GENE'S NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS...

GENE'S NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS...

1   No more spirits. Only wine and beer from now on. It's going to be hard to say goodbye to Jamesons but it has got to be done. Recent events have left me in no doubt.


2   Go on a vegetarian diet. I have put on a few pounds recently and this diet will help me lose weight.


3   No dalliance, however mild, with any Onanistic fantasies.



4   No reliving my legend as a teacher.



5  Discipline myself to use the morning hours between 6.00am and 8.00am for my writing.

SO FAREWELL THEN SISTER WENDY BECKETT

SO FAREWELL THEN SISTER WENDY BECKETT

Sister Wendy Beckett

So farewell then Sister Wendy Beckett

You were such a treasure packet

Your eye for art was great indeed

Maybe just as great as Gene's

Or so it seems

In this archive interview from 2006, Sister Wendy Beckett tells Freddy Gray why prayer is not for the faint-hearted

The Copthorne Tam Hotel is a tall, nondescript tower-block that sheds a thick shadow across the back of High Street Kensington station.

The reception area is predictably uninspiring, at once bustling and hushed. Large revolving doors endlessly funnel somnambulant guests in and out.

Suddenly, a rotation ushers someone different into this soulless lobby: a tall, frail elderly woman in a religious habit, leaning on the arm of her companion. Sister Wendy Becket has arrived.

The companion turns out to be a publicist, who quickly vanishes. Sister Wendy heads into a restaurant bar at the back of the hotel. “Now I do like alcohol, but maybe we will have something else,” she says, her bold voice easily audible over the Musak that drones out from speakers in the corners of the room. We order coffee.

It is said that charming people can leave you thinking that you are the most important person in the world. Well, holy people can make you feel that you are hardly in the world at all. Sister Wendy is a charming holy person.

Her television shows about art have made her one of the best-known Catholics in the world, but there are no signs that she has become a prima donna. She warmly clasps one’s hand for long periods of time, and seems to prefer interviewing to being interviewed.

“Are you going to be a priest Freddy?” she asks, her rabbit-like front teeth clicking against her bottom lip. “Are you married? You want to be though?”

Whenever Sister Wendy emerges from her solitary contemplative life, television stations and newspapers all want a piece of this endearing, engaging recluse. Today, her publishers have brought her up to London to promote a new book, Sister Wendy on Prayer.

But Sister Wendy takes quite an unusual approach to plugging her work. “I’d never recommend the book to anyone,” she says. “I’d be shy to.”

Sister Wendy has written extensively about art, yet she was profoundly apprehensive about producing a book on prayer. “It just means so much to me,” she explains.

“What worried me about the book was that it was dragging out into the vulgarity of words something that was sacred, but I was told it would be a good thing to do.

“With what I say about art, you can take it or leave it. But with prayer I really feel it to be true, so true that I would die for it. So the thought that people won’t accept it is almost unbearable.”

Why would readers reject advice on prayer from such an expert? Sister Wendy, after all, gets up at one o’clock every morning and gives at least seven hours of each day to her devotions.

“Well people find prayer hard because it’s so simple, so painfully simple,” she replies. “That’s the hardness. I would say that the essential test of whether you are a Christian is whether you actually pray. If you don’t pray you don’t truly believe. You believe in some kind of God who is an evil God because if you truly believe in the real God, then you want to be close to Him.” In a striking passage of her new book, Sister Wendy describes how terrible prayer can be. “‘Our God is a consuming fire’ and my filth crackles as He seizes hold of me,” she writes.

This is alarming reading for your average sinner. If Sister Wendy, who has dedicated her life to worshipping God, finds prayer frightening, it risks being utterly terrifying for the rest of us. “The only question is whether you want God,” insists Sister Wendy, however. “If you want Him then you want your filth to crackle.

“There are no structures to prayer,” Sister Wendy continues. “Just as a man and woman when they fall in love have no structure for their conversation, they simply have to acknowledge the truth of each other and respond to that. Well, prayer is abandoning yourself to God and acknowledging Him…”

At this point I stupidly interrupt Sister Wendy, then beg her to go on. “Do you know I have completely forgotten what I was saying,” she says, looking as though she had forgotten the end to some tiresome anecdote.

It does not take her long, however, to regain her rhythm. “Prayer is a direction,” she continues. “Prayer is complete freedom. When you are looking at God, whether you want to sing and dance, meditate, or read Him poetry, fine — so long as you are honest, because prayer is the essential test of our integrity.”

