GIACOMETTI, Existentialism & General Sculptural Discomfort

GIACOMETTI, Existentialism & General Sculptural Discomfort
     

Normally when we think of sculpture, we think of artists’ attempts to replicate the beauty and complexity of the human body.  We think of pieces like Michelangelo’s David: truly a masterpiece and a representation of the ideal male form.  We see David’s identifiable musculature, his flawless skin, and his identifiable strong, Italian facial features.  His body stands confident and stoic, a slingshot slung over his shoulder, his gaze outward, his stance ready for the next step in the story: Goliath’s approach.  He shines as an example of Florentine strength at the turn of the 16th century.

Michelangelo's "David," 1504, Florence

If you learn nothing else from my blogs, you should learn that art is a representation of its time period (whether the artist likes it or not).  This type of muscular sculpture was well-suited to its time period.

Giacometti's "Walking Man" (1 of a series of 6), 1960

When we look at more modern sculpture, we are sometimes jarred, intrigued and often uncomfortable.  Alberto Giacometti’s signature style, represented best in his Walking Man I, depicts a very different style of sculpture.  Standing larger than life size, at over 6 feet tall, this sculpture seems to tower over us.  What exactly are we looking at?  An incredibly simple pose that we encounter every day; one that we most likely fail to recognize: a man walking.  But what is different about this man?  Why doesn’t he look like a Michelangelo, what makes him different and how does this make us feel?  These are all important questions that the artist wanted us to consider when looking at this haunting sculpture.
In my experience interning and giving tours at the Art Institute of Chicago, when I would bring audiences to this sculpture, one of two things would happen depending on the age group.  When asked to list adjectives that they associate with this piece, anyone above the average age of 25 would say: haunting, starvation, Holocaust, concentration camps.  Anyone below the age of 25 (especially teenagers) would say: skinny, thin, anorexic, eating disorder.  That right there shows a major distinction in cultural value systems between people of different ages, even in the same country.
In fact, the artist most likely was referencing both the Holocaust and Existentialism (both quite perky topics).  He began creating these elongated, thin figures slightly before the onset of WWII, but made them only about as big as a pack of cigarettes.  He lived in France during the German Occupation, and eventually moved back to Switzerland when restrictions became too tight.  He only began creating his larger, more well-known pieces after the end of the war.  He began creating this series of Walking Men in the late 1950s.

Giacometti & "Walking Man"

So, who’s excited to talk about existentialism!?!  Existentialism was a French philosophical movement that began in the years after the second world war.  While it was primarily experienced by a ravaged Europe, bits of it did trickle into America, mostly through college education.  After the G.I. Bill came into effect after the end of WWII, the government paid tuition in full for many who fought in the war.  The main tenets of existentialism, while much more complicated than I will make it seem in the next few sentences, respond to the isolation and desolation so poignantly felt by those who suffered in WWII.  Existentialism holds that there is no grand meaning in life; there is no rhyme or reason to why things happen.  The world as a whole is absurd and irrational, and does not contain any inherent moral value system.  However, this does not mean that values don’t exist!  It simply means that we are responsible for our own experience in this world, moral values included.
While to some this may sound fairly liberating (“I have complete control over my life and my experience in this world!”), many found the idea of the lack of a grand meaning in life to be quite isolating.  (“So, we’re all on this journey by ourselves and there’s no real reason for it?”)
Giacometti’s sculptures reflect this feeling of isolation.  Much of the reason why we feel discomfort looking at them is that, unlike Michelangelo’s David, Giacometti’s sculptures are completely out of touch with our sensory experience of the body. While we can identify limbs, we can’t identify any form of musculature, nor skin covering the musculature.  The closest thing we come to identifying is a skeletal bone structure, which, without musculature and skin, reminds us of something sick or dying.  Even a common subject, such as a man walking, becomes utterly foreign to us.  This feeling of the foreign, the isolated, the loneliness, parallels the feelings of many people who were reacting to WWII and Existentialism.  So, you see, there is a big reason why not all sculpture looks like Michelangelo’s work!  While it may be harder for us to look at, there is usually a reason why we feel this way.  And often, that’s the point.

From Picasso to Joyce, Dylan, and Jobs

                                        

Getty

                                     

In 1923, T.S. Eliot wrote that in Ulysses, James Joyce had "arrived at a very singular and perhaps unique literary distinction: the distinction of having, not in a negative but a very positive sense, no style at all. I mean that every sentence Mr. Joyce writes is peculiarly and absolutely his own; that his work is not a pastiche; but that nevertheless, it has none of the marks by which a 'style' may be distinguished." Eliot could make this observation with considerable authority, for he had adopted the same practice in his own masterpiece: thus Louis Menand observed that both The Waste Land and Ulysses are "simultaneously fantastic pieces of verbal artifice, Rubik's Cubes of possible meanings, recursive devices that appropriate so many styles and traditions that they have no style of their own." Nor was the similarity accidental, for John Harwood contended that in writing The Waste Land, Eliot "was attempting to compete with Joyce by composing in as many different styles as he could muster."

Pablo Picasso, Self-Portrait (Yo-Picasso) (1901). Image courtesy of the Huffington Post.

Curiously, literary scholars have never traced the origins of this stylistic versatility. I believe this may be a product of the intellectual blinders that constrain current humanists to ignore developments that arise outside their chosen area of study. For I suspect that the origin of stylistic versatility in poetry and prose actually comes from painting. The poet Robert Lowell made this connection, when he remarked that "Eliot and Picasso worked in one surprising style for some years, then surprised with another." A literary scholar from an earlier generation, F.O. Matthiessen, similarly wrote in 1935 that "not only Joyce and Eliot, but such other representative artists as Stravinsky and Picasso, have all felt within the past three decades a common urgency not to rest in the development of one manner, but to press on from each discovery to another."

Portrait of James Joyce, by Man Ray (1922). Image courtesy of The Getty Museum collection.

Picasso attracted attention for his stylistic promiscuity as early as 1912, when the painter Wassily Kandinsky noted that he "throws himself from one external means to another," and the critic Roger Fry observed that "he is changing with kaleidoscopic rapidity." Later in the same decade, Piet Mondrian reported from Paris to Theo van Doesberg, incredulously, that Picasso was changing styles "because he wants to be versatile!! That's right: his work can't be convincing then, can it?" The critic John Berger would write in 1965 that Picasso's use of style had no precedent: "In the life work of no other artist is each group of works so independent of those which have just gone before, or so irrelevant to those which are to follow." And at the close of the 20th century, the great critic David Sylvester reflected that Picasso's art was "a celebration of this century's introduction of a totally promiscuous eclecticism into the practice of art."

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan in 1963. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

As I explained elsewhere, Picasso's approach to style was one of his distinctive reactions to the replacement of an art market based on patronage by an atomistic and competitive market for modern art. The diffusion of the practice of stylistic versatility from painting to poetry and prose remains to be documented in detail, but this should furnish excellent material for curious and ambitious doctoral students in the humanities, if there remain any individuals who fit that description. Gertrude Stein's salon might be an obvious place to look for the collision of the relevant disciplines. And the editor of The Waste Land might be a primary figure in the story, as for example Guy Davenport wrote of Ezra Pound that "Like Stravinsky and Picasso and Joyce, he had styles rather than a style."

