Light On Dark Water

Wendell Berry and Pope Francis

Thanks to Rob G for the link to this piece at First Things connecting Laudato Si and the thought of Wendell Berry. I am one of those whom the author mentions as being disappointed by a number of Berry's recent statements on same-sex marriage, not only the content but the tone. Nevertheless, one must try not to be merely reactionary, and these views don't negate the good things he's said over the years.

As I remarked in a comment, I'm now ready to read Laudato Si, some of the fuss having died down. I 'm sorry to say that I ordered a hardback copy via Amazon. I wanted it and Roman Guardini's End of the Modern World, and thought I would order both from their publishers rather than Amazon. But before I could order from ISI, the publishers of the Guardini book, I had to go through a registration process that included giving them my phone number, and I balked. So I went back to Amazon, and then threw the encyclical into the same order. If only Amazon weren't so dadgum convenient….

Maclin Horton
, , , ,

55 responses to “Wendell Berry and Pope Francis”

  1. Art Deco

    Sorry, not buying the idea that Berry’s been an influence on the Pope. St. John Paul was cosmopolitan and erudite in a way Francis cannot be, but he was only minimally versed in the American scene (being confused, for example, about the location of Notre Dame).
    Berry’s influence, I think, is derived from a set of interests and aims which are orthogonal to the usual spectra in American discussion.

    Reply
  2. Mac

    I didn’t get from that piece an assertion that Francis was influenced by Berry. I would be surprised if Francis has even heard of Berry. The writer is only saying there are noticeable points of similarity in their thinking.

    Reply
  3. Rob G

    Right. Murdock says something in his piece about Francis and W.B. “drinking from the same well,” not that Berry had influenced Francis.
    Catholic social teaching entered the American agrarian consciousness via the influence of Herbert Agar, who brought Distributist ideas to the attention of the Nashville Agrarians in the 30s. Berry would probably be familiar with this history, but how much his own thoughts on these issues ultimately stem from that would be difficult to say.
    The striking thing is how much of Laudato Si sounds like W.B., even in full realization that Francis has probably never read him.
    (A similar comparison can be made between Augusto Del Noce and Christopher Lasch. They almost certainly never read each other, but in a lot of ways they come to strikingly similar conclusions about things.)

    Reply
  4. Marianne

    I’ve not read any of Wendell Berry’s books, but the essay of his linked to in that First Things article, “Christianity and the Survival of Creation”, has, I think, a tone different from that in Francis’s writing. An excerpt:

    Modern Christianity has become, then, in its organizations, as specialized as other modern organizations, wholly concentrated upon the industrial shibboleths of “growth,” counting its success in numbers, and upon the very strange enterprise of “saving” the individual, isolated, and disembodied soul. Having witnessed and abetted the dismemberment of the households, both human and natural, by which we have our being as creatures of God, as living souls, and having made light of the great feast and festival of Creation to which we were bidden as living souls, the modern church presumes to be able to save the soul as an eternal piece of private property. It presumes moreover to save the souls of people in other countries and religious traditions, who are often saner and more religious than we are. And always the emphasis is on the individual soul. Some Christian spokesmen give the impression that the highest Christian bliss would be to get to Heaven and find that you are the only one there — that you were right, and all the others wrong. Whatever its twentieth-century dress, modern Christianity as I know it is still at bottom the religion of Miss Watson, intent upon a dull and superstitious rigmarole by which supposedly we can avoid going to “the bad place” and instead go to “the good place.” One can hardly help sympathizing with Huck Finn when he says, “I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it.”(n13)
    Despite its protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly the religion of the state and the economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into heaven, it has, by a kind of ignorance, been made the tool of much earthly villainy. It has, for the most part, stood silently by, while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households. It has flown the flag and chanted the slogans of empire. It has assumed with the economists that “economic forces” automatically work for good, and has assumed with the industrialists and militarists that technology determines history. It has assumed with almost everybody that “progress” is good, that it is good to be modern and up with the times. It has admired Caesar and comforted him in his depredations and defaults. But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation. For, in these days, Caesar is no longer a mere destroyer of armies, cities, and nations. He is a contradictor of the fundamental miracle of life. A part of the normal practice of his power is his willingness to destroy the world. He prays, he says, and churches everywhere compliantly pray with him. But he is praying to a God whose works he is prepared at any moment to destroy. What could be more wicked than that, or more mad?

