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Ronald Knox as Apologist: Wit, Laughter and the Popish Creed by Fr. Milton Walsh, Ignatius Press, 2007. 248 pages.
My interest in the life and writing of Ronald Knox is owing to the story of his life which was written by his friend, Evelyn Waugh. Thus it was Waugh’s biography which, in a sense, encouraged me to read this book by Fr. Walsh, a priest in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
The book has three parts, the first of which is a cursory summary of Knox’s life in light of his apologetical work. It is this first section which I found the most disappointing: there is almost nothing in it, I felt, which couldn’t be had in a better form from Waugh’s biography. In fact, if one hadn’t read Waugh’s biography of Knox prior to reading Fr. Walsh’s book, I’m inclined to think that a person would wonder why the interest in Knox in the first place; what was so special about him? Waugh convinces us that Knox was little less than a genius from this early youth, whereas Walsh seems to take this for granted and hopes that his reader does as well.
Fr. Walsh completed his S.T.D. dissertation at the Gregorian University in 1985; it bears the same title as this book and, as I imagine, this book is a revision of that dissertation for popular publication. As best I can see from this book, Walsh’s primary contribution to the scholarship on Ronald Knox consists in the research he made on Knox’s unpublished papers, conferences, and sermons. In Ronald Knox as Apologist Walsh gives us several of these previously unpublished, short pieces in illustration of various facets of Knox’s apologetical work. They are all interesting, though on the whole, I wouldn’t say that neither their number (which is 5, of a few pages each) nor their theological or literary value would justify, on their own, the purchase of this book.
One reason I find the figure of Knox interesting is because neither traditionalists nor conservative Novus Ordinarians nor liberals have made him their own. Of the three groups, perhaps the Novus Ordinarians are closest to having the most interest in him. (I’m speaking very speculatively.) But one thing the traditionalist reader will notice in Walsh’s book is an almost apologetic attitude towards Knox’s apologies of the Catholic Church. Knox wasn’t a Feeneyite, but neither was he a loosey-goosey, “we’re all Christian brothers and sisters” kind of theological thinker. I had the sense, though maybe I was reading too much into it, that Walsh felt the need to explain, albeit subtly, to his assessors at the Gregorian that he himself did not avow Knox’s sometimes “harsh”, pre-Vatican II theology of the Church.
For example: “For Orthodox and Protestant Christians, ‘undivided Christendom is a memory in the past, a figment in the present, a dream of the future; not a living reality as it is for us’ (Knox’s The Belief of Catholics, p. 119). It would be difficult to find a clearer articulation of the Roman Catholic understanding of unity as it was envisioned in the first half of the twentieth century.”
Why the qualification, Walsh? The Catholic Church has always understood herself to be one and indivisible; she didn’t just hit on that idea during the first half of the 20th century and then drop it like a hot potato during the Second Vatican Council.
Despite these occasional “sensitivities”, Walsh’s book should not, I think, make the traditionalist uncomfortable. I can recommend the book as a brief survey of Knox’s life and as providing a sampler of Knox’s literary abilities.
Perhaps the part I liked best about the book were the verses from which Walsh takes the title. They were written by a friend of Knox’s, one Gilbert Keith Chesterton:
Mary of Holyrood may smile indeed,
Knowing what grim historic shade it shocks
To see wit, laughter and the Popish creed
Cluster and sparkle in the name of Knox.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
“Knox wasn’t a Feen(e)yite” I should say not. Here is Knox’s obituary, courtesy of St. Benedict Center. (When Oxford gets snubbed, remember that Fr. Feeney studied there, too.)
http://www.catholicism.org/problem-knox.html
TP, I’m intrigued by that obituary. It’s the first wholly negative critique of Ronald Knox that I’ve read. If we restrict ourselves for the moment to considering Knox in light of his thinking about EENS, I imagine that I detect a certain diffidence in Knox on this point. Not because he was a secret heretic, but because of a life long struggle to account for those who hadn’t followed him into the Church. His Anglican friends or the heretics about whom he writes in Enthusiasm were many of them very good men; humanly speaking, at least, it’s hard to think that their end is none other than hell. Even Newman - I hope the St. Benedict Center doesn’t have a dislike for him, too - said of Origen that he “refused to believe that so great a soul was lost”.