Steve Jobs. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Stylistic versatility has penetrated one discipline after another: Miles Davis, Jean-Luc Godard, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Thomas Pynchon (and Steve Jobs) are just a few of the modern giants who have practiced it. If humanists want to make a significant contribution to modern intellectual history, they should study its origins and diffusion, beginning with the greatest young genius of the twentieth century.

A New, Irreverent Biography of Bob Dylan

A New, Irreverent Biography of Bob Dylan             





Among Baby Boomers, Bob Dylan occupies a position not unlike that of Ronald Reagan with conservatives. The singer is not only admired by his original fan base, but revered, to the point where his defects, artistic and personal, are either dismissed or ignored. This attitude brings to mind the millions of Reagan lovers of all ages who conveniently forget that their political hero increased taxes and grew the deficit.

Dennis McDougal, author of the hefty new book titled simply “Dylan,” does not explicitly state that his intent is to counter the prevailing myth. But it’s clear from the outset that McDougal, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times who has written biographies of Jack Nicholson and Lew Wasserman, is alternately appalled, disappointed, and mystified that the near-pristine image of his subject has largely remained intact, against a heap of available evidence.
Though Mc Dougal’s prose is well above the standards for the genre, “Dylan” fits the strict definition of a celebrity biography. The work is subordinate to the gossipy details of the life. Only on occasion does the author discuss albums and songs, and even in these cases, it’s mostly a means to mark time.
But you can get a discussion of Dylan’s extensive catalogue in hundreds of other publications. What McDougal wants to know is how Dylan pulled off one of the great frauds in the history of American popular culture.
Even more, why a generation that did and still does take such pride in having exposed the lies of the Vietnam War and the hypocrisy of middle class mores fell for the fictional portrayal. Dylan accomplished what his contemporaries Johnson and Nixon could only hope for.
I don’t know McDougal’s politics, but this is the kind of thesis you would expect to emerge from a neocon publishing house. In prose that is both irreverent and smart-alecky, the book revels in tearing down a ‘60s icon and his adoring fans. For that reason alone, it stands out in an extremely crowded field.
Whether you agree or disagree with the author, you will likely never read a book as purely entertaining about Dylan.
In his preface, McDougal, who is not an implacable foe, poses the question that drives his book: “With all his imperfections, Bob Dylan remains trenchant, relevant, and touched with grace. By his own hand, he is still a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, and the question remains: How did a feckless, foolish poseur, a middle-class schnorrer from the Minnesota outback, become the Bard of his generation? How indeed?”
Over the next 490 pages, McDougal offers numerous examples of Dylan’s deceptions along with his drinking, womanizing, and acts of unkindness, if not outright cruelty. Away from the stage and recording studio, he behaves in this portrait like one of the entitled, obnoxious males from “Mad Men,” albeit in a leather jacket and cool shades. I don’t know whether McDougal has conducted much original research, but surely no book or lengthy article about Dylan has ever assembled this many damning anecdotes in one place. At times, you almost feel sorry for the guy.
McDougal even goes after some of the “untouchable” songs in the Dylan cannon. Here he is on one of the classic early compositions: “‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” is less an enduring testament to amore than it is a callous kiss-off from a jilted lover.’” The song “became every bit the adolescent anthem of the early ‘60s as ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’: “one tapped into Baby Boom outrage over racial iniquity and Cold War brinkmanship while the other spoke to every teenaged boy trying to maintain his dignity after his heart has been drop kicked to the side of the road.”
Note the use of the words “adolescent” and “teenaged.” The acoustic and folkie Dylan, in this account, was not making music for mature adults.
The best-known deception, but not the first, was the name change in and around 1960, from Robert Zimmerman to Bob Dylan. McDougal wisely refrains from making too much of it; plenty of pop and rock stars have ditched part or all of their birth names, including a certain drummer for the Beatles.
Still, in this case, we are left wondering why, especially because this former Zimmerman claims to have picked “Dylan” at random. If the motivator was fear of being revealed as Jewish, one notes that Phil Spector, Paul Simon, and Art Garfunkel did just fine in the 1960s.

As any biographer of criminals and tyrants knows, you don’t have to love your subject to spend thousands of hours with him or her. In fact, McDougal positively relishes attacking Dylan, as if each slam is another blow against the Baby Boomer Empire. We get this in an interview in the early 1960s conducted by the writer Nat Henoff: “During breaks, Dylan huddled with Hentoff, lying with utter sincerity about his [Dylan’s] fake biography. While the cat was out of the bag and halfway around the world about his Hibbing (Minnesota) upbringing, Bob still floated lie after self-serving lie.” Hentoff was the 1950s version of a hip journalist, friend of back-alley blues and jazz men, yet not even he was spared the Dylan spin. It seems as if anyone who dared to pursue the “real” Bobby was sent down a wrong path.

There is no doubt that in the main, McDougal is a fan of the work. He writes that “Blood on the Tracks,” Dylan’s 1975 “comeback” album, “both met and surpassed the test of enduring art.” For the reader, such praise means more coming from McDougal than from the writers and publications fully invested in the idea of Dylan as a genius and, more important, The Voice of Our Generation.
Among the latter are Rolling Stone Magazine and its founder, Jann Wenner. In 1969, Wenner landed a coveted sit-down interview with Dylan, who had largely disappeared from view following his 1966 motorcycle accident. The world, or at least the portion 35 and under, was eager to hear what its favorite folk-rock star had to say about anything and everything. Huge newsstand sales were assured.
But the result, in McDougal’s view, represented one of the great missed opportunities in 60s counterculture journalism. The combination of an evasive, intimidating subject and a fawning interviewer who treaded ever so lightly made for a disappointing read. From the perspective of 45 years later, the author offers a stinging indictment of the finished product: “From the outset, Dylan answered questions with questions, committing to minimal answers or none at all. Some 7,000 words later, readers knew nothing of Sara (Dylan’s wife), his children, his parents, his brother, his renewed passion for painting, or the philandering, drugs, and alcohol that would both plague and pleasure him for the rest of his life.”
For all of McDougal’s convincing anecdotes and persuasive analysis, at the end of “Dylan,” we are not entirely sure why this performer chose to peddle a consistently unreliable version of his own life. Perhaps the answer lies in the nature of rock and roll, especially the dilemma faced by those who fueled its second wave in the 1960s.
White, middle-class, college-bound teens like Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger had decided to forge a career in a field previously dominated by poor southern whites, including true hell-raisers such as Jerry Lee Lewis, and brilliant black performers who could only hope to go so far in a country in which segregation and casual racism still predominated. These were the guys Dylan and Jagger emulated and idolized.
Disguising their humdrum origins and changing their biographies—many people thought Jagger was black when they first heard him sing on record—was a way for these two and many others like them to establish artistic authenticity. It’s a paradox that a poet could appreciate.

Belated Happy Bloomsday

   

Today  (yesterday actually) is June 16th, otherwise known as Bloomsday, the day on which James Joyce’ masterpiece Ulysses is set.  As such, I’d thought I’d re-post my essay on Bob Dylan and James Joyce for those new readers who may not have checked it out originally.  