    I hear contemptuousness in that. I’ve read only bits and pieces of Laudato Si, but I didn’t pick that up in it. Or is it there, but muted?

    Reply
  5. Paul

    I suspect that “Modern Christianity” for Berry means the mainstream American Protestant denomination(s) that he is active in and wants to speak prophetically to. I don’t think his tone is that of an “outsider”, or contemptuous, but mostly a frustrated “How are we not doing better at these things?”

    Reply
  6. Art Deco

    No clue what he means. Some of his writing is engaging, but that’s two long paragraphs of crank nonsense.

    Reply
  7. Rob G

    ‘I don’t think his tone is that of an “outsider”, or contemptuous, but mostly a frustrated “How are we not doing better at these things?”‘
    Yes, I think you’re right, Paul. He certainly can be cranky, but as you say, his crankiness seems to stem more from frustration than contempt.
    A friend of mine who’s met him and talked to him at length said that he does get exercised about this stuff, but maintains a wry good humor underneath it all. Unfortunately, you don’t see that humor so much in his nonfiction, although it is fairly apparent in the fiction, and if you hear him speak.

    Reply
  8. Mac

    I was going to say more or less what Paul said, except that I don’t think “contemptuous” is an unfair description of the tone. It certainly seems to be the voice of someone who doesn’t know much about the Christian tradition apart from American Protestantism, and as Paul says within that mainly evangelicalism.

    Reply
  9. Rob G

    That particular essay was the first thing I ever read of Berry’s, some 20 years ago. It had been printed (or more likely reprinted) in a now-defunct journal I used to get called Epiphany. I had just converted to Orthodoxy from Evangelicalism and I had never read anything like it, other than Francis Schaeffer’s Pollution and the Death of Man years before.

    Reply
  10. Mac

    I can imagine that would have been pretty startling.

    Reply
  11. Rob G

    Yes, in the conservative Evangelical community back then, whether fundamentalist or mainstream (I spent considerable time in both), any ecological or environmental talk was viewed with suspicion, if not declared outright “liberal” and dismissed.

    Reply
  12. Janet

    I’ve been thinking about the last part of the last paragraph and I think what Paul and Maclin have said it right; however, there are very visible Catholics in the government who do connive with Caesar, and Berry or anybody else who isn’t really informed about Catholicism could be forgiven for thinking that we are part of it all.
    And then there are Catholics who seem to be more Republican than they are Catholic, too.
    AMDG

    Reply
  13. Mac

    Yep.
    I tend to defend evangelicals, to the point where I sometimes forget that there is a nutty element there, and not just on the far fringes.

    Reply
  14. Art Deco

    And then there are Catholics who seem to be more Republican than they are Catholic, too.
    Who have you got in mind? Donald McClarey is a committed Republican and regards Francis with asperity. I can imagine there are Remnant contributors who would fault his political theory (and that of Paul Zummo, his sidekick). Some of his remarks on political economy I’d regard as overly catagorical, but I cannot see how liberal Catholics code him as a ‘dissenter’ without sacralizing very particular institutional arragements and programs. (To be fair, he’s somewhat vague on certain particulars). Our host here was a regular participant at Amy Welborn’s Open Book and Donald McClarey was the most committed Republican regularly contributing to discussions. He’s two standard deviations off to the right end of the distribution and it still is not clear to me you could code him as a dissenter, so I cannot figure out to whom you could be referring. You could mean Deal Hudson, I suppose, who actually had connections to politicians advocate McClarey lacks, but Crisis is far too astringent to be considered to be in anyone’s pocket. Our host’s friend in Ohio huffs and puffs a great deal about Michael Novak, but there you have the same problem: is Catholic social teaching clear and prescriptive enough to rule out anything he’s ever advocated (and I mean anything ever advocated, not caricatures of what he’s advocated). The same might apply to critics of the Acton Institute, who fancy it’s impermissible to be an advocate of ‘capitalism’ but are commonly loath to specify what that means brass tacks (aside from complaints about Monsanto).