It’s unfair to Knox, I think, to say that he was in league with the Masons and their Jewish progenitors. As the book I reviewed illustrates, Knox spent his whole life (post conversion) engaged in Catholic apologetics in one form or another. Read his The Belief of Catholics: while he gives a good deal of room to invincible ignorance, he is solidly orthodox. To be sure, he doesn’t take Fr. Feeney’s line, but then to be orthodox, one need not.
I enjoy Knox’s writings for many of the reasons which the article from the St. Benedict Center dislikes him: he’s clever, witty, and very well-spoken. You can tell he’s a subtle thinker, sympathetic to his opponent. That’s not everyone’s style, of course, but I imagine that it did a deal of good in the society and place where he lived.
I don’t know what to say about his Bible - I’ve never read it. In any case, it’s a dead point: it was never adopted (fully) and most people today have never heard of it. It’s not even in print.
Finally, even if it were true that Knox was a Masonic collaborator, it’s no less true (so it seems to me) that his writing has been ignored by the folks today whom you’d think (judging by his putative Masonic leanings) should be most enamored of him, namely today’s liberal Catholics. And, as I tried to explain in my review, I felt as though I could sense Walsh apologizing to his assessors at the Greg for having an interest in and for writing about such a hard-nosed, pre-Vatican II, EENS kind of Catholic writer. (I mean, whether Walsh was apologizing to the guys at the Greg, I don’t know, but he was certainly “apologizing” to his present readers: (e.g.) this is how they talked pre-Vatican II, this is how they viewed the unity of the Church pre-Vatican II, etc.
Thanks, Iosephus, very interesting. I’m a big fan of Knox and I take it as a very positive thing that anyone should be writing about Knox at all, even if the book’s not great. Even Belloc and Chesterton have had a very tough time being noticed or read since the Council, for the same reason: it’s downright embarassing to recall that our recent predecessors in the Faith held the views they held.
The obit. is indeed interesting. Knox was constantly engaged with liberalism, it drove him out of the Anglican Church; his autobiography is fascinating on that point (’A Spiritual Aeneid’). In his fair-minded way, however, I think that he made as much concession to it as seemed reasonable. So he stresses the limitations on papal authority, the role of the human author of the scriptures, and so on. I’m interested to see that list of liberal-sounding remarks, but it could easily be balanced by anti-liberal ones. One of my favourites is his refusal to baptise an infant using the vernacular: ‘The baby doesn’t understand English, and the Devil understands Latin.’
Your remarks remind me of something from the Spiritual Aeneid which Walsh does mention: that it was, in part, his anti-modernist zeal which drove Knox from Anglicanism into the Church and, once there, Knox found himself rather more zealous against the modernists than many of his new co-religionists.
“Even Newman - I hope the St. Benedict Center doesn’t have a dislike for him, too - said of Origen that he “refused to believe that so great a soul was lost”.”
The St. Benedict Center has a two-part critique of Newman’s Development of Doctrine written by Orestes Brownson in 1846 on their website:
http://www.catholicism.org/brownson-newman1.html
http://www.catholicism.org/brownson-newman2.html
Here’s an excerpt:
“The book before us [Newman's "Development of Christian Doctrine"] appears to have been designed to indicate, to some extent, the process by which its gifted author passed in his own mind from Anglicanism to Catholicity, and to remove the principal objections to the Catholic Church, which he himself had raised in his previous publications. As the production of a strong, active, acute, and cultivated mind, enriched with various but not always well digested erudition, brought up in the bosom of heresy and schism, nurtured with false learning, false philosophy, vague and empty theories, gradually, under divine grace, working its way to the truth which gleams from afar, but which the intervening darkness renders fitful and uncertain; it is a work of more than ordinary interest, and one which the enlightened and philosophic few, fond of psychological researches, and of tracing the operations of sectarian or individual idiosyncrasies, may read perhaps with profit. A Protestant, ignorant, as Protestants usually are, of Catholicity, may even fancy the work substantially Catholic, and regard its theory as a convenient one for the church, and one which she may, without prejudice to any of her claims, if not accept, at least tolerate. It is evident, from the first page of the work, that the author has made up his mind; that he is writing under the full conviction that he must seek admission into the Roman Catholic communion; and that, in his judgment, the theory he is putting forth in justification of the step he has resolved to take is, to say the least, perfectly compatible with Catholic authority and infallibility. He frankly accepts, and in some instances elaborately defends, the principal dogmas and usages of the Catholic Church, and especially those which are in general the most offensive to Protestants; and so little suspicion has he of the unsoundness of his work, so orthodox does he hold it, that he does not scruple, even after his conversion, to publish it to the world. And yet we presume he himself is now prepared to concede, that, when he was writing this book, he was still in the bonds of Protestantism; that he had not as yet set his foot on Catholic ground; that he had not crossed the Jordan, had not even surveyed the promised land from the top of Mount Pisgah, and that he knew it only by vague rumor and uncertain report. All, to his vision, is dim and confused. He stumbles at every step and stammers at every word. He puts forth a giant’s strength, but only to wrestle with phantoms; and gives us learned and elaborate theories to explain facts which he himself shows are no facts, — ingenious and subtle speculations, where all that is needed, or is admissible, is a plain yes or no. From first to last, he labors with a genius, a talent, a learning, a sincerity, an earnestness, which no one can refuse to admire, to develop Protestantism into Catholicity. Vain effort! As well attempt to develop the poisonous sumach into the cedar of Lebanon.”