Imagine today, if a young rock and roll artist emerged on the scene, writing dozens of songs capturing the zeitgeist. Other popular artists cover his songs, and his lyrics are studied like a pop-culture Bible.  Influential poets and thinkers, even called the “spokesman of a generation”, embrace him. In the process, he changes not only popular music but also the cultural landscape at a mere 24 years old.  Imagine this same artist, at the height of his popularity, turns his back on his audience picking up a new musical direction.  Viewed as a traitor to the scene, his new guise also redefining, becoming a standard by which everything else that follows is measured.  Except this no fictional rock and roll artist.  This is Bob Dylan’s influence and power in the mid 1960’s.
No singular artist in the latter half of the 20th century has redefined the popular musical world as much as Bob Dylan. It is often argued Dylan is a true artist because of his achievements and not just one in the rock and roll medium.  But what does being a true artist mean, and how does this apply to Dylan?  The answer might be found in James Joyce’s semi-autobiographical novel,  A Portrait of the Artist as Young Man. In Portrait, Joyce tackles artistic integrity through the protagonist Stephen Dedalus.  Throughout the novel, Joyce presents several forms, which must be followed in order for a person to truly become an artist.  Using Joyce’s outline and Stephen Dedalus as a model, the argument for Bob Dylan being seen as a true artist is even more evident.
Portrait follows the life of Stephen Dedalus (a fictionalized version of Joyce) an ambitious young artist conflicted between his Catholic upbringing and his artistic visions.  At the end of the novel, he discovers the only way to be an artist is to completely abandon the familiar, leaving Dublin for Paris.  As the novel progresses, Joyce’s words become more complex paralleling Stephen’s own revelation.  When Bob Dylan started his career, his lyrics, music, and persona moved in a similar fashion to Stephen’s.  When Dylan first arrived on the scene, he began as a protest-singe.  When he grew tired of “finger-pointing” (as he called it), he abandoned folk for rock and roll, again creating a standard by which almost other rock and roll is measured. Just as the world caught up to Dylan, he disappeared from the pubic eye, and created some of his best music while no one was watching. Dylan, like Stephen realized you must abandon the familiar and follow your own artistic visions.
In Portrait, Joyce (through Stephen) presents three forms outlining the progression of the artist.  The first form is the lyrical form “wherein the artist presents his image in immediate relationship to himself.”  In the epical form the “artist prolongs and broods himself as the center of an epical event…the narrative is no longer personal.”  The third and final form is “reached when the vitality which has flowed and eddied round every person with such vital force that he or she assumes a proper and intangible aesthetic life.”
Dylan’s lyrical stage begins with his early albums and protest songs. Even early on, Dylan had major ambitions.  He wanted to emulate his hero, Woody Guthrie.  Much like Guthrie defined the post-depression era with his songs, Dylan captured the spirit of the early 1960’s with songs such as Blowing in The Wind, The Times They Are A-Changing, and Masters of War. Dylan sang these songs in the first person, essential to the lyrical stage. Yet at the same time, these songs connected with the masses because they reflected the turbulence that many felt during the early 1960’s.  These songs and others brought Dylan national attention; earning him the infamous label “the spokesman of a generation.”
Except Dylan wasn’t just interested in protest.  Much like Stephen feel hinged by Catholicism, Dylan felt similar to protest. Numerous artists were covering his songs, and soon many people were copying his style with less impressive results.  As everyone was waiting for Dylan to make the next profound statement, he had no interest in doing so. In 1964, less than a year after The Times They Are A-Changing, he released Another Side of Bob Dylan, a collection of songs hardly touching on protest.  Another Side presents Dylan as funny (Motorpsycho Nightmare), heartwarming (To Ramona) and even scathing (I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)) – themes barely present on his previous three albums. Following the trends of rock groups like the Beatles, Dylan went even further with his next album Bringing It All Back Home – an ambitious album featuring two sides of music split between rock music and acoustic songs.
With Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan had no intention on turning back, and writing more protest songs to appease his growing fan-base who worshipped his every single word.  With this stroke of genius, he had now reached the epical stage of the artist.  Joyce says the epical stage is reached when the  artist no longer presents himself in the first person and becomes part of an event.  Whereas Dylan’s early songs were mostly song from the first-person to reflect a greater truth, Dylan himself was barely present.  Even when he was, it was a fictionalized version of himself – as Joyce suggests, less personal.
Influenced by a combination of surrealism, drugs, and Beat poetry, Dylan’s lyrics reached a new sophistication and height.      Much like Joyce’s own Ulysses weaves in and out of character’s sub consciousness, narrative, and third person, Dylan was pursuing a similar path.  His songs became filled with literary, Biblical and historical figures doing bizarre acts, and taking part if bizarre situations.  And Dylan also put himself in the middle of all this craziness – the center of “epical event”. No more is this clear than Desolation Row off Highway 61 Revisited (Dylan’s first full rock album).  Desolation Row’s minutes follows characters such as Ophelia, Casanova, and TS Elliot who appear damned on a fictional placed called Desolation Row. Dylan himself does not appear until the last verse, where it is revealed he is on Desolation Row as well.
Dylan’s fictional self was no limited to his music, either.  Early in his career, he had been warm and funny in interviews – and most of all appeared sincere. Now, he traded his “every-man” image for that of a cynical hipster.  Constantly under the influence of many drugs, Dylan began answering interviews in a vague and mysterious manner and could sometimes be antagonistic.  When Blonde on Blondewas released in 1966, “the spokesman of a generation” was nowhere to be seen. The music was louder and wilder, the lyrics even more abstract  – but never lacking intelligence. Just as he did with modern folk music, Dylan was changing the rules for rock music.
Dylan’s retreat from the public eye leads to third and final form.  Joyce suggests it is “reached when the vitality which has flowed and eddied round every person with such vital force that he or she assumes a proper and intangible aesthetic life”. Just as Stephen leaves Ireland and goes to Paris for his artistic integrity at the end ofPortrait, Dylan created some of his most celebrated music while no one was looking. Taking cues from Americana, he recorded dozens of songs in his New York home with The Hawks (who would later become the known as The Band) at his home in Woodstock, New York. Freer, funnier than anything Dylan had previously recorded these songs with no pretense. More than anything, these sessions showed Dylan truly comfortable in his own skin. Never meant for official release, these sessions became bootlegged for years – eventually released as The Basement Tapesin 1975.
When Stephen reappears in Ulysses, he is wiser and much more intelligent.  Yet, he lacks self-confidence even at one point dismissing his own ideas near the end of the novel.  Dylan too faced a similar problem after his mid 1960’s peak.  He had a hard time living up to being “Bob Dylan” -releasing almost unlistenable albums including the critically panned Self Portait.  Almost ten years after Highway 61,Dylan released Blood on the Tracks, which is generally considered another highpoint of his career.  In the past 10 years, he has enjoyed a renaissance – he has released four critically acclaimed albums and artists constantly cover his songs in concert. Dylan never stayed in the same place twice, and like Stephen discovered you “gotta keep on keeping on

Should the Pope push through the canonisation of Pius XII?