Wendy Becket was born in February 1930 in Johannesburg, yet her early life was spent in Scotland. From a very young age Sister Wendy was a firm believer; indeed, she reckons she was aware of her profound love of God from the moment she was conscious.

As a teenager, she entered the Order of Notre Dame de Namur, taking the name Sister Michael of St Peter. The young novice was sent to St Anne’s College, Oxford, though debarred from student social life or any extra-curricular activity that might have imperilled her vocation. Some women might have resented such restrictions, but not Sister Wendy. “I had a wonderful time at Oxford,” she remembers. “All the students were trailing crowds of glory to me because I never spoke to any of them.” Bright, hard-working and an exceptionally fast reader, the young religious excelled at her studies. Oxford awarded her a Congratulatory First. (One of her Finals examiners was Professor J R R Tolkien.)

Sister Michael was then sent to back to South Africa to teach. It was hard work and the young religious was permitted to pray only for two halfhour periods every day. This active life did not suit her, but she did not let that hold her back. She became a Reverend Mother within the Order and at some point after the Second Vatican Council went back to being called Wendy, Sister Wendy. She describes this change as a “penance” because she did not think she merited such masculine saintly names.

In 1970 she suffered a series of stress-induced epileptic fits. The Order decided that she should be allowed to become a contemplative hermit. Her bishop made her “a Consecrated Virgin” and she was dispatched to the Carmelite monastery in Quidenham, Norfolk.

Sister Wendy was put up in a caravan and has since spent nearly all her time in solitude and silence. After the testing experience as teacher, Sister Wendy is filled with gratitude for her life in “what I have to call a trailer for the Americans”.

“Unless I had all those hours to pray I wouldn’t survive because the contemplative life is really for the feeble, not for the strong,” she says.

Apart from Mass, she spends most of her day praying alone. She is given the newspaper a day late. “I look at weather, which tells me absolutely nothing,” she says. “But I love the obituaries.”

Sister Wendy also peruses the sports pages with interest. “I find it so morally uplifting,” she enthuses. “I love the notion of concentration, training and sacrifice leading up to a goal. That’s what I want to achieve. I want there to be nothing in me that’s not geared towards loving God, or towards God taking me into His Love.

“When I am in a hotel I am always hoping that there will be [horse] racing on or perhaps snooker or tennis. I am told Roger Federer is absolutely beautiful to watch. And then of course there’s golf…” Snooker she regards as a good metaphor for the challenge of human existence: “I appreciate the skill: this is what life is like. The balls are there. We haven’t chosen them but there they are,” she imitates a wild cueing motion, “God says play them. The essence of God is dealing with life as it comes at you, which is often the opposite of what you want.” For somebody who says that she finds using words to discuss the beauty of God so agonising, Sister Wendy is remarkably convincing on the subject.

On a recent television programme she was asked to sum up God in a sentence. “I them told that God escapes all definitions,” she recalls. “But if I had to, I would say that God is something so absolute that everything else is relative.”

Sister Wendy pauses and looks at her watch. It is twenty past five. She inhales loudly. “Oh, it’s well past my bedtime.” She says goodbye and wanders across the lobby into a lift. The metallic doors close and she is wafted up and away.

Detterling I won't be tempted into negativity...

Detterling I won't be tempted into negativity in this blessed season...

Detterling I won't be tempted into negativity in this blessed season. I hear what you say but I did send you, Delia and Sebastian warmest Christmas greeting and I won't be taking that back.

What I would like to discuss with you is the plight nationally of the local newspapers. Local newspapers are closing down all over the land and it's a crying shame. I know this issue is also close to your heart as you had for two years your own column in your local newspaper.

(Would it be possible Detters that you could provide for me an  archive of these collected columns?)

The Uxbridge Gazette was so wonderful over the years - now it's swallowed up in something called  Get West London rubbish. I remember when it was a broadsheet back in the Sixties and Seventies and how eagerly it was awaited. It appeared on the news stands on Wednesdays. I featured in it several times over the years. I suppose the best occasion was when in September 1975 it featured a piece entitled:

'Uxbridge student heads off to Oxford University'

How proud my mother, father and Great Uncle Claude were. Great Uncle Claude sent me a present of a Remington manual typewriter. I guess he knew that even back then I had a hankering to be a writer.