Ouch.
Well . . . ummmm . . . if we’re not allowed to have Newman, I’m not sure whom we’re allowed to have. Brad, did you post that excerpt because you’re sympathetic to the view or because it serves as a kind of reductio against the St. Benedict Center?
I have nothing against Orestes Brownson; indeed, I have some predilection to like him - but I feel like we see the pot calling the kettle black. No one followed a more wacky serious of conversions, philosophical and theological, than did Brownson, up until the time he became Catholic. If we are to suspect anyone of having views that were nourished in the wrong soil, it’s Brownson, and not Newman.
Brownson is writing in 1846 - he himself had just become a Catholic as well as Newman. Maybe Brownson and certain others were suspicious of such a prominent Anglican figure entering the Church of Rome. They could have feared that Newman’s great mind would have a tendency to soften the Church’s attitude to protestants and Anglicans.
Pius IX was elected in 1846 on, if I may, a liberal platform. Perhaps Brownson, with the zeal of a convert, felt threatened ideas and attitudes in the air which weren’t to his liking because they seemed to threaten the Church.
In the case of both Newman and Knox, I just don’t find it plausible that they came on board in order to subvert the Church from within. They were both extremely smart men and knew the Church Fathers and the history of the Church in a way that, I’m fairly confident, Brownson did not. They knew what it meant to become a Catholic: to accept the authority of Rome and everything that follows from that. If their conversions had happened today, I could kinda believe that they would want to be Catholic only in name and dress, but protestant in spirit. But not then; they knew what they were about.
Another note: it’s not just the Development of Doctrine which was written on the eve, as it were, of Newman’s conversion. Also many or all of his previously published sermons, written while an Anglican, Newman had republished later on after his conversion. I don’t imagine that the St. Benedict Center would like that very much either. But tough, that’s life, he was a genius and he had good things to say, even before he became a Catholic.
I’m not at all sympathetic to the criticism. I quoted that passage in part because it was so over-the-top. I love Cardinal Newman and I enjoy reading his sermons from his Anglican days. Reading his works were a big help on my path to conversion. I’m not sure how much the St. Benedict Center identifies with Brownson’s criticisms of Newman, but to the extent that they do, so much the worse for them.
No one said “we’re not allowed to have Newman.” The folks at St. Benedict Center are fans of Brownson, yes. I don’t know what their particular stand on the content of Brownson’s criticism is. But it is useful to recall that a prominent Catholic writer — and Brownson was most certainly that — could and in fact did object to Newman’s theory of the development of doctrine. Many people seem to think that without Newman’s particular contribution the Church would be wanting for a rational account of how a dogma gets defined. How many people even know that anyone *ever* objected to Newman? Yet Cardinal Wiseman, as I understand it, tried to keep Newman from becoming a Cardinal. Will our esteem for Newman be worse because we are made aware of the fact that he raised controversy among even his fellow Catholics? Mustn’t we recall that St. Thomas was controversial in his time as well?
Brad C. does not present the actual criticism of Newman, but only the rhetorical build-up to it. I hope everyone takes the time to read Brownson’s entire critique before saying “Wow, Brownson’s a dork.” Amongst the things he writes are, “We humbly and devoutly thank Almighty God that we were wrong; that we relied too little on the power of divine grace; and that, contrary to our expectations, Mr. Newman, and a large number of his friends, have already been permitted to enter that communion, out of which it is madness to suppose we can please God, or secure the salvation of our souls.”