A new book suggests the wartime pope used all the means within his power to help Jews

Pius XII prepares to give a radio address in 1943 (CNS)

I have been reading a rather curious and interesting book, Principalities and Powers: Spiritual Combat 1942-1943 by (Father) George William Rutler. Fr Rutler is a parish priest in Manhattan, New York and well-known for his erudite and quirky essays and other writings. His book is about World War II and the reason he has chosen those particular years to focus on is because an old priest-friend left him a mass of cuttings, journals and other papers on this period when he died.
Fr Rutler quotes freely from these sources, including The Tablet (then run by the brilliant and orthodox Catholic journalist, Douglas Woodruff), L’Osservatore Romano and The Jewish Chronicle. They make an interesting collection of contemporary commentary on the international politics of the day, dominated by the War. In particular, and running through the book, are references to the activities, speeches and broadcasts of the wartime pope, Pius XII.
Fr Rutler’s book is keenly relevant on this subject – not least because of an article written on June 14 by the veteran Vatican-watcher and journalist, John L Allen, of the Boston Globe. In it he suggests that “the best thing for Catholic Jewish ties right now might be to canonise Pius XII tomorrow and get it over with.” As is well known, the cause for Pius’s canonisation has been bogged down for years over the controversy surrounding his wartime record: could he or could he not have done more to help the plight of the Jews in Europe who were being at first persecuted and finally exterminated by the Nazis?
Allen isn’t arguing for or against the historical papal record. Citing the examples of St Maximilian Kolbe, who before canonisation was alleged to have sponsored anti-Semitic publications in Poland, and St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, who, as the former Edith Stein and a convert, was seen by some Jews as an invitation to proselytism, he points out that after their canonisations the controversies surrounding them largely died away. Alluding to Pope Francis and the on-going cause of his wartime predecessor he concludes, “If you know you’re going to do this eventually, then do it now because sometimes the only way around a problem is straight through it.”
Obviously Allen is writing slightly tongue in cheek. I can’t see Pius XII being raised to the altar, as the phrase has it, any time soon, But Rutler’s book does deepen one’s sympathy for his predicament in those appalling years of the war: Europe (including Italy) was in the hands of murderous thugs who would stop at nothing, including mass murder, to achieve their objective. The Pope, as Stalin pointed out, had no divisions; he only had his moral and spiritual authority to sway events. From the pages of Rutler’s book, citing events that were taking place at the time and without the special pleading of a retrospective viewpoint, it is clear Pius XII was using all the means within his power to help the Jews.
Rutler cites The Jewish Chronicle, which reported that the Apostolic Nuncio in Germany – the papal representative – had made strong representations in Berlin against the Nazi killing of Jews. These were rejected by the German government as having no bearing on “Internal German policy”. The Apostolic Nuncio on France, also formally protested to the Vichy Government against the imprisonment of Jews. Pierre Laval, head of the Vichy government, rejoined that he “could not be influenced by the Holy See.” Later, the New York Times ran the headline, “Vichy seizes Jews; Pope Pius ignored.”
So it goes on. Another cutting from The Jewish Chronicle is quoted again: “The extreme Nazi organs in Germany have been expressing great dissatisfaction at concessions made to the Vatican…which have enabled about 300 Jews to leave Nazi-occupied countries, including the ghettoes of Poland, and go to Spain and Portugal.” Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, was furious with Pius XII and at the Vatican’s attempt to hide Jews.
Rutler indicates the difficulties of Pius’ position – and not only concerning the plight of Jews: he was also criticised by the Polish bishop Karol Radonski, now in exile in London, “for not speaking out more strongly about the situation in their homeland, while those bishops remaining in Poland urged the Pope not to say anything that might cause only reprisals.”
The book also quotes a letter of April 30 1943 to Bishop von Preysing, in which the Pope “described with unusual candour the theory of nuance he had deliberately equated with prudence in his public statements: ‘We give to the pastors who are working on the local level the duty of determining if and to what degree the danger of reprisals and of various forms of oppression occasioned by Episcopal interventions…seem to advise caution. Here lies one of the reasons, why We impose self-restraint on Ourselves in our speeches…The Holy See has done whatever was in its power, with charitable, financial and moral assistance.’”
If Pius XII had spoken more frankly and showed less “self-restraint” it might have helped his later legacy – but it would certainly have also occasioned more savage reprisals by the Nazis. Rutler’s book brings together some additional proofs, if they are needed, and from Jewish sources, of the very real “charitable, financial and moral assistance” of the wartime pope. Perhaps, as John Allen suggests, there is now a case for simply getting on with the process of his canonisation.

Fifty years ago Italy’s most famous modern saint was being treated like a criminal

In 1964, Pope Paul VI lifted the unjust and severe restrictions on Padre Pio’s ministry

By Mary O'Regan on Thursday, 12 June 2014

The body of St Pio lies in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (AP)

Fifty years have passed since 1964, when Padre Pio was freed from certain tight constraints that bound him.
The humble Italian friar had been blessed with supernatural gifts such as reading souls, hearts and minds, and also phenomenal intercessory powers such as interceding for the sick so that they obtained miraculous cures from God. But in 1960 Padre Pio’s ministry was seriously limited following a strange series of events.
I find it dangerous for my stress levels to reflect on the way it was started by his fellow friars attempting to manipulate him. A very divisive issue was the money poured into the hospital, which Padre Pio had founded, the House for the Relief of Suffering.
Hundreds of thousands of pounds were donated for the construction of the hospital. Excited by the idea of making quick cash, Padre Pio’s superiors asked him if they could use the donations for a get-rich-quick scheme. Padre Pio refused because the money did not belong to him. When they lost huge sums on the scheme, they commanded him out of obedience to give them the donations for the hospital. To their chagrin, he refused again. This earned him their displeasure, and in order to seek evidence against him, they bugged his confessional – though Padre Pio cut the wiring with a pen knife.
A detailed report on Padre Pio’s alleged wrong-doing was put before Pope John XXIII. It included allegations that Padre Pio had sexualised contact with some women who went to him for Confession. Stefan Campanella’s book is a masterclass in understanding the events leading to the false information given to St John XXIII, and the consequences for Padre Pio.
An Apostolic Visitation was called for. The CDF, then known as the Holy Office, gave the role to Mgr Maccari. In the summer of 1960, the solemn Mgr Maccari visited Padre Pio, during the saint’s 50th anniversary of his ordination, and then drew up a list of sanctions. Fr Apostoli’s broadcast, Padre Pio: The Later Years, covers the topic of Mgr Maccari’s visitation well.
Padre Pio was prohibited from celebrating weddings and baptisms, he was only given a strict 30-minute slot for Mass, which was tight when you consider that Padre Pio spent four hours celebrating Mass on a feast day. Some individuals were barred from going to him for confession, and when he did hear Confessions, he only had three minutes for each penitent. He was not allowed to speak to women alone. In addition, monks at the monastery who were his friends were sent away, including some who acted in a nurse capacity to St Pio because he was so ill. Also, Padre Pio had to sign over the title of the House for the Relief of Suffering.
Most gallingly, Padre Pio’s superior, Fr Rosario, went further than the CDF. He put up embarrassing signs telling people not to approach Padre Pio, forbade the other friars from showing kindness to Padre Pio such as helping him up the stairs or bringing him a glass of beer in the extreme heat.
For a time it looked like Padre Pio would live out his remaining years being treated as a miscreant. For a wonderfully detailed account of this period of time in St Pio’s life, I recommend Renzo Allegri’s book, Padre Pio: Man of Hope.
But Paul VI changed things around rapidly. The Pope was not averse to St Pio. As Cardinal of Milan, Paul VI had sent a request for prayers to Padre Pio in 1959. In 1964, Pope Paul intervened with the CDF and ordered that Padre Pio be allowed to practise his ministry “in complete freedom” and that he was not to be confined “like a criminal”.
It is now 50 years since Padre Pio’s good name was restored in 1964. This is a cause for celebration in itself, but there is further reason for joy. The fact that it happened in 1964 means that Padre Pio had four whole years before his death in 1968 to practise his ministry and establish his reputation as a saint. For sake of argument, had the sanctions been lifted in 1967, then Padre Pio would have had very little time to freely demonstrate his saintliness, before dying in 1968.