My late brother Paul also featured several times - my mother always kept those clippings with the photos of Paul with his Billy Fury good looks. I was never blessed with such good looks but I did have something  else; that Padre Pio-like mixture of manliness and spirituality in my countenance. 

Billy Fury

The Uxbridge Gazette had back in the day a very perceptive film and TV critic. He could sometimes be quite acerbic and I remember him giving Kate O'Mara's Triangle a good seeing to.

Kate O'Mara

Now Detters, in this season of goodwill lets me reiterate my offer to act as a broker of peace between you and your estranged gay nephew. You are not getting any younger and you don't want to pass to Valhalla without a reconciliation. (By the way, I have always imagined your nephew as outrageously camp - something like Sean in Coronation Street. Am I right?)

Well, my offer stands Detters. If you accept it great. And if you don't? Well, in that case Detters, Pog ma Thoin.

GENE

Detterling I have read you latest fax...

Detterling I have read your latest fax...

Detterling I have read your latest fax...  a fax full of falsity.

'.....and today, an early start with our son opening his presents, an afternoon with in laws and nieces, and tonight Christmas dinner with the family, cooked by me and enjoyed by everyone.....'

That's okay and I welcome your family enjoyment of Christmas. But what you write about me is so false. We had a wonderful Christmas at Chez Vincent. Although the two girls were not with us in person they were with us electronically. 

On the unfortunate Good Yarn incident I will not write at length. Suffice to say this: it must be seen in context. I have never been banned from anywhere in my life. I have never before been involved in a physical confrontation in a pub. The only violent incident I have ever been associated with was mild in the extreme. Back in 1978 in Oxford I, under provocation, threw a carton of yogurt at a strident feminist harridan demonstrating on a pro-abortion march. She had been verbally abusing me. (By the way, that was the first time I was to encounter that appalling slogan: 'A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE'.)

And consider my searing honesty in revealing the Good Yarn fracas. I wrestled with whether I should, but in the end my deep-seated sense of honesty and integrity won out. Would your memoirs see anything of honesty like this? Like hell they would!

And notice how I have not made excuses for myself. 

GENE

PS

Note in the previous thread on Catholic cocktails I modestly stuck to Tuborg. No cocktails for Gene. Gene, the man's man.

'TUBORG

 Gene Vincent   

I don't go in for anything pretentious. Give me a pint of Tuborg and good company.'

What is the perfect Catholic cocktail?

Michael Warren Davis

20 December, 2018

We asked a variety of Catholic writers about their preferred tipple

When I approached our friends and colleagues about this little symposium, each one responded immediately with a moving appeal for their candidate. Clearly, they’d all given the matter some thought before. I like to imagine each of them toddling home from Mass one afternoon, whipping up a batch of their preferred oh-be-joyful, plopping themselves down into an overstuffed armchair by the fire or a wicker couch on the veranda, and silently musing: “This really is the perfect Catholic cocktail.” Here are the fruits of those musings, guaranteed to get you thoroughly jingled well before Santa’s sleigh touches down.

The Pink Gin

Fr Michael Rennier

I like my dogma magisterial and my drinks strong. Although I’m breaking Hilaire Belloc’s hard-and-fast rule never to enjoy a drink invented after the Reformation, I dare say a Pink Gin is worth the risk. Composed of gin, bitters and a cocktail onion, this drink is positively triumphalist in its merciful embrace of both sinner and saint. (Gin itself is an alchemical miracle of the Middle Ages, and the proto-gins were largely monastic in origin.) Evelyn Waugh famously consumed it while he attempted to complete the crossword in his morning paper and the characters in his novels are constantly splashing about various clubs with them in hand. As a faithful son of Mother Church, can I do anything less than raise a glass in solidarity?

Fr Michael Rennier is associate editor of Dappled Things

The Manhattan

Ed Condon

Could there be a more Catholic cocktail than the Manhattan? American rye or bourbon (it isn’t whiskey, and calling it so is a disservice to both), Italian vermouth and German bitters: a balance of the bold and the sweet, with a dash of sorrow thrown in. It is an almost liturgical combination. The recipe calls for a garnish of some kind, and while tradition demands a maraschino cherry, this is a bit fussy for some, who prefer orange peel. But, much as authentic liturgical tastes differ in aesthetics but not in miraculous content, either is right and fitting. That there is a natural limit of three to the number you can manage in a sitting speaks for itself.

