian -- whose name, of course, is barely even known today, fewer than sixty years after his death, which occurred almost simultaneously with the end of the Second Vatican Council. Yet he was a man of considerable eminence and influence in his day; as Wikipedia points out, "The Osservatore Romano of 9-10 December 1950 lists Garrigou-Lagrange among the names of the preparatory commission for the definition of the Assumption of Mary." He was the thesis supervisor of the future Pope (now Saint) John Paul II. Therefore, it seems strange to me that the American edition of his work on the Life Eternal omitted this section of his chapter on the warrants for the doctrine of Hell as a real place/condition that, once entered, can never be escaped.
Having read the section, I will say that, although some thoroughly modern Catholics would probably sniff and say that the view it presents is outmoded, I found that it presents a startlingly accurate description of the world we live in today. Let's see if you agree with me on this: here is my translation of the entire passage:
Freemasonry, which denies the reality of Hell, is proof of its existence
Reading Leo XIII’s encyclical on freemasonry, Humanum genus (April 1884), as well as the most objective works on this question, which are summarized in the article on free-masonry in the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, one can see what freemasonry’s real purpose is.
What Leo says is essentially this: Since the malice of the devil first divided the world into two camps, truth has had its defenders but also its implacable adversaries. These are the two opposing cities of which St. Augustine speaks: the City of God, represented by the Church of Jesus Christ and its doctrine of eternal salvation, and that of Satan, with its continual revolt against revealed truth. The struggle between these two armies is never-ending; and, ever since the birth of Freemasonry at end of the seventeenth century united all the secret societies, Masonic sects have organized a war of extermination against God and the Church. Their aim is to de-Christianize life—individual, family, social, and international life; toward this end, all their members regard themselves as a worldwide fraternity, constituting a rival church, an international and secret association.
At the end of the encyclical, Pope Leo points out how these clandestine sects insinuate themselves into the confidence of princes under the false pretext of protecting their authority from the domination of the Church; in reality, their purpose is to undermine all power, as experience has proven; for then, says the Pope, these cunning men flatter the multitudes, making their eyes glitter at the prospect of a prosperity in which kings and the Church are the only enemies. In short, the Freemasons plunge the nations into the abyss of all evils, into revolutionary agitation and general ruin, which benefit only a few cunning few.
This real goal, to de-Christianize society, was initially masked by more seemly purpose: in the beginning, the Ma-sonic sect presented itself as a philanthropic and philosophical society. But then, after its triumphs, it discarded the mask and now glories in all the revolutions that have shaken Eu-rope, in particular the French Revolution, with all the laws against the clergy and religious orders, with the secularization of schools, the removal of the crucifix from hospitals and courts, laws permitting divorce—everything that de-Christianizes the family and diminishes the authority of the father, replacing it with that of an atheistic state. Freemasonry follows the maxim, “divide and conquer”: to separate kings and states from the Church; to weaken states by separating them from each other in order to dominate them all through hidden international power; to provoke class conflicts by setting workers against their bosses; to weaken and undermine patriotic love for one’s homeland; to separate spouses in the family, by making divorce legal and ever easier; to separate children from their parents in order to make them the prey of schools that claim to be neutral but in fact are anti-religious and of the atheistic state.
Freemasonry also claims to work for the progress of civilization, rejecting all divine revelation, all religious authority; mysteries and miracles must be banished from the scientific worldview. Original sin, the sacraments, grace, prayers, and duties towards God are absolutely rejected, as is the distinction between good and evil, good being reduced to the merely useful, while all moral obligation disappears. Punishment in the afterlife no longer exists. Authority comes not from God but from the sovereign people.
Freemasonry is ruled particularly by hatred of Jesus Christ; blasphemy and imprecation are especially reserved for His holy name. Masons even procure consecrated hosts just so that they can profane them in the most outrageous manner. Apostasy is required of any man once he is admit-ted into the higher ranks of the sect. In the eyes of initiates, just as in the eyes of hardened Jews, the condemnation of Jesus of Nazareth by the judicial authority is perfectly justified and the crucifixion legitimized. Therefore the Masons fight against the Catholic Church as their enemy. Finally, the notion of God, which at first was tolerated, finally is struck out of the Masonic vocabulary.
The satanic perversity of the Masonic project finally can be seen in the secrecy in which their designs are shrouded. Their principle objectives, discussed in secretive committees, are completely unknown to ordinary laymen and even to many lower-ranking affiliates. As for the initiates, when they are received into the higher ranks, they must swear never to reveal the secrets of the society, and these same people who pretend to be defenders of freedom, surrender themselves completely to an occult power, which they do not know and whose most hidden purposes they will probably never be aware of. Robbery, suppression of highly important documents, sacrilege, murder, violation of all laws divine and human--any of these might be required of them, yet, on pain of death, they would have to carry out these abominable orders.
A tree is judged by its fruits; the root of this evil tree is hatred of God, of Christ the Redeemer and of His Church. Freemasonry is therefore a satanic work, which is in its own way a proof of the existence of hell, of the very hell whose existence this sect claims to deny.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Church has repeatedly condemned Freemasonry, under Clement XII, Benedict XIV, Leo XII, Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII. The Holy Office, in its circular of February 1871 to the episcopate, even imposes the obligation to denounce the ringleaders and secret heads of these dangerous societies; the son is not exempt from denouncing his father nor a father his son. The husband must act in the same way with regard to his wife, the brother with regard to his sister . The general good of society requires this severity. The reason for this decision of the Holy Office is based on the trickery to which the lodges resort, by supplying the public with phony names.
Masonry, the first to deny hell, is therefore, by its satanic perversity, a proof of hell’s existence. This is evident above al in the profanations of the Eucharist, which are clearly inspired by the devil and presuppose his faith in the Real Presence. The devil's faith, as St. Thomas explains, is not the infused, saving faith that comes of humble submission of the spirit to the authority of God the Revealer, but an acquired faith that is based only on the evidence of miracles, for the devil sees that these are true miracles, quite distinct from the conjuring tricks that he can produce. These horrible profanations of consecrated hosts are thus in their own way a perceptible proof of satanic malice, and therefore of the hell to which Satan is condemned. Thus, the devil himself confirms the testimony of Scripture and Tradition, which he would prefer to deny.
From time to time, as in the war that has just ended [the Second World War], we see evidence of an appalling hatred, as if hell is opening up beneath our feet. This confirms Revelation: crimes which go unrepented will be punished by everlasting suffering.