Incidentally, some of Brownson’s most Papist sounding speeches about Catholicity were written while he was still a Unitarian-or-something-or-other. And even after converting, as I understand it, he subscribed to some of the ideas of Fr. Hecker. I think he later recanted. Hecker’s disciples were the ones who later created the heresy of Americanism.
And I don’t think that anyone claimed that either Knox or Newman entered the Church to subvert it. The obituary about Knox stated that he was dealing in indifferentism. Indifferentism is what makes Catholicism palatable and susceptible to infidels — I don’t think that the author of the piece was positing that Knox himself was in some Illuminati conspiracy of Learned Elders. Just that he wasn’t of much use against the rising tide of indifferentism. If and when Msgr. Knox comes up for beatification and/or canonization someone will have to sift through the statements catalogued by the author of the “Point” article.
About that catalogue, Joseph Shaw wrote: “I’m interested to see that list of liberal-sounding remarks, but it could easily be balanced by anti-liberal ones.” The author’s point is that there should not have been any liberal-sounding ones. Now, to be fair, some of the criticisms in “The Point” aren’t all that fair. Yes, we get merits (the equivalents of indulgences) for helping old ladies. But, *if I am to believe what the obit says* (I’ve never read Knox’s stuff, so I can’t make any judgment from my own experience), some of Knox’s stuff really is objectionable.
Or think of Belloc and Chesterton. Both men hated — and I mean *hated* — capitalism. Some libertarians say that both men were raging commies. Chesterton seems to have thought that WWI was an entirely righteous affair undertaken to destroy the unrighteous Prussian tyrant. Most traditionalist Catholics today view WWI as an all-around tragedy that resulted in the lamentable defeat of the Hapsburg Empire.
Furthermore, I regard the “liberal” assignment of inculpable ignorance (I object to calling ignorance “invincible” — Christ the Incarnate Wisdom, not ignorance, is “invictus”) as the root of much heterodoxy and heresy today. If you don’t want the secular government to practice affirmative action, you shouldn’t want the celestial government to practice it either. Knox rejected Anglicanism because it was too liberal. Excellent! Now, I ask, for I really don’t know, did he hold it against his Anglican friends that they did not follow him? (Reportedly Tolkien always held it against C.S. Lewis that he stayed protestant — good for Tolkien, and so much the worse for Lewis.) If Anglicanism is so corrupt that one should leave, then that rule holds equally true of one’s neighbor as of oneself (”love thy neigbor as thyself” and all that). If God can make it clear to Knox why he should leave, then he can make it equally clear to Knox’s Anglican friends and relatives, etc. Hopefully, he did hold them to their obligation to become Catholics.
“His Anglican friends or the heretics about whom he writes in Enthusiasm were many of them very good men” How good is very good? Apparently not so good as to recognize the voice of the Divine Shepherd (”those who here you hear Me; I know mine and mine know Me”). Hamlet says that he is “indifferent honest” yet he could not find time to plot all the sins he wished to commit. In other words, he was a pretty good guy, relatively speaking, and still a pretty sinful guy. I myself have been a fairly good person *by human standards,* yet I have lived much of my life in mortal sin. So much for human standards! Look, if Tertullian was such as to enter Heaven, as Newman says, then we know by that fact that he was such as to reject his schism. And I like to think that Newman was right — which would mean that Tertullian repented unbeknownst to us. Cardinal O’Connor said something similar of Fr. Feeney, whose early writings he admired, that it was only a matter of time before his quarrel with the Holy Office got resolved. And so it was.
“Indifferentism is what makes Catholicism palatable and susceptible to infidels” And, so I don’t have my errors catalogued some day for others’ edification, I meant that indifferentism is what seeks to make a phony “catholicism” palatable, etc. Real Catholicism never can be so corrupted.
There is yet another problem with saying that such-and-such a heretic is a “very good man.” First, to get to heaven we need to be supernaturally good. To be supernaturally good we need grace. To have grace we need faith. Will God sit on his haunches and let a faithful, morally just adopted son of His go to the wrong church? After dying on the Cross and justifying this soul, will He not provide access to the Blessed Eucharist and Confession and Truth with a capital T? Some Anglicans followed Newman into the Church, some didn’t. After saying that grace was operating in the lives of the converts, shall we deny that sin was at work in the lives of those who did not? Obviously, we don’t know who actually *gets* to hell, but we still need to know which roads lead there. And roads that don’t lead to Rome lead to Hell.