What St Anthony’s face teaches us about the transcendent in man

A mesmerising digital reconstruction of the saint’s visage reminds us what it means to be human

By Francis Phillips on Friday, 13 June 2014

St Anthony by Bernado Strozzi

Today is the feast-day of St Anthony of Padua. I have just been watching a riveting YouTube clip about him on Rome Reports, entitled “What did St Anthony of Padua look like? 3D technology gives us a glimpse” (embedded below). Why did I find it so interesting? Because instead of the normal physical process of human decay, when a skull becomes a potent “memento mori”, a reminder to us all that “we are dust and unto dust we shall return” as the liturgy puts it, modern digital reconstruction has taken St Anthony’s skull and brought it back to life, so to speak.
Through the wonders of modern science and technology, you can watch the skull, with its empty eye sockets, cranium, jaws and teeth, start to form St Anthony’s face and head: flesh on bone, individual features, personhood: in its way this moving clip put me in mind of the resurrection of the body, that we believe in and pray in the Creed at Mass, when body and soul will be reunited forever with God in the life of the world to come.


It also made me think of those illustrations in children’s encyclopaedias to describe human evolution, when a primate on all fours slowly stands upright and turns into Neanderthal man. But as Christians we believe we are not just homo sapiens, the end result of the evolutionary process. We are made in the image and likeness of God, as the lives of the saints, such as St Anthony of Padua, illustrate so beautifully. When I saw life, intelligence and character digitally reanimating a grinning skull in the film clip, I could almost sense the soul returning to the human remains and imagine this great preacher and charismatic Franciscan friar as he must have appeared over 800 years ago.
I am just been reading a book that has greatly moved me, and for much the same reason: its appeal to what is transcendent in man and what gives him his elusive and mysterious dignity over and above his position at the top of the evolutionary ladder. Titled The Leaves Are Falling, by Lucy Beckett and published by Ignatius Press, it is a modern historical novel, the story of what it meant to be a Jewish intellectual (and sceptic), growing up in vibrant Jewish cultural centres such as Breslau and Vilna before the war and then being destroyed, both personally and collectively, between the Russian and the Nazi forces.
One of the protagonists, Jacob Halperin, a secular Jew from Breslau, as well as a skilled surgeon, violinist and a reserve officer in the Polish army, is captured by the Russians and shot, with thousands of fellow officers, in Katyn Forest in April 1940. Before his death he is interrogated by Zarubin, a Communist commissar, in the camp where he is being held. Zarubin mocks Halperin, saying “Are you, a Jew who says he is not religious, telling me you have sympathy for corrupt and vicious priests who kept the peasants in the darkness of superstition for centuries…?”
Halperin responds, “I am not. I am simply saying that there is something in Christianity beyond the blindness of ignorant priests, something that terror and murder will not destroy. Christianity will not wither away, as you hope, and whatever is in it that is truly good will not die with the deaths of priests so long as in the souls…in the souls of…” Zarubin scoffs, “Captain Halperin, you are a rationalist. Rationalists do not countenance the existence of the soul.” For Zarubin, as for all modern secularists and atheists, the concept of the “soul” is meaningless, “nonsense contrived and maintained by churches and rabbis and the bloodsucking classes”, as he crudely puts it. But Halperin, surrounded by evil, and soon to be murdered, intuitively understands that although “they may kill us, they cannot harm us”; a nice distinction to describe the indestructibility of the soul, despite the death of the body. I do recommend the book to anyone who is looking for a challenging read, something more than an airport novel or about the lives of the middle classes living in NW1.
St Anthony is alive now, in the company of God for all eternity; indeed, more alive than he was in his mortal existence. The 3D digital reconstruction gives us a brief, intriguing and fascinating glimpse of his attractive human features – but also points us beyond them, to what is immortal.

Pope Francis: ‘Arms manufacturers are merchants of death’

By Carol Glatz on Wednesday, 11 June 2014

Pope Francis (CNS)

Pope Francis denounced those responsible for human trafficking, slave labour and arms manufacturing during his general audience earlier today.
The Pope told the crowds gathered in St Peter’s Square that people producing weapons of war are “merchants of death”.
“One day everything comes to an end and they will be held accountable to God,” he said.
The Pope also launched an appeal to the international community to help safeguard children from forced labour, highlighting the plight of an estimated 160 million child workers worldwide.
Holding up a bright red leaflet, which had, in Italian, “All together against child labour” written on it, the Pope asked the world community to help “eradicate this scourge”.
The leaflet was part of the International Labour Organisation’s #RedCard campaign, urging people to “blow the whistle,” like a referee on a football field, and give a “red card” to those exploiting children.
Speaking at the end of his audience talk, the Pope said that tomorrow (June 12) is World Day Against Child Labour — a day meant to call attention to the millions of children forced to work in degrading conditions, “exposed to forms of slavery and exploitation, as well as abuse, maltreatment and discrimination”.
He called on everyone, especially families, to do all they could to safeguard “the dignity and possibility of a healthy upbringing” of all children so they could look to the future with hope.
During his main address, the Pope wrapped up his series of audience talks about the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord. The Pope dedicated his catechesis to the last of the gifts.
He said fear of the Lord isn’t about being afraid; it’s recognising “how small we are before God” and his immense capacity to love and forgive

Scapegoating the Sisters for the Deaths of 800 Babies

The septic tank story is falling apart, but anti-Catholic bigotry lives on.

10.06.2014  

The headlines have been sensational and the narratives grotesque. You’re probably familiar with the outlines of the story that exploded onto the front pages of newspapers around the world last week. It’s been reported that the bodies of 800 babies who died of starvation and neglect had been secretly and unceremoniously dumped into a septic tank near a now-demolished home for unmarried mothers and their children, formerly operated by the Bon Secours sisters in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland.

It hardly mattered that such assertions were based on speculation, and likely false. The Horror House story was the perfect vehicle for holier-than-thou secularist journalists and commentators to spin their case that Catholic dogma on sexuality and marriage is pernicious, and that Catholic clergy and religious are guilty of hypocrisy. (References to hypocrisy in Facebook comments on a news story are too foul to link.)

The familiar argument goes like this: While the Church preaches medieval concepts like chastity and the sanctity of every human life, it demonizes and punishes single women for having sex and getting pregnant, by forcing them to work without pay, by maltreating their children, and generally adding to the world’s suffering and misery.

There are calls for vengeance (how Christian!) against the Bon Secours sisters. Do they really deserve a place in history alongside the likes of Pol Pot and the Butcher of Treblinka?