    Reply
  15. Robert Gotcher

    I suspect Janet was talking about (U.S.) Catholics in general, not simply those who are active in the public sphere. I certainly know Catholics who react to what Pope Francis says from what appears to be the Republican playbook, or at least from the “conservative” press. Environmental issues, capital punishment, criticism of capitalism, immigration, etc. are all LIBERAL.

    Reply
  16. Janet

    I was just talking about folks.
    AMDG

    Reply
  17. Janet

    And yes, exactly what Robert said.
    AMDG

    Reply
  18. Art Deco

    I certainly know Catholics who react to what Pope Francis says from what appears to be the Republican playbook, or at least from the “conservative” press. Environmental issues, capital punishment, criticism of capitalism, immigration, etc. are all LIBERAL.
    And all indicative of the priorities of a certain type of professional-managerial bourgeois interested in public life. People are bothered by Francis because his ‘concerns’ are on the axis which runs from second-rate school administrators to Mary Robinson. Meanwhile, the Catholic faithful of Chicago get stuck with Blaise Cupich.
    What’s more, there’s no indication that Francis is at all familiar with the intellectual scaffolding which would make a criticism of ‘capitalism’ or the condition of the environment something other than the inchoate complaining of a man who tends to be accusatory. As for the discussions of ‘capital punishment’, it’s another contemporary novelty promoted by the gatekeepers of an institution that is supposed to be timeless. And, no, the Church has contributed nothing in recent years at all illuminating on the subject of immigration in the realm of positive understandings or moral understandings.

    Reply
  19. Mac

    Of course no Catholic is going to say “When it comes to a choice between the teaching authority of the Church and that of the Republican party, I always go with the latter.” But the phenomenon Janet and Robert refer to is pretty hard to miss. Often it’s just knee-jerk tribalism. Sometimes it crosses over into a level of defiance which, if not theological “dissent”, is at least a refusal to listen.

    Reply
  20. Art Deco

    But the phenomenon Janet and Robert refer to is pretty hard to miss.
    I’d be happy if one of you would tell me where you’d seen it. Names, dates.

    Reply
  21. Janet

    I have heard this from people I know. I would be very surprised if their names mean anything to you. I do not take notes on personal conversations, so I cannot give you dates.
    AMDG

    Reply
  22. Nathan P.

    If it helps any, “Christianity and the Survival of Creation” was more particularly meant in the context of Southern Protestant Christianity; if I remember correctly, it was first given as a speech to a Southern Baptist gathering. Implicit for anyone who has also read Berry’s early book on race, The Hidden Wound, is commentary on the Southern church’s complicity in slavery and segregation, as well as environmental abuse. In that book he uses almost the same language regarding the church’s concern for nothing but the disembodied soul–but about racial issues. I think this history is closely connected to his positions on Christianity’s relation to Creation.
    That said, I agree with you all that Berry is rather confused about the the words “Christianity” and “the Church”: he doesn’t seem to realize that they refer to more than American Christianity. This seems to me like a huge failure of imagination on his part.

    Reply
  23. Mac

    “Provincial” is a term that comes to mind. Somewhat surprising in someone who’s generally a pretty broad thinker.

    Reply
  24. Mac

    “Names, dates.”
    I don’t think readily observable facts require that kind of documentation. Surely you wouldn’t ask for similar documentation of similar statements about liberal Catholics and the liberal politics.

    Reply
  25. Rob G

    I agree with you all that Berry is rather confused about the words “Christianity” and “the Church”
    Don’t all Protestants tend to be, esp. those of a low-church persuasion like W.B.? I sort of take that as a given when I read them.