It seems Father Feeney had something to say of Cardinal Newman in a book he wrote named “London is a Place.” Here is some of it.
“The more you read Newman, the less you remember what he says. He is an author whom it is impossible to quote. What you recall, after you have finished reading him, is never what the clarity of his style was revealing, but some small, unwarranted queerness that it was almost concealing….
“You remember Newman was shocked that Catholics were giving Protestants the grounds for declaring that “the honor of Our Lady is dearer to Catholics than the conversion of England,” as though anything else could be the childlike truth. You remember that Newman particularly disliked the Marian writings of St. Alfonso Liguori, a Doctor of the Universal Church, and said of these writings, “They are suitable for Italy, but they are not suitable for England.” You remember that, with regard to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Newman insisted, in scholarly fashion, that “her case is essentially the same as St. John the Baptist, save for a difference of six months” — which is precisely the difference this dogma demands. You remember that though Newman was in favor of Papal Infallibility, he was not in favor of its being infallibly defined by the Pope.
http://www.fatherfeeney.org/other/london/london5.html
I also recall that Fr. Feeney described Newman’s prose style as being as clear as the water in a fishbowl . . . only with no fish in it. If you read the critique, Feeney faults Newman, among other reasons, for disdaining the overstatement. So shouldn’t we expect some intentional overstatement in Feeney’s observations? If you read Feeney’s critique of Chesterton, I half wonder if the subject would not have had a laugh at it himself.
F. faults Newman for his disdain for St. Alphonsus’ Marian writings. Brownson too found traditional devotional writings too “bathetic” for his Anglo-Saxon constitution. He would have agreed with Newman on that score.
If we seek saints’ criticisms of one another, consider the fact that St. Jerome called St. Ambrose “that old crow” . . . So writers can give each other a good knock without thereby incurring the title of “crank.”
But I go on. If I wished to distract so much attention from the matter of Msgr. Knox, perhaps I should have started my own post.
I spoke too soon. Since I volunteered the obit, here is Fr. Feeney’s own assessment of Msgr. Knox, whom he had met (thank you, Discipule, for the link):
“And now for two or three more clouds coming down on London from the north, and then I am through with London clouds.”
“Monsignor Ronald Knox is the son of an Anglican bishop and the brother of an Anglican minister. He severed his own connections with Anglicanism so as to acquire the central assurances and valid orders of Rome. His change of religious allegiance was managed without any apparent ruffling of his relatives, and he entered the Church, pipe in hand. That pipe he has not since put down, not even in photographs. Nor has he put aside any of his former canniness and nimble ability to amuse. Chesterton paid him a compliment for this in a quatrain:
“Mary of Holyrood must smile indeed,
Knowing what grim, historic shade it shocks,
To see wit, laughter and the Popish creed
Cluster and sparkle in the name of Knox.”
“One day, in a room full of beer fumes and tobacco smoke, a young university student said to Monsignor Knox, ‘Ronnie! What is a good definition of an egotist?’
‘An egotist,’ Monsignor Knox replied, puffing away at his pipe, ‘is one who won’t let you talk about yourself.’”
“Monsignor Knox is famous for such witticisms. And here is a specimen of his spiritual wisdom.”
“Life, says Monsignor Knox — by way of proposing a parable — may be compared to an examination we all must take in order to get into Heaven. The saints are taking this examination for honors, the rest of us for pass degrees. And God will be glad to pass all of us, provided we do not disturb the saints while they are taking their examinations.”
“This Knoxian version of ‘The Laborers in the Vineyard’ might be called ‘The Loafers in the Classroom.’”
“Ronald Knox is a great one for knowing the boundaries of things, both in behavior and in thought. And he has a shrewd way of keeping the apostle and the apologete in a priest distinct. One is in doubt at times as to whether he wants England to come back to the Church, or the Church to come back to England. I once heard him say, when he was the Catholic chaplain at Oxford, that his purpose there was not to make conversions, but only to minister to those who already had the Faith. His own reasons for becoming a Catholic — his previous wide reading and proficiency in the humanities, his spiritual indebtedness to Virgil’s Æneid — most of the students were familiar with, thanks to his many books and articles on the subject. Some of the students, however, thought Monsignor Knox’s logic too tactful to be innocently true, and they felt that if he stopped his affirmative arguments for a moment, and polished up his negative premises, he might easily win on the other side.”