Not to minimize in any way the harsh life, early death and undignified disposal of the remains of these little ones (wherever they are resting), looking at the known facts and considering the widespread penury that engulfed much of rural Ireland in those decades, it appears that the Bon Secours sisters were probably doing the best they could under utterly wretched circumstances.

We’re able to discard the more sensationalized claims thanks largely to four people. Catherine Corless, a local historian living near Tuam, obtained and catalogued the publicly-available death certificates of the 796 children who died at St. Mary’s Home in the 36 years it served as a shelter for unmarried mothers and their children, from 1925 to 1961. Catholic writer Caroline Farrow collated historical accounts of the property, based on archived news clippings and historical records posted by historian Liam Logan. Tim Stanley, an American historian who writes for the (U.K.) Telegraph, summarized and publicized these invaluable sources.

What’s in the tank?

Septic tanks are not the size of double-wide mobile homes. In 1975, two local boys cracked and pried up part of a cement slab covering the tank and discovered and reported finding skeletal remains. According to the Irish Times, one of them, Barry Sweeney, said the slab was about the size of his coffee table and he believes there are “about 20” bodies in the tank. At the time it was assumed that the remains were of victims of the potato famine (1845-1852) when St. Mary’s Home was a Workhouse that sheltered as many as 2,881 paupers. The famine claimed the lives of 1 million Irish. The remains of some children from the Mother and Baby Home era could, of course, be there as well, but are likely to be found in unmarked graves on the property or at a nearby children’s burial ground (one of over 400 “CBGs” in Galway alone).

The “bodies of 800 babies” assumption came from conflating the boys’ 1975 discovery with a 2012 report by local historian Catherine Corless, stating that she had reviewed the death certificates of 796 children who died at St. Mary’s in its 36 years of operation. Is it even plausible to think that anyone would open and close a septic tank filled with decaying corpses 22 times/year to toss in the newly deceased?

Are the deaths of 796 children proof of abuse or neglect by the sisters of Bon Secours?
No. The infant mortality rate in Ireland was one of the highest in Europe. One blogger researched the infant mortality rates in major cities of Ireland between 1925 and 1937. He discovered that the rate at St. Mary’s (17 deaths/year among an average of 200 children, or 8.5% mortality rate) was equal to the rate in the general population of Dublin (8.3%) and lower than infant mortality rates in Cork (8.9%), Waterford (10.2%) and Limerick (13.2%).

State-issued death certificates showed that the St. Mary’s Home children “died variously of tuberculosis, convulsions, measles, whooping cough, influenza, bronchitis and meningitis, among other illnesses.”

Caroline Farrow quotes (and links to) a letter in the Irish Times that offers context for the high infant mortality rates in homes like St. Mary’s:

Cohorting infants in institutions puts small infants at risk from cross-infection, particularly gastroenteritis. Early infection to the gastrointestinal tract can cause severe bowel damage. Without the availability of recent technology, many such infants would die from malabsorption resulting in marasmus [severe malnutrition]. …

 

In foundling homes in the U.S. in the early 20th century, mortality was sometimes reported as greater than 90 per cent among infants cared for in such institutions. Lack of understanding of nutrition, cross-infection associated with overcrowding by today’s standards, and the dangers of unpasteurized human milk substitutes were the main factors.

What do we know of how well St. Mary’s was run and the children were cared for?

Catherine Corless published a summary of her research on the Facebook page Mother/Baby Home Research. “The Bon Secours Sisters,” she writes, “were a nursing congregation who had come from Dublin to take charge of the hospital wing of Glenamaddy Workhouse.” After Ireland won its freedom, all the Workhouses were closed, but Galway County decided to open a Mother/Baby Home at the site of the Tuam Workhouse. “The Home building itself was [then] in a good structural state but needed quite a bit of repair.” The building and land belonged to the Galway County Council (GCC) which was “responsible for repairs and Maintenance.”

The GCC contracted with the Sisters of Bon Secours to provide shelter to unmarried mothers and their children for a weekly fee of 10 shillings (half a pound Irish) for the “maintenance and clothing of inmates” (Connacht Tribune, 1928), as well as the salaries of doctors. Mothers who could pay £100 for the delivery services, could leave after giving birth. Others had to agree to stay there for a year, working to reimburse these costs by “filling domestic duties, cooking, cleaning, minding the babies and children and tending to the gardens.”

The archives reveal differing opinions on how well the home operated. A Mayo Health Board report in 1935 declared, “Tuam is one of the best managed institutions I have seen in the country.” A newspaper story reporting on an inspection in 1949 stated that inspectors found “everything in very good order and congratulated the sisters on the excellent conditions.”

Yet a 1944 report by the health board stated that some children were “emaciated,” “pot-bellied,” “fragile,” and with “flesh hanging loosely on limbs.” And in the 1950s, a travel writer visited the home and wrote: “The grounds are well kept and had many flower beds. … Each of the Sisters is a fully trained nurse and midwife. … The building was fresh and clean.”

The archives expose decades of tension between the desires of the sisters to provide better care for the mothers and children and the desire of the community (“ratepayers”) and Council board members to pay as little as possible for these “misfortunates.”

In November 1935, solely as a cost-cutting measure, the Mayo Board reduced the age at which the Home children could be “boarded out” to age four for both girls and boys. The nuns objected, stating that they would be unwilling to renew their contract with the Council, if that were the case. They wanted to keep the girls under their care until after they received their First Holy Communion and been properly instructed in the faith, adding, “That would be a great safeguard to the little girls going out into the world.” The Board “compromised” by reducing the boarding out age of girls to five instead of the threatened four.

Money could be found in 1929, in the midst of dire poverty, to add a “special maternity ward” to the buildings, but this was done mainly because married women (who were paying customers) were refusing to give birth at the public hospital in Connacht as long as unmarried women from the Home were giving birth there. Isolating the Home women in a ward that lacked the hospital’s level of trained staff and equipment, assuredly contributed to higher maternal and infant mortality rates.

In 1951, the “sisters were begging the board for a grant, saying the building “desperately needed renovations, the children were sleeping in attics in terrible conditions and the building [was] considered a fire risk.” Nine years later, £90,000 was appropriated for the Home, but the Council reneged, closed the “dilapidated” Home in 1961 and put the cash toward improvements to a nursing home run by the Sisters of Bon Secours.

Curiously, an article on the closure of St. Mary’s, explaining that the home “falls under the economy axe,” also noted that

the nuns have set the highest standards in the running of the institution and the care of their charges.

In those years, too, the supply of food, clothing and other necessities has been a valuable trade for local business houses, who will feel the loss when the institution is closed.

All of society failed these children. Those who would scapegoat the sisters should perhaps examine themselves first. How generous am I with my money and time in seeing to the needs of those on the margins of our society? Am I outraged by the number of children intentionally killed before birth and the barbaric manner in which their bodies are disposed of? What am I doing about it? Does it bother me that over 40% of births are now to single moms and that so many biological fathers casually escape responsibility for their children? Do I lift a finger for any of these single moms or volunteer for programs that help boys become responsible adults?