Ed Condon is Washington editor of the Catholic News Agency

The Mint Julep

Joseph Pearce

Oscar Wilde quipped that the United States is the only country in human history that has passed from a period of barbarism to a period of decadence without passing through a period of civilisation in between. I would argue, pace Wilde, that Kentucky bourbon proves him wrong. Since, however, I suspect that a “cocktail” requires additional ingredients, other than the purity of the unadulterated spirit, I will say that my favourite cocktail is mint julep, made according to Walker Percy’s precise stipulations (widely available online).

Joseph Pearce is editor of the St Austin Review

Charles Coulombe

My nomination is the now little-known but once prominent concoction known as the Bronx Cocktail. Deeply rooted in the gritty Catholic immigrant experience (the Bronx historically having provided a refuge for Irish and Italians, among others), it rose to prominence during Prohibition, when Catholics as a whole were considered quasi-criminals by the upholders of Temperance.

During those horrible dry years, it was composed of one third orange juice, one third gin and a sixth each of dry and sweet vermouth, strained through ice and served in a martini glass with a twist of orange peel. Its ingredients moderated each other’s worst attributes: the harshness of the (often bathtub) gin was ameliorated by the orange juice, while the frequently underage vermouths cancelled out one another’s failings.

It was the speakeasy drink of choice from California to Maine, and was not only Al Capone’s favourite drink, but the first potation ever had by Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Given that Catholic Americans today are no less in opposition to the cultural mainstream than they were during the dark days of the “Noble Experiment”, the Bronx Cocktail is the perfect drink to rally around. Now, if we can just bring back the Charleston…

Charles Coulombe is an author and lecturer based in Los Angeles

Tuborg   

Gene Vincent

I don't go in for anything pretentious. Give me a pint of Tuborg and good company.

The Rutler

Fr George Rutler

Coincidentally, there is a brief etymological study of “margarita” and “martini” in my eponymous book Coincidentally. Both were invented by Catholics. That is in spite of the fact that certain drinkers of the old school, like Chesterton and Belloc, disdained the very idea of a cocktail. Over 40 years ago, to further my work of evangelising, I invented a cocktail which I called a “Rosemont” after the village where I lived. Through complicated circumstances, my friend Wolfgang, then head mixologist at the King Cole bar in the St Regis Hotel in Manhattan, introduced it there and it soon enjoyed a brief popularity at the lamented La Côte Basque.

I was surprised that cocktails cannot be patented and, since its origin was obscure, my invention was re-named a “Rutler”. The formula is no longer a secret. Rinse a chilled cocktail glass with lemon juice, and then fill it with 4/5 Bombay gin and 1/5 Courvoisier cognac.

Fr George Rutler is the parish priest of St Michael’s Church in New York City

Gin and Tonic

Michael Warren Davis

Post-Anglicanorum Coetibus, we’re invited to embrace the Anglican patrimony. I don’t find much of that patrimony (my own) particularly enticing when compared to the Roman patrimony, which is why I attend the Latin Mass and not the ordinariate liturgy.

Gin and tonics are, however, both the soul of Anglicanism and incomparably more refreshing than any Roman counterpart.

The Church of England is certainly doomed, but we should readily embrace the essential catholicity of the G&T and ensure it outlives its heretic progenitors.

Michael Warren Davis is US editor of the Catholic Herald

Whiskey in the Jar

Madeleine Kearns

There is a jolly old Irish song about a faithless woman who betrays her beloved to the long arm of the law. The poor chap is Irish so, as you might expect, takes it in good cheer and sings about “whiskey in the jar” as he awaits retribution. Like those trendy Brooklyn-types, I also drink out of jars. And being Scottish, I naturally like whisky. This is a cocktail waiting to be coined, I’m sure, except that I can’t think of any other ingredients.

Whisky is, in my view, a lot like religion – it ought not to be diluted.

Madeleine Kearns is a journalism fellow at National Review

Beer

Matthew Walther

There are good arguments to be made for the divine simplicity of gin and tonic. A good Pink Gin with ice approaches the heavenly ideal of the cocktail. In the summer nothing beats a glass of limoncello topped off with San Pellegrino. Poor St Paul VI liked to spend his gloomy evenings with a scotch and soda. Do you sense the unfolding of a theme here?