“Monsignor Knox, by way of revising the bad English of the Church he entered, recently loaned it his vocabulary, and issued an edition of Holy Scripture known as “The Knox Bible.” In this Bible, Ronald Knox figuratively puts wristwatches on all the Evangelists, and invites them to dinner in a don’s refectory, where, in the midst of revelation and refreshment, they may be colloquially introduced, and may receive academic credit for being the excellent and inspired authors they are.”
“Monsignor Knox has also lately written a doctrinal divertissement, a light piece, known as The Mass in Slow Motion. In it we learn, among other things, the reason why the priest turns round at the Offertory to say the Orate Fratres. It is to wake up the altar boys who have been sleeping while his back was turned. There being now no Chesterton to add a quatrain to this incident, I should like to add one of my own.”
“Mary of Holyrood must weep indeed
Knowing what immemorial saints it shocks,
To see Mass measured at a movie speed
And offered to Hollywood in the name of Knox.”
“At Oxford, in England, when I visited it, Monsignor Knox was first among the Roman Catholic intellectuals. . . .”
Mind you, St. Benedict Center started as a sort of study group for Catholics at Harvard University. I have no doubt that part of the reason they were persecuted by Cardinal Cushing was that the young aristocratic WASPs of Harvard were converting in large numbers thanks to St. Benedict Center. So you can see why Fr. Feeney would target Msgr. Knox’s priorities at Oxford. (Likewise, St. Benedict Center was founded as a group of enthusiastic Catholics by a woman, Catherine Goddard Clarke. That may also help explain the particular critique of Knox’s point about the perils of enthusiastic groups and women.)
And before anyone says anything, http://www.fatherfeeney.org is not affiliated in any way with any of the St. Benedict Centers. I don’t even think that it’s owned by Catholics, and at least the New Hampshire group has an official disclaimer against it.
The Paulists here in New York have been pushing the canonization of Fr. Hecker more vocally lately… something that seems rather unlikely under the present Pontiff.
For the record, it’s worth mentioning that Knox was instrumental in many conversions, including the stunning one of Arnold Lunn, only a couple of years after Lunn had taken the ‘anti-’ side in a debate with Knox.
I missed commenting sooner due to a computer crash and my eldest son’s wedding. There is now too much to comment upon but I offer a general reply.
It was in response to the very articles quoted above and posted on the St Benedict Center’s website that I founded The Ronald Knox Society. It was my intention to offer facts about Knox to counteract such slurs against his reputation. As I’ve mentioned before, ‘London is a Place’ is probably the most mean-spirited book I have ever read, and the St Benedict Center seems to be attepting to keep that spirit alive.
My interest and love for Knox dates back 26 yrs to my conversion. My father-in-law - a Newman fan of serious depth and devotion (Michael Davies dedicated his book on Newman to him) - led me immediately in Knox’s direction knowing my Anglican roots and love of the English language. Since then I have read just about everything he ever wrote which can be got by hook or by crook and Knox has never disappointed. He was, among many other things, one of the masters of English prose in the 20th century (a fact attested to by Waugh himself). Make no mistake, Knox was a man of tremendous depth, intelligence & humility. Anyone who wishes to find out a bit more about him is welcome to visit my website at http://www.ronaldknoxsociety.com
Fr Walsh is a dear friend thanks to the internet & Ronald Knox. Whether his book is enjoyed , or not, (the market for Knox’s works, and Newman’s, is very small) he has made a big step in reviving interest in Knox. Why Knox is so neglected is beyond me: he is emminently readable, always addresses his audience with care for its particular circumstances, has a profound knowledge & understanding of Sacred Scripture, in addition to being a master of the analogy.
As far as Knox’s Anglican friends are concerned (in brief response to TP): in fact several of his Oxford friends entered the Church before him - on the eve of WW1 - and many entered afterwards. It is silly to think that just because he didn’t take Frank Sheed’s approach (or Fr Feeney’s, for that matter) to conversion that he was uninterested in it. Here’s a quick quote from my introduction to Knox as apologist on the website:
Ronald Knox was first and last an apologist for the Faith although his techniques varied extensively over the course of a lifetime. His early works are combative, satirical, ruthlessly logical. His later works are characterized more by his charity and humility. Robert Speaight comments on the transition: “He had used the weapon of laughter in addressing himself to people who could no longer laugh, and the weapon of reason in talking to people who could no longer think and the weapon of knowledge in informing people who were indifferent to fact.” When assessing his approach to conversion one must take the time & place in which he lived & worked into consideration and