Norman Mailier 1923-2007

Norman Mailer is dead at age 84- rest-in-peace.

My first experience with Norman Mailer was reading his first book, the WWII novel that made him famous, The Naked and the Dead. Then there is his novel about Utah's own Gary Gilmore, The Executioner's Song. But the Mailer novel that made the deepest impression on me and that came out just after I finished The Naked and the Dead, is Harlot's Ghost. Harlot's Ghost is a big, wide, meandering novel about the CIA and is not regarded as one of his best. It may even be out-of-print. He also wrote a book on the life of Jesus, The Gospel According to the Son: A Novel, which is a surprisingly straightforward account of the life of the man from Nazareth and superior to Kazantsakis' The Last Temptation of Christ. Mailer was Jewish and was always fascinated, not so much by religion, but by God, faith, and religious ideas. In a strange way, in an idiosyncratic manner, Mailer was a man of faith, but, like all wise men, he understood the dangers inherent to religious belief, the destructive force of bad religion.

I have been planning to read his last novel, The Castle in the Forest: A Novel, a fantastic tale of the conception and early years of Adolf Hitler, as well as On God: An Uncommon Conversation and will do so now from a whole new perspective. Mailer was at both his best and worst as a writer in writing from the realm of the fantastic. When at his best, his writing style was very muscular and unmistakably masculine. He could make the tallest tale, like Hitler's conception by the devil in his last novel, a passage I heard him read on the radio, sound absolutely believable. Like all truly interesting people, Mailer had some wacky ideas and was quite forceful about relaying them. Politically, Mailer and I had a lot in common, not everything by a long stretch, and I always enjoy listening to his lectures and speeches, as well as reading his essays, especially on political, social, and cultural issues. He was undoubtedly a political radical. Norman Mailer also bore a striking resemblance to my maternal grandfather, with whom I was very close and who died when I was ten.

Those who write about Mailer from a Catholic P.O.V. over the next few days will have little good to write about him. Therefore, I do not mind declaring that I admired him while often vehemently disagreeing with him. He was one of those people with whom I would have loved to stay out all night drinking, conversing, and arguing. His advice to young writers was "Avoid booze, pot, too much sex, too much failure in one's private life." Mailer was married six times and has nine children.

A note on preaching

When the Gospel reading is a parable told by Jesus, why do some preachers feel compelled to tell a story about a story? In my experience, most Catholics can certainly use and many desire expository preaching, which requires some exegetical work. Put simply, more substance, less style. There is nobody less interesting or funny than somebody trying really hard to be interesting or funny.

I know I am in for an ordeal when after reading, say, the parable of the Prodigal Son, the preacher begins his homily with something like this: "Last Thanksgiving, as we gathered around the table, I asked my nephew, who had earlier that day lost the television remote, to say grace . . .". Of course I am exaggerating to make a point, but not by much judging merely from my own experience. Though well-intended, such stories usually wind up in some moralistic platitude, like it is important to forgive others. Now, I agree that it is important, even crucial, to forgive others, but quite often it isn't easy and I don't want to. Jesus is certainly saying more in this particular story than that! It is the preacher's role to try and communicate what else it is that our Lord is telling the communio, to move beyond the most obvious meaning. The preacher who refuses to do so becomes merely a MODO- a master of detecting the obvious. Put simply, if we preachers do not at least try to move beyond the most obvious meaning of Scripture, there is no value added by our preaching.

"Endless talking, Life rebuilding"

Atmosphere- "Don't walk away, in silence." Joy Division.

Today's geo-political quiz:

If Pervez Musharraf has declared a state of emergency in Pakistan to combat the forces of Islamic radicalism, such as the Taliban, why is he arresting all the people in his country, Benazir Bhutto being just the latest, who stand against the radicals and for democracy and progress?

Today's commentary on the times, such as they are, albeit a few weeks late, comes from Dr. Christine B. Whelan's Pure Sex, Pure Love column, which you can read on the Paulist site Busted Halo, entitled Slutoween.

From the "What the frickin' heck" (an uniquely Utah locution) files :

I made this post a bit of a lark because it marks my 365th post of 2007!

First from my dear friend Rocco over at Whispers:
From the Late-Night Desk, then

from Grant Gallicho, editor of Commonweal, which is one of the best Catholic magazines going, on their dotCommonweal blog, Abuser Priest Released on Bond, not to mention

the number two at the Holy See's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, saying in a recent speech that bishops opposed to the new norms were being "used as instruments of the devil". Perhaps the Holy Father should fly to France, call a plenary session of the entire French episcopate, who not only opposed the motu, but passionately pleaded with the Pope not to promulgate it, for the purpose of an exorcism. Too bad they recently concluded their deliberations at Lourdes. Okay, I am being extreme, but some days . . .

Now, back over to Rocco for some very good news. In a rare act of good sense and wisdom, President Bush has appointed Professor Mary-Ann Glendon of Harvard, who also serves as president of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, as United States Ambassador to the Holy See.

I am taking a risk here. After all, doesn't love require risk? For tomorrow's traditio it is either Joy Division in honor of the release this weekend of the film Control, which I hope to see at Brewvies after being on retreat that morning, or The Cure. In addition to which group, which song? The comment line is open. I am being authoritarian, not authoritative, by limiting the choices to The Cure or Joy Division to the point of even excluding New Order.