I think that in these confusing times there is a great deal to be said for not prevaricating. We should be unashamed to confess the pure apostolic faith of the Church, ancient and undefiled.

We should, likewise, be happy to pour a few ounces of Hendricks into a glass and drink it without adding vermouth (which no one has ever enjoyed), much less an olive (ditto). Or we could just drink beer, the most catholic option of all.

Matthew Walther is national correspondent for The Week

GRANNY BARKES FELL IN WOOLWORTHS

GRANNY BARKES FELL IN WOOLWORTHS
 

Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths ... she'll get a free ride in the  ambulance Ha! Ha! Ha!... The just man falls seven times...  Look! See the tracks of Santa's feet on the hearth... I'll break your ould desk... Say what may the tidings be, on this glorious Christmas morn?... He's lost his apple cake... Look! Look what Mairead has made!... That would bury Dick and Diamond... Indeed he went all the way to the whiney nough... I'm getting a wheelbarrow tomorrow: it's brand new ... I can't sleep with excitement... This is a day above all days... No, we are off to school, c'mon Eddie... I heard a roar between  two hills... L to the water Jimmy Harte... I wish that day would come back again... And flying my kite... What happened to your lorry Jim?... Lay on MacDuff... Edward's day out... He cut down a tree from the hedge of the car road with a hatchet - yes, but it's his birthday... I don't know ... maybe so. I think they did... Look at the size of the flakes! Look at the size of the flakes!... There's a stepmother's breath in the air... He stole matches... Oh! I love to play when the decorations are up... If I was you I'd build a wall... He's a good maker... The Irvines of the wheel, the wild men from Borneo... Time waits for no man, not even John Roy... Jeremiah, blow the fire; puff, puff, puff... Blue ink, black ink, and good red ink... See that sycamore tree? By the end of November there won't be a single leaf left on it... Secundam scripturas... Has he no ears?... Hey! Don't touch that coal scuttle, that belongs to Stanton Bailey... That's the biggest laugh I've had since I put salt in the sugar bowl last week... I'll get ye Tony... James Hugh Monaghan from Dernee,  a warrior I do beliee... Hurling by bum, hurling by bum... Ya'll come now? Oh! that do make it nice... You are very unsatisfactory...  I was reading The Messenger...  Drinking buttermilk all the week, whiskey on a Sunday... Back to back, belly to belly, don't give a damn about Yarnarelli... Come day, go day, God send Sunday... The chocolate tree, the sweet tree... The waters wild went o'er his child and he was left lamenting... 'Ma mither is a queen', said he... This new wheel of fortune has just come from France... John Johnston's horses are in your corn... Which one's thaaat?... Night's for rest, night's for rest... There's a yellow rose in Texas... "Hot diggity, dog ziggity, boom, what you do to me, when you're holding me tight."...  A field in Larne... Would it be physical?... A stew boiled is a stew spoiled... The Minster-clock has just struck two, and yonder is the Moon... Boys obtuse... And the hunter home from the hills... Wait 'til I get another stone for you Cyril... McAree, McAra, McAvarn K-Kunny, put in your white foot 'til I see if you're my mummy... Bara lynsey, bara lynsey... Patch upon patch sown without stitches; come riddle me this and I'll give you my britches... "Hold on, my door was hit too."... Joe Worthington, Joe Worthington you'd sit till you'd rot... Come to the water fit a thank ye, fit a thank ye, fit a thank ye... Dazed I stepped forward to be congratulated by Lord Erne... Most postmen are dishonest and do steal money from envelopes... I washed my hands in water; water never run, and I dried them in a towel that was neither wove nor spun... Here comes I Wee Devil Doubt, the pain within, the pain without... Peeping round the door in the khaki there to see the old pair once again... When I was a lad so was me Dad... Ta Ra Ra Bam, Ta Ra Ra Ching, Ta Ra Ra Bam, Ta Ra Ra... 'Twas on a Sunday evening that Barlow's it was robbed: Mrs Barlow went down to the room to get a treacle scone, but when she saw the moneybox, the money it was gone... Genitori, Genitoque Laus et jubilation...  He relies too much on his effing muscles... The Protestant boys are loyal and true: they are in me eye says Donal Abu...  What's the 'with thee' for? What's the 'with thee' for?...  On a brick-coloured ticket, that's brick Pat... All in!...  