Posted by
Zentrist on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 4:02:15 AM
Former altar boy Chris Matthews is thinking about a memoir on the "gothic" aspects of his Catholic upbringing. One example he gave tonight, on Charlie Rose, was the apparently "gothic" memory of serving, as an altar boy, at the nearby institution (in PA) for the mentally ill. Another memory shooting out of his volcanic mind, tonight, was serving the funeral mass for a family or part of a family that met an untimely and tragic end. Well, this recovering alcoholic (and Matthews is one too) and recovering Catholic can relate! But Chris, did you ever tell your AA story in a mental institution? That is my "claim to fame." It also occurs to me just now that Matthews indeed "tells his story in a mental institution" every weeknight on Hardball. On balance, I think the influence he has on the mental health of America is a good one, albeit close--at times. (He interrupts his interlocutors far too often; hardball does not have to be THAT rude and obnoxious.)
And now I have yet another confession to make: I had to look up the word, "gothic." Sure enough, some of the half-dozen definitions resonate with the (current) gothic, as the KID IN BLACK. Funny, how the meanings of words evolve over time--even while retaining some of the original. Now, just in case Pope Benedict is reading this, and he could be, let me say this: I actually went to Confession on Saturday and really needed to; the last one was in October. So, I'm as clean as I can be; still VERY happily married, still sober (six years continuous, as of May 21), still using the means the Church gives us to sanctify ourselves even more. I've also taught myself Pope John Paul's "Theology of the Body," and I practice this teaching as a happily married man. Who would'v thunk it?
But I've digressed, as Catholics love to do, especially those born in the south. The gothic indeed has to do with things Catholic--in terms of the architecture in France in the late middle ages: the gothic cathedral, inside at least, is a stangely exalted and exotic place. One is lifted to the sky even as one gravitates, in church darkness, to the earth. Now, the dictionary I'm using is forty years old, which means it is excellent in terms of the etymologies given. But nevermind the root meanings of "gothic." Matthews could care less, and I could care less--at least right now. The words I'm after are these: rude, barbaric, bizarre; "attention to details"; grotesque.
Some of these words pretty much define certain aspects of certain Catholic experiences. One thinks of the Catholic southern writer, Flannery O'Conner--the so-called "grotesque" quality in her short story, her novel. One thinks of James Joyce's unforgettable description of Hell in "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." It would be good to just share some of that, someday, on these pages.
Irregularity and "the horrible." I had to look up those definitions one more time: the "gothic novel" is what we normally think of. I think of Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" for its "horrible" Heathcliffe, Heathcliff the Cruel. Again, the barbaric, the rude, the irregular and the horrible. Nowadays, Catholicism is, for better or for worse, slandered along these lines. No doubt Chris Matthews, a movie fanatic, is thinking about things Catholic in light of some recent and current movies, not to mention, say, "Rosemary's Baby." Grotesque is the word for that; "horrible" also fits nicely.
And it is true that members of Opus Dei are encouraged to mortify themselves with some kind of physical torment to offer up.
But all this so-called "gothic" is most assuredly a reduction, and a false one at that. To me, Catholicism is about Bill Buckley, on the one hand, and Pope Benedict, on the other. One former student of the pope described his fame in Germany as similar to William F. Buckley's fame, since the fifties, here in the States. The American, now passed on, a great man but not a saint; the German, still living, a great man and, in my opinion, a living saint.
After a dinner recently, a retired English professor, a convert, asked me if there wasn't maybe something "bipolar" about Catholicism. I surely hemmed and hawed on that one. There is something "bipolar" about being an American, be it Protestant, Catholic or Jew or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist--but especially the Christian religions! One is forever "manic" about heaven and the holy, forever "depressed" about "hell" and all the things we worry so needlessly about. Good luck to Chris Matthews, at all events, on his Remembrance of Things Past. And as for anyone thinking about aquiring one of the five or six major mental illnesses, let alone those already suffering beyond words...let those of us inclined to do so--say a few Catholic prayers. Or, just ad-lib with God.
p.s. Speaking of charlie rose, I'd like to compliment him and Christopher Buckley for the show of last week. All these shows, just about, are wonderful. But this one with Buckley was special, as special as Christopher Buckley. I, for one, plan to read Buckley's memoir of "Mum and Pup." And as for the balance of Rose's show tonight, I strongly recommend to just about anyone: Reynold Price's "Kate Vaiden." Based on this book alone, Price is indeed, as Rose called him to his face, "an American treasure."