In other news, the intermonk, who writes from a post-evangelical perspective, like Καθολικός διάκονος, is not scared of atheism, namely The Golden Compass movie, which features the Catholic, Nicole Kidman.

Finally, I put this randomness to rest with this from Matthew Lickona.

"Razing the Bastions"

The title of this post is the title of a little book written by Hans Urs von Balthasar prior to Vatican II calling upon the Church to engage the world instead of remaining aloof, locked away in a dusty, Medieval room. The whole title is Razing the Bastions: On the Church in This Age. The fortress mentality of the Church was definitively blown away by the Second Vatican Council, but not without opposition from the "prophets of doom". Lest there be doubt, here is an excerpt from Gaudium et Spes, of which then-Karol Wojtyla was a primary architect:

89. "Since, in virtue of her mission received from God, the Church preaches the Gospel to all men and dispenses the treasures of grace, she contributes to the ensuring of peace everywhere on earth and to the placing of the fraternal exchange between men on solid ground by imparting knowledge of the divine and natural law. Therefore, to encourage and stimulate cooperation among men, the Church must be clearly present in the midst of the community of nations both through her official channels and through the full and sincere collaboration of all Christians-a collaboration motivated solely by the desire to be of service to all.

"This will come about more effectively if the faithful themselves, conscious of their responsibility as men and as Christians will exert their influence in their own milieu to arouse a ready willingness to cooperate with the international community. Special care must be given, in both religious and civil education, to the formation of youth in this regard."

I love that this extract, along with a few others from the constitutions of Vatican II, appear from time-to-time in the Office of Readings. With that I link you to Let’s Sit Out World War IV, by Steven LaTulippe. Once again, it is thanks to Alex, who daily finds such wonderful things and also performs acts of charity by keeping me straight, that I came across LaTulippe's insightful article.

In case you're interested

I know several of my local readers are curious about Communion & Liberation, which we are preparing to establish here in Salt Lake City. God willing we will begin meeting this month. So, if you are interested in coming and seeing, please leave a comment on this post and we can work from there. Anyway, the head of CL in the U.S. is Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete. Msgr. Albacete spoke on 6 October 2004 in Seattle. So, with no further adieu, I send you over to Deep Furrows where Fred has posted the video of his talk, which is entitled if you sin, let it be original.

Some more magisterial thoughts

A post from a couple of days ago over on our parish RCIA blog has caused me to reflect a bit more on the subject of Church authority. In discussing Church authority there is a distinction taught me by a Dominican priest about fifteen years ago. It is the distinction between authoritative and authoritarian. When stating that the Church aims at being authoritative and not authoritarian, it becomes important to discuss this distinction a bit more. In his wonderful homily while still Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals given at the Mass just prior to entering into the conclave at which he was elected Pope, then-Cardinal Ratzinger spoke about "the dictatorship of relativism," an authoritarianism that, by denying truth, allows for just about anything. It is important to note that he does not propose that this dictatorship be replaced by something like the dictatorship of truth, which would require the kind of religious fundamentalism he castigated in his Regensburg address. In order to grasp the truth one has to be free, it cannot be coerced. Because the truth is a person and not a set of abstract propositions, responding to truth means answering the question the resurrected Jesus put to Peter, "Do you love me?" Love can never be forced because true love requires true freedom.

Exodus, by Marc Chagall

To this end, Pope John Paul II wrote "On her part, the Church addresses people with full respect for their freedom. Her mission does not restrict freedom but rather promotes it. The Church proposes; she imposes nothing. She respects individuals and cultures, and she honors the sanctuary of conscience" (Redemptoris Missio par. 39). Just as there is vast difference between authoritative and authoritarian, there is an ocean between proposing something and imposing it. Now, there have been eras in its history during which the Church sought to impose. This same Pontiff, John Paul II, as part of observing the beginning of the third millennium of the Incarnation, issued apologies for many of these failures. Apologies aside, being authoritative requires being credible and credibility means being believable and not being what is popularly known as hypocritical, saying one thing and doing another. The word for saying what one means and acting accordingly is integrity. Even in the Church's darkest days there have always been women and men of holiness and integrity. For example, St. Francis received his mandate from the resurrected Lord to "rebuild my Church" in a particularly dark time. In short, it is typically saints, not popes and bishops, who have been the Church's catalysts, just as the prophets were Israel's. Of course, holiness always has a prophetic dimension.

It is precisely because the Church has failed and continues to fail (I am writing here about the child sexual abuse scandal and cover-up among other problems) that it lacks credibility with a lot of people, which is certainly understandable in many cases. This brings us to the nature of the Church itself. Like our resurrected and risen Lord, the Church has both a human and a divine nature. Unlike our Lord, in our human dimension the Church is not sinless. If nothing else, I know the Church in her human dimension is not sinless because I am a member. It is also important to remember that God's light shines, maybe even brighter, through our weaknesses. The Lord said to St. Paul who was grieving over his weakness: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." To which Paul responded: "I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me" (2 Cor 12,9).

The Church is God's People. God's People are and have always been a pilgrim People. The Church at times no less than the ancient Israelites, has gone a wanderin' in the desert.