Historian denies septic tank 'dumping'

Historian denies septic tank 'dumping'

Irish children from home 1920s

Irish historian Catherine Corless, who revealed that nearly 800 children died in an Irish mother-and-baby home, has denied she said the bodies were dumped in a septic tank,

The Irish Times reports

'I never used that word 'dumped.' Catherine Corless, a local historian told The Irish Times. 'I never said to anyone that there were 800 bodies dumped in a septic tank. That word never came from me at any point. They are not my words'.

The story that emerged from her work was reported this week in dramatic headlines around the world.

Corless has been working for several years on records associated with the former St Mary’s mother-and-baby home in the town. Her research has revealed that 796 children, most of them infants, died between 1925 and 1961, the 36 years that the home, run by Bon Secours, existed.

Between 2011 and 2013 Corless paid €4 each time to get the children’s publicly available death certificates. She says the total cost was €3,184.

The children’s names, ages, places of birth and causes of death were recorded. The average number of deaths over the 36-year period was just over 22 a year. The information recorded on these State- issued certificates has been seen byThe Irish Times; the children are marked as having died variously of tuberculosis, convulsions, measles, whooping cough, influenza, bronchitis and meningitis, among other illnesses.

The deaths of these 796 children are not in doubt. Their numbers are a stark reflection of a period in Ireland when infant mortality in general was very much higher than today, particularly in institutions, where infection spread rapidly. At times during those 36 years the Tuam home housed more than 200 children and 100 mothers, plus those who worked there, according to records Corless has found.

What has upset, confused and dismayed her in recent days is the speculative nature of much of the reporting around the story, particularly about what happened to the children after they died. 'I never used that word "dumped,"' she says again, with distress. 'I just wanted those children to be remembered and for their names to go up on a plaque. That was why I did this project, and now it has taken [on] a life of its own.'

Bert Berns

Bert Berns: label boss, friend to wiseguys and foe to Van Morrison

Remembered with equal parts animosity and affection, the Bronx-born music man blazed a trail in an era of industry pimps, visionaries and gangsters

Bert Berns and Van Morrison at a recording session for Morrison’s first solo album, Blowin’ Your Mind! in March 1967 in New York. Photograph: Popsie Randolph/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

Joel Selvin, author of a book about Berns

‘Berns liked hanging around the wiseguys. These men wielded the ultimate unfair business advantage, because implicit in all their dealings was the understanding that they would kill anyone who didn’t do what they wanted. Berns came to be friends with these people, and his music business associates were both intrigued and frightened by his new pals.”

Welcome to the the New York music industry of the late 1950s and early 1960s, when, over the course of a few short years, a random team of mavericks ripped up the old rule book and wrote a new one.

This era of industry pimps, visionaries, gangsters and artists – meticulously and vibrantly detailed by US music writer Joel Selvin in his new book, Here Comes the Night – converged on what the author describes as “the richest gold strike in music business history”.

The book is subtitled The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues , in reference to the songwriter and producer who blazed a trail that was as brief – 1961-1967 – as it was intense. The Bronx-born Berns was a consummate record businessman and a music fan through and through, and a passionate friend and then merciless foe to the likes of Van Morrison and Neil Diamond. When he died of heart failure in 1967, aged 38, he left legacies and memories that are equal parts poignant and pitiless.

Ellie Greenwich, a songwriter at New York’s Brill Building, cried throughout her interview with Selvin, the author says, such was her fondness for Berns. Yet when Selvin approached 1960s Atlantic Records boss Jerry Wexler to talk about Berns, the response was less benign: “I don’t know where he’s buried,” growled Wexler, “but if I did, I would piss on his grave.”

Moral universe
The most difficult job of writing the book, says Selvin, was to describe the moral universe within which Berns operated in such a manner that his actions could be explained. He wanted Berns to be more hero than villain – but certain stories had to be told of the man who, while a pioneer, had a bent moral compass.

“The New York independent record scene of the early 1960s was little better than a racket,” says Selvin, who talks like he writes, in terse, rugged, noirish sentences.

“There was a lot of money in it. It was not part of any established music business. It was a bunch of mavericks. It attracted pirates that plundered ports and had more than their grog ration. Even the most honourable characters – people like Greenwich and the songwriter team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller – rub up against these people and their business methods.”

One of Berns’s flintier encounters took place in the mid-1960s when, on his first trip to the UK, he became enamoured with the taut sound of Belfast’s Them – specifically, the band’s abrasive frontman, Van Morrison.

When Them split up in the summer of 1966, following a crash-and-burn residency at LA’s Whisky a Go Go, Morrison returned to Belfast. Berns, with an ear pinned to The Beatles’ Rubber Soul and Revolver records, and an eye on the mainstream market, pursued his prey.

He signed Morrison to his Bang label, lodged the princely sum of $2,500 into a bank account and flew the singer over to New“The original Brown-Eyed Girl sessions went great,” says Selvin, “but when Van came back to New York, Morrison had moved along artistically, and was writing songs like TB Sheets , Madame George and others that would become the core of Astral Weeks .”

Far removed from the likes of Brown-Eyed Gir l – or even Them’s cranky proto-punk tunes – Morrison’s intensely introspective new material was neither appreciated nor understood by Berns.

“Bert was all about hit records,” says Selvin. “Van was stuck in a hotel room. Whenever he went to phone out of the hotel, his Irish accent was so thick that the phone operators couldn’t understand him. He’d get so angry that he’d slam down the phone. He was drinking. He was despondent. So he and Berns fell quickly into a very troubled relationship.”

The way Selvin writes it, Berns operated in a realm where morals bounced between different parameters. The mavericks, chancers and pioneers, he writes, “bribed and cheated in a world where prostitutes were routine business expenses”.

Yet Berns was beloved. Many people he spoke to for the book were “extraordinarily sentimental” about him. “He was an upbeat guy, with contagious energy.” But if you crossed him? “Well, if you did that, then there was going to be hell to pay.”

Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues, by Joel Selvin, is published by Counterpoint Press


THEY MEAN BUSINESS: ROCK’N’ROLL TOUGH GUYS

Peter Grant (1935-1995)
Grant was described by Stephen Davis in his classic music book, Hammer of the Gods , as having a “tenacious instinct for the scent of cash”. He earned Led Zeppelin more money than any rock band before them (at the time of signing the group to Atlantic, in the late 1960s, Grant negotiated the highest ever royalty rate for a band). If this meant being charged for serious assault, then so be it: Grant’s bullish business behaviour, ruthlessness and cocaine-induced paranoia gave him a reputation that was grounded more in reality than myth.

Morris Levy (1927-1990)
New York-born Levy, long associated with organised-crime bosses, systematically took false writing credits from songwriters in order to receive royalty payments. By the 1980s, he was worth in the region of $75 million, the majority coming from his publishing company, Big Seven, which boasted more than 30,000 copyrights.

“The only thing I know about organised crime,” Levy told the LA Times , in 1986, “is my five ex-wives.” Try telling that to US musician Tommy James, who claimed in his 2010 book, Me, the Mob, and the Music , that Levy’s label, Roulette Records, owed him more than $30 million in unpaid royalties.

Don Arden (1926-2007)
Arden was a 1960s London-based businessman who steered the careers of The Small Faces, The Move, ELO and Ozzy Osbourne (to whom Arden’s daughter, Sharon, is still married). Often referred to as the “Al Capone of pop”, Arden would protect his interests with a mixture of threat and action. When music manager Robert Stigwood (who would later steer the careers of Cream and The Bee Gees) tried to poach The Small Faces, Arden went to his office with a handful of heavies and dangled him out of his fourth-floor balcony. York in the spring of 1967.