Water! Water!, er , Tea! Tea!, with two lumps of sugar and a spot of milk... I wonder, yes I wonder, will the angels way up yonder, will the angels play their harps for me?... Whistle and I will come to you me lad... Get that Teddy Boy haircut out of my sight!... The one with the black bucket is the best... Paw! Haw! Haw! John's just laughing at us... The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass... Sandy Row on an Easter Monday, every day's like an Easter Sunday... It's always Torchie and the second years... Willie Ruckie... Milled today, fed tomorrow... It's long and it's narrow, it's not very wide, it wears a green selvage on every side... Tilly Versailles... "Yes, yogurt is very good for longlevity"... Yes and truly you are best... No more tomorrows in your career... Dr Whitehead... Piss, Piss  Iceland dog!... Tickets are sixpence each and I hope you all win... Andera Keck K-Keck K-Keck K-Keck... We sell only the best E..E..English C..C..Coca Cola... Aye but, naw but, could you cut turf?... Hollyhocks! Hollyhocks! over Bobby Lyttle's garden wall...  "You took the coat hanger to it."... The seas obey, the fetters break and lifeless limbs thou dost restore... You could easily stand on Kelly's hills and count his skinny ribs... Barefooted thatcher, Pa Bunty... Have you got a wagon to put these wheels on?... Lauda Jerusalem Dominum,  Lauda Deum tuum Sion... Man attacked and thoroughly beaten, attackers make off in a posh car... Swiftly, silently and unseen... You see Missus D; there's the cow and there's the gate... C'mon... let's get home for the beef and spuds... Ecce Panis Angelorum… Can it be I can't see the curtain?... Dee daw Marjorie Raw... You're idle for stelk... Saucepan gossiper... Corduroy for every boy, cordurat for every cat... We're the boys that fears no noise, we are the bold Drumarda boys... On Saturday night we all got tight and Cassidy brought us over...  Silver Saturday, jink night... Listening to the footsteps of the boys from Tedd... Dick Nan's: just the spot for a picnic... Listen to me George: "Would you like white stones on your grave?"... Fish away... You know I have an affection for thee... The bespectacled roadman...  Chick a boom, chick a rack, ... chick a boom,  chick a rack, and the yellow skirt goes swinging...  Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years, Scrooge replied. He died seven years ago, this very night... Too strong Grandad, too strong... Go on Balfour!...  Santa Agatha, ora pro nobis... "Pope Pius XII died during the night."...  The Ypres Salient at Night... Histracy... Wherefore have you left your sheep on that stony mountain steep?... Hi for a toffer  and hi for it still; and hi for the wee lad lies over the hill... The river eddy  whirls... Beati Michaeli archangelo... Put a table in the hall and it will do fine... And he fully did...  Are you ruptured?... Jimmy Hicks is not in hell... Rushe came down last night... I know my nick name... Uncle Merry... For aye for guide: very good neighbours, but keep your back to us... Apostrophe at the Post  Office today... Let the reindeers go. Let them go!...  Good morrow Mick... No-one will  read your papers... Oh! Hugh is staunch...  Jack's in Diviney... Smithers... You're only making a faddle (fardel) of yourself... The image of a girl... Deeper than the wishing well... Ballina, Balnabroka, Anahinahola, don't show the white feather wherever you go... Carolina  moon... What a beautiful day! What must heaven be like?... Do you know our d'Brian?... Who got hit?... You're nice Miss Rice.... I see said the blind man... The fish in the pond are seeing  red as Bobby is fishing with Coates strong thread... And all round Peter Brewer's car... And those who come from  distance far are always late for tea... Oh! to be in Doonaree... All day all night  Marianne; down by the seaside sifting sand... Look at the way he's twisting that  stick... He won't know himself in this lovely place... You've given me a taste of fame... There was a wild colonial boy  Jack Saltey was his name. Geoff Duke. Elenore Gee! I think you're swell... The people they call me Calypso Joe. Peas ... er, from our garden. Delish... Oh! my diploma... I win a pound... The ancient ring post snapped like a matchstick... I think, I think, that she's the mostest of the lot, and furthermore she is the only chick I got... Nicolette, I can pick 'em!... Raddle diddle da ha ha... A great time of day to be in such good humour... They all wore black coats and black top hats and they turned and went up to your room... Deep, deep river, away, away... Early morning light, Rat ta-tat ta-tat ta-tat. Rat ta-tat ta-tat ta-tat...

Dear Fr Rutler:

Dear Fr Rutler: what should I do when my family trash-talk the Pope?

Fr George Rutler

20 December, 2018

   

Our resident Agony Priest answers your questions on papal criticism, priestly gifts and nudity in art

Dear Father Rutler,

Pope Francis isn’t my favourite Vicar of Christ of the last couple of millennia, but I don’t like the way some of my friends and family trash-talk him. Should I say something? If so, how do I put it without sounding cloyingly pious?
Roger S, Reading, MA

With the best of intentions, people may forget that at the heart of piety is “reverence for the fathers”. That does not mean indulging the extravagant and unfounded notion that the Holy Spirit chooses each pope. It does mean that the Holy Spirit can pick up the pieces of whatever mere mortals may break, and it also means taking seriously the prayers at Mass for a pope. Our Lord had the most righteous anger, but our anger may not always be altogether righteous, losing temper rather than using it. Arguments about such things usually are cathartic rather than constructive. If friends and family rant, just quietly ask: “When the apostles remembered Psalm 69:9 about being consumed by zeal, what do you think was meant by the Septuagint’s use of katesthio?” If that doesn’t silence them, gently ask, “Do you want to be Shem and Japheth, or just Ham?” It is unlikely that they will continue the conversation.

Should I buy my priest something for Christmas? Is there a customary gift?
Nancy K, Sherman, TX

The best gift is a spiritual bouquet of prayers for his special intentions. But since the degradation of clerical garb is a sorry fact these days, you might also give him a good clerical vest (rabat) with some real clerical collars. This might discourage the egregious “tab collars” which are little bits of white plastic stuck in the neck of a shirt. These are the equivalent of a T-shirt with a necktie painted on it.

My husband and I are expecting our first child – a son – and we both like the name Becket. There are already two at our parish, and it seems to be popular with a certain kind of young Catholic couple. (We met at Christendom College.) Is that name in good taste?
Julie M, Huntsville, AL

Nothing is in better taste than invoking a saint. The parents of St Thomas of Canterbury spelled it Beket, but that may have had something to with being Norman. The addition of an “à” before “Becket” was just a 19th-century affectation. Giving a child a solid saint’s name can counter the unfortunate fad of appropriating names from shops and places, such as Tiffany and Chelsea. That can only lead to naming children Walmart and Bronx. Names are important, which is why popes and monarchs take care when they exercise the unique option of renaming themselves. You can be sure that if a pope chose to be named Attila, it would cause a stir in the Roman Curia and the editorial offices of the New York Times.

Your mention of Christendom College reminds me that it gratuitously gave me an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters, even though my penmanship is rather inhumane.

I’m a big fan of Bouguereau, but sometimes I wonder if that doesn’t owe more to just his exquisite technique. How much nudity in art is too much, Christianly speaking?
Andrew B, Florence, SC

As an amateur painter, I confine myself to landscapes and still lifes whose only déshabillé consists of bare branches and peeled fruit. The technique of Bouguereau is breathtaking, as is that of Alma-Tadema. In their generation, borderline eroticism was acceptable so long as the scenes were classical – so, for instance, a naked duchess would not have been acceptable unless she was posed as Cleopatra. Bouguereau’s religious paintings tend to the sentimentality for which the brilliant Norman Rockwell was later criticised.

But as with some famous preachers, one can learn a lot from their method while ignoring their content. Great Victorian art will long outlast our expressionism and nihilism. Queen Victoria was not a Victorian in the caricatured sense. In 1841 she commissioned Emil Wolff’s statue of Prince Albert, half naked in strategically arranged Greek armour. She thought it was “very beautiful” when it arrived in 1844, but “we know not yet where to place it”. Multiple nudes followed, beginning with William Dyce’s fresco for Osborne House, showing naked Neptune rising from the sea with nymphs lacking bathing suits.

But there is also another kind of tastelessness: the saccharine religious art to which many self-styled conservative Catholics are addicted. There are images of Our Lady of Fatima that resemble the Empress Eugénie in a depressed state, and Divine Mercy pictures that make our Lord look like Rita Hayworth having a heart attack. I expect that you share with me the suffering of someone with perfect taste living in a vulgar world.

Fr George Rutler is the pastor of St Michael’s Church in New York City. To seek his advice, write to agonypriest@catholicheraldus.com