Today I’m looking at a selection of books from the “Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism,” edited by Henri Daniel-Rops. This series came off the presses in the late 1950s and early 1960s, just before…that council…you know the one I’m talking about. The one that ushered in all the doubting and changing and forgetting and (sadly) leaving. I found all these at an estate sale. Most are solidly orthodox, but some reveal the deviations fast approaching in full measure after the council steamrollered the Faith.
Yes. There is a devil and he hates each and every one of us: Who Is the Devil? by “Nicolas Corte” [Msgr. Leon Cristiani] (NY: Hawthorn, 1958, hc, 1958 imprimatur, #21 in the series). “If you ask a theologian the question which forms the subject of this book: who is Satan? he will doubtless answer: Satan is the commander-in-chief of the fallen angels” (7). Well, maybe in the earlier part of the 20th century; now? Maybe not. At least Pope Francis speaks as if the devil is real.
That council (you know the one I mean) has a document referring to the Holy Eucharist as “the source and summit,” etc. etc. Surveys over the past decades show belief in the real presence or any good understanding at all about the Eucharist in decline. What Is the Eucharist? by Marie-Joseph Nicolas, O.P. (NY: Hawthorn, 1960, hc, 1960 imprimatur, #52 in the series) is an antidote to that confusion. “By studying the Eucharist we shall therefore approach the totality of the Christian mystery, that is, all that the Christian believes, the life which he is to live, the power which supports and nourishes him in this life and, at the same time, the act of his religion, namely, the worship which he offers God” (8).
George Harrison (a lapsed Catholic) sang: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” Heresy is an idea not much in fashion these days. Heresies and Heretics by Msgr. Leon Cristiani (NY: Hawthorn, 1959, hc, 1959 imprimatur, #136 in series) shows how heresy reflects human free will and has forced the Church to seek theological precision on issues through the centuries. Cristiani ends the book with an examination of ecumenism and heresy. “The Catholic Church has thus no difficulty in closely combining the passionate desire for Christian unity and the certainty that this unity is only possible in the unity of faith, communion and government that she has always preserved through nineteen centuries” (140). Post-conciliar ecumenists sing a different tune, alas.
(Fr.) Georges Tavard’s Protestantism (NY: Hawthorn, 1959, hc, 1959 Cdl. Spellman imprimatur, #137 in series) unfortunately seems to take a less hardline stance against the biggest heresy. “Therefore the ‘Catholic’ movements in Protestantism must be welcomed, not as the beginnings of a pilgrimage towards Rome (which they may be, but are not always), but as signs that our Lord and the Holy Spirit are at work among our separated brethren, sanctifying them in the mysterious ways of divine lovingkindness” (135). In the 60+ years since Tavard wrote this, the decline and destruction of Protestantism has only accelerated, with only a few exceptions such as the Anglicans who have joined themselves to Rome through the Ordinariates.
One reason we are the current crisis is confusion over marriage, an institution hated by the devil and derided by secularists. Christian Marriage by Jean De Fabregues (NY: Hawthorn, 1959, hc, 1959 imprimatur, #54 in series) does not shy away from providing traditional answers about marriage and related topics. Fabreuges starts right away with references to encyclicals by Popes Leo XIII, Pius XI and Pius XII. He later reaches back to Pius VI who asserted (in the face of revolutions in politics and morals) that only the Church can define and legislate marriage. And finally, “if the family is impaired man himself is impaired. And there is only one human law that has ever served the family—the Christian idea of marriage” (109).
Another fine work by Msgr. Cristiani is Why We Believe (NY: Hawthorn, 1959 second printing, hc, 1959 imprimatur, #107 in series). I opened this one at random and saw a reference to Teilhard De Chardin. It was enough to make me doubt the orthodoxy of this volume, but I was relieved to read this: “With him we are not dealing with a philosopher; nor is he a very trustworthy theologian” (109). But then my heart sank again when reading even further, when Msgr. Cristiani ambivalently refers to Teilhard as “a visionary, a man of bold theories, which have neither the precision of science, nor the prudence and sureness of the highest theology” (115). What was it about the French Jesuit that so beguiled so many for so long?! Most of the book is a conventional look at apologetics through the centuries.
Thus, by looking at some books, we can gain some familiarity with the tensions churning away below the surface in the Church leading up to the great disruption of the 1960s.