    Reply
  26. Janet

    Surely you wouldn’t ask for similar documentation of similar statements about liberal Catholics and the liberal politics.
    Well, the first part of what I said WAS about liberal politicians, so…..
    I guess I didn’t make that clear, though.
    AMDG

    Reply
  27. Janet

    Don’t all Protestants tend to be, esp. those of a low-church persuasion like W.B.? I sort of take that as a given when I read them.
    When I worked at the seminary–and a lot of these people were from mainline churches, not just non-denoms–I was always surprised at what the folks there–faculty, staff, and students–thought they knew about the Catholic Church and didn’t know. Their way of thinking about the Church just didn’t encompass our view of it.
    AMDG

    Reply
  28. Art Deco

    . Surely you wouldn’t ask for similar documentation of similar statements about liberal Catholics and the liberal politics.
    I do not have any trouble thinking of an example of problematic characters among liberal Catholics. Ecclesiastics, church-o-crats, academics, opinion journalists, &c. – you trip over them.
    As for what you’re talking about, I would not deny you can find an example of it. I cannot think of one in any parish of which I’ve been associated, so it seems to me that the people who fit your description are not vociferous. I’ve been wasting my life in comboxes for about a dozen years, and the combox denizen who comes the closest to your description is, again, Donald McClarey, and if you’re familiar with the body of his views, he’s a pretty ambiguous example.
    Now that I think about it, perhaps Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly might qualify as examples. Perhaps Susan Collins among politicians. Keep in mind that Susan Collins is the most troublesome member of the Senate Republican caucus from the perspective of party whips. Now ask yourself where you find people who resemble these characters in the apparatus of foundationally Catholic institutions. Are the people who run Notre Dame Chamber of Commerce shills, or are they the sort of people who hand out honorary degrees to the likes of Barack Obama?

    Reply
  29. Rob G

    “Now that I think about it, perhaps Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly might qualify as examples.”
    This would seem to imply at least some measure of agreement with them amongst the many Catholics who listen to them, not to mention all those who listen to Limbaugh, watch Fox News, etc. It isn’t reasonable to assume that these Catholics are immune to the pro-GOP rhetoric of these sources.

    Reply
  30. Janet

    Yes, and it’s these people I’m talking about. I think that the reason that so many people get trapped here is that Limbaugh, et al. are the ones who are the only ones in the media speaking out against abortion, for example, and so they end up aligning themselves with the rest of the agenda.
    AMDG

    Reply
  31. Mac

    I understood that, Janet, if you’re referring to your 7/29 5:50 comment.
    Which contains the germ of the continuing argument: “And then there are Catholics who seem to be more Republican than they are Catholic, too.” I don’t have such a vast stretch of idle time as to make me want to spend it arguing that obvious point, though y’all are welcome to continue it. I’ll repeat the point I made earlier: there’s no allegation here of heresy or formal theological dissent among the people Janet was talking about. That might or might not be true in some particular cases, but it’s not in general the problem. And the progressive Catholic attempt to paint it that way is not pretty, though one can see how tempting it must be when they’ve been beaten with the same stick for so long (justifiably for the most part, I think).

    Reply
  32. Mac

    I was replying to your 6:23 comment, Janet.

    Reply
  33. Janet

    Well, sorry.

    Reply
  34. Mac

    Just trying to straighten out the cross-post confusion.

    Reply
  35. Rob G

    Fwiw, a friend of mine, a tenured prof at Franciscan in Steubenville, has complained about the prevalence of this type of thinking on campus among both students and faculty. The idea that the Pope is not an economist, or that he only needs listening to when he speaks on faith and morals (not economics), is fairly widespread there, apparently. He was at a dinner party recently with a number of faculty and students and he found himself the sole defender of Laudato Si.

    Reply
  36. Robert Gotcher

    Since I know AD is just trying to pick a fight, I’m a fool for responding to this, but I will anyway.
    As for the discussions of ‘capital punishment’, it’s another contemporary novelty promoted by the gatekeepers of an institution that is supposed to be timeless. And, no, the Church has contributed nothing in recent years at all illuminating on the subject of immigration in the realm of positive understandings or moral understandings.
    JPII on CP? The moral principle he contributed is that the attempt to deliver justice that is not informed by mercy will lead to injustice. Here is an article by a friend of mine about CP.
    As for immigration, the moral principle that the Church continues to contribute is that all policy must keep in mind the dignity of the immigrant and that family matters. And that ordered freedom of movement should be available to all, except those who have forfeited their freedom by some criminal act or are a health risk. That’s not saying the Church has come up with any great policy proposals.

    Reply
  37. Art Deco

    And that ordered freedom of movement should be available to all, except those who have forfeited their freedom by some criminal act or are a health risk.
    The moral principle he contributed is that the attempt to deliver justice that is not informed by mercy will lead to injustice.
    As stated, these are perfect butterknives for adjudicating contemporary conflicts.
    I should note that in this country in a typical year, state courts will dispose of 60 or 70 cases wherein the defendant is found to have killed at least three people en bloc or ad seriatim. With regard to how many of these does the papal nuncio or the local ordinary advise the state governor in question that justice calls for an execution? With regard to how many do these Church officials stand down and not comment? What does mercy mean when you’re looking at the likes of Steven Judy?
    Since I know AD is just trying to pick a fight,
    No you don’t know that.

    Reply
  38. Art Deco

    The idea that the Pope is not an economist, or that he only needs listening to when he speaks on faith and morals (not economics), is fairly widespread there, apparently. He was at a dinner party recently with a number of faculty and students and he found himself the sole defender of Laudato Si.
    Except that the Pope is not an economist and has a habit of speaking in the sort of tropes you find in a certain sort of opinion journalism. Catholic social teaching needs to be in conversation with positive social research, but the Pope hasn’t a clue who to ask. It’s not as if Catholic social teaching does not need elaboration and clarification. It’s just that Francis is about the last one you’d expect to be able to manage that.

    Reply
  39. Art Deco

    I’ll repeat the point I made earlier: there’s no allegation here of heresy or formal theological dissent among the people Janet was talking about.
    The statement does not make any sense unless that is what she is alleging.

    Reply
  40. Art Deco

    It isn’t reasonable to assume that these Catholics are immune to the pro-GOP rhetoric of these sources.
    No one ‘assumed’ that bar in your imagination. The question at hand would be to what extent Limbaugh or Hannity are at loggerheads with the Church in any systematic way. That question is difficult to answer definitively because common and garden starboard discourse tends to concern the speaker’s aversions and its rather rum to suggest someone’s a dissenter for complaining about a particular tax proposal or some new regulatory initiative from HUD or the EPA.

    Reply
  41. Art Deco

    so they end up aligning themselves with the rest of the agenda.
    With what are you not aligning yourself and how would such an alignment be in contravention of Church teaching?

    Reply
  42. Robert Gotcher

    I agree that CST requires elaboration, clarification, and to be attentive to hard data. I think a lot of Catholics I know take their cue on these things from the popular conservative media, which isn’t always careful about nuances, distinctions, or data.
    I’m not defending the pope’s competence, by the way. I have no idea whether he is competent or not. I don’t know whether AD is competent either, since I don’t know who he is or what his credentials are. I’m a theologian, so I look at things from that perspective, trying to be as precise about other sciences as I can. And open to correction, which I need fairly frequently. 🙂

    Reply
  43. Rob G

    “I agree that CST requires elaboration, clarification, and to be attentive to hard data.”
    I don’t think it’s the encyclical’s purpose to provide this, however, and to expect it to be in any way exhaustive is to be unrealistic. Whether Francis is “able to manage that” is neither here nor there, if the point of the encyclical was not so much elaboration and clarification, but introduction and presentation.
    “The question at hand would be to what extent Limbaugh or Hannity are at loggerheads with the Church in any systematic way.”
    Error does not have to be systematic to be pernicious and pervasive.

    Reply
  44. Mac

    I seem to recall reading that Hannity, who I believe is Catholic, has denounced the teaching on contraception in the same sort of terms as progressives. As for Limbaugh, who’s definitely not Catholic, I think he’s fairly typical of a sort of libertarian-ish secular conservative who’s simply not that interested in religion as such, and evaluates religious views mostly in terms of their fit with his political-cultural views. Or such was my impression years ago when I used to listen to him. At any rate Catholics ought to listen to them at least as skeptically as they (H & L) listen to the Church.

    Reply
  45. Rob G

    “I think he’s fairly typical of a sort of libertarian-ish secular conservative”
    Unfortunately there a lot of Christian conservatives who take most of their political and economic cues from exactly that sort of “conservatism.”

    Reply
  46. Robert Gotcher

    I don’t think it’s the encyclical’s purpose to provide this, however, and to expect it to be in any way exhaustive is to be unrealistic. Whether Francis is “able to manage that” is neither here nor there, if the point of the encyclical was not so much elaboration and clarification, but introduction and presentation.
    Well, yes. Any pope should also be circumspect when writing an encyclical not to sound like he is endorsing a particular economic policy or analysis. That was the problem with that USCCB pastoral letters on the economy in the 1980s. Having not read any of Pope Francis’s encyclicals, I can’t comment on whether he does that kind of thing.
    I profess to having an allergy to the long-winded enclycicals of the past few years.

    Reply
  47. Art Deco

    I agree that CST requires elaboration, clarification, and to be attentive to hard data.
    Not my precise point. Reading Rerum Novarum, one is left with the impression that the social relations the Pope has in mind would be an ecclesiastical economy wherein people live on stipends unrelated to productivity or a master-journeyman-appreentice formation, wherein one’s employees are members of one’s household. Neither commonly obtained in 1891 or today, so the discussion of such things as wages will leave the reader perplexed.

    Reply
  48. Rob G

    http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2015/08/laudato-si-and-the-feverish-summer/
    This is pretty good, and echoes a Montgomery quote I used the other day, the one about the self either “recognizing its own existence in the recognition of God or rejecting its own existence in the refusal of God – and thus lapsing into absurdity.”
    Either you see the self and the Creation as gifts, or you end up with the violent and pernicious absurdity of Obergefell and P.P.

    Reply
  49. Janet

    Like this bit:
    But you and all the kind of Christ
    Are ignorant and brave,
    And you have wars you hardly win
    And souls you hardly save.
    I tell you naught for your comfort,
    Yea, naught for your desire,
    Save that the sky grows darker yet
    And the sea rises higher.
    Night shall be thrice night over you,
    And heaven an iron cope.
    Do you have joy without a cause,
    Yea, faith without a hope?
    AMDG

    Reply
  50. Janet

    Whoops. Wrong place.
    AMDG

    Reply
  51. Mac

    That is a great bit.

    Reply
  52. Louise

    Yes, that’s one of my favourites for sure!

    Reply
  53. Mac

    Good FPR piece, Rob. I’ve been reading Guardini’s End of the Modern World and the connections which have been remarked between him and Francis are obvious. I say that even though I still haven’t read Laudato Si. I ordered it weeks ago–guess I should check on it.

    Reply
  54. Rob G

    Yes, I thought so too. I like that Snell fellow. His FPR pieces are generally quite good.
    I’ve got the Guardini sitting out, ready to read. But I want to read Laudato Si again, as the first time I pretty much just skimmed through it, stopping here and there when something caught my attention.

    Reply
  55. Mac

    My copy of LS arrived yesterday, not long after I griped that it had not. Got to decide now whether I want to try to work it in alongside another book or postpone it.

    Reply

Leave a reply to Louise Cancel reply

Instagram / TikTok / X

Designed with WordPress