‘The Diary of a Country Priest’ shows Christians are caught in a battle between good and evil

Bernanos’s novel shows life as a battle between hope and despair

By Francis Phillips on Monday, 9 June 2014

Georges Bernanos, author of Diary of a Country Priest

The next choice for our all-woman book club is One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Last time we discussed The Outsider by Camus. There are nine of us: three Catholics, one Quaker, two Anglicans and three atheists. Generally speaking, questions of religion don’t arise in our discussions, except obliquely. I think I commented that I found The Outsider a book about despair, a state of mind that interests me theologically but not the other members of the club. The Solzhenitsyn, which I first read at my convent boarding school, is about survival and reflects its author’s own experiences in the Gulag – not his later Christian beliefs.
I mention these books because I would love to introduce to the club my own favourite book: The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos. I have hesitated to do so thus far partly because none of us likes something we hold dear to be trashed by others but mainly because it is a brilliant novel about the clash between theological hope and despair and I demur at offloading my own preoccupations on my friends. Now my love for Bernanos has just been rekindled by reading “What Georges Bernanos Taught Me about Saints”, an article in Patheos.com by Tod Worner. I do recommend this article (and of course the novels) to readers of this blog; with Bernanos, you enter different territory from the average Booker Prize novel, that’s for sure.
Worner quotes Bernanos’ biographer, Peter Hebblethwaite: “In spite of his sense of hell in our midst, Bernanos does not despair, because saints have existed and do exist. They are the living witnesses to the truths he holds. Christianity is not for him an ideology, but a life, begun in baptism, the incorporation into the Passion and Resurrection of Christ.”
This puts it very well. Again, quoting Pope Emeritus Benedict that “Christianity is not an intellectual system, a collection of dogmas, or a moralism. Christianity is instead an encounter, a love story; it is an event”, Worner reminds us that no-one can be argued into the Church (though reason has a critical part to play). This is the message that Pope Francis is constantly emphasising: that Christianity is about a relationship of love, with Christ; that must come before the rules and teachings, essential though they are (isn’t that what he means about not being “obsessed” about particular moral issues?); otherwise we have lost the whole meaning of Pentecost, celebrated yesterday, and being “kindled” by the fire of the love of God.
Worner admits, and he could be speaking for me, that “any time I want to piously over-intellectualise my faith into an ideology instead of a personal relationship with Christ, I need to look at a picture of St Joan of Arc, St Peter, St Thomas More, St Maximilian Kolbe or read Georges Bernanos’ Diary of a Country Priest…and be still.”
For Bernanos reminds us (as does Pope Francis) that Christians are caught up in the battle between good and evil, God or Satan; this is the real issue in our lives. He poses the critical question: do we want to be saints – or not? Bernanos wrote: “Our Church is the Church of the saints. If one approaches her with distrust, one sees only closed doors, barriers and fences, a sort of spiritual police force. ..To become a saint, what bishop would not give up his ring, his mitre and his crozier; what cardinal his purple; what pope his white robe, his chamberlains, his Swiss Guard …? Who would not want to have the strength to embark on this wonderful adventure; it is indeed the only adventure.” The adventures of the heroes of fairy tales, about which I wrote in my last blog, pale into insignificance besides this real-life adventure. Thank you, Georges Bernanos, for reminding me of this; perhaps I will introduce you to my book club after all.

Pentecost Sunday

Pentecost Sunday
"And when the days of Pentecost were drawing to a close, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a violent wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues as of fire, which settled upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in foreign tongues, even as the Holy Spirit prompted them to speak" (Acts 2, 1-4). Pentecost Sunday

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Pentecost
After Jesus had ascended to heaven from Mt. Olivet, the apostles and disciples returned to the Holy City. They remained together in the Upper Room or Cenacle, the place where Jesus had appeared to them and which may well be called the first Christian church. About a hundred and twenty persons were assembled there. They chose Matthias as an apostle in place of the unhappy Judas; they prayed and waited for the Paraclete. Ten days had passed, it was Sunday, the seventh Sunday after the resurrection. At about nine o'clock in the morning, as they were together praying fervently, the Holy Spirit descended upon them. Note how all the great theophanies in Christ's life occurred during the course of prayer. After His baptism, for instance, when Jesus was praying the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove; likewise, it was during prayer at night that the transfiguration took place on Tabor. Surely too it was while Mary was praying that Gabriel delivered his message, and the Holy Spirit overshadowed her. Pentecost followed precedent. The small community of Christians had prepared themselves through prayer for the coming of the Paraclete. The same is true at Mass today, every day; through prayer we ready our souls for the advent of the Spirit.The descent upon the apostles was internal and invisible in nature although accompanied by certain visible phenomena. There came a mighty roar, like the onrush of a violent wind. It came suddenly, from heaven; but unlike storms that strike a structure from without, this one penetrated and filled the room where the disciples were gathered. Therefore it was not a natural wind, it was a miracle peculiar to the occasion. A second visible sign consisted in tongues of fire that descended upon each one present. These fiery tongues gave visible evidence that the Holy Spirit had descended upon them.Today at Mass, particularly at holy Communion, the power of the Holy Spirit will come down upon us; fiery tongues will not be seen, but invisible tongues of fire will not be absent. There was still another external manifestation of the Holy Spirit; the apostles and disciples were enabled to speak various languages.After the roar of the wind many of Jerusalem's pilgrims hurried to the Cenacle. Pentecost was one of the three festivals which obliged all Jews to be present in Jerusalem. Jews from distant lands, and Jewish converts from paganism too, attended these feasts. As a result, a colorful crowd speaking a variety of languages surrounded the house. Now the apostles, who so shortly before had hid in fear behind locked doors, came forth and courageously walked among the multitude speaking to each in his native tongue. It was indeed amazing! Galileans, and multilingual? But the malicious too were present; they had the answer. Nothing marvelous at all! Those Galileans were simply drunk, and their drunken babble sounded like a foreign language! Peter showed no hesitation in answering the charge. None of their number, he said, were intoxicated; it was but nine o'clock in the morning, and at that hour men usually are sober. What the multitude saw was, in fact, the fulfillment of Joel's prophecy: In those days (of the Messiah), God will pour forth His Spirit upon men and they will prophesy. . . . Then the apostle pointed his words more directly against the accusers: they had killed Jesus, had nailed Him to the Cross; but God had awakened Him and after His departure to heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit. The pilgrims who had heard Peter give this first pentecostal sermon "were pierced to the heart and said: Brethren, what shall we do? But Peter said to them: Repent and be baptized; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Three thousand responded. One final question: why the miracle of tongues? In answer, recall the story regarding the tower of Babel. Puffed up by pride, men attempted to build a tower that would touch the heavens. To punish their sin, God confused their speech. Sin causes confusion and division. Now Christ came to gather all men into His Church and thereby to unite them to Himself. This should result in creating but one family of nations again. To this blessed state the miracle of tongues points.Yes, even we as individuals have a gift of tongues which all men can understand. It is the gift of love infused into us by the Holy Spirit. Love unites, love is a common language, by means of love we can speak to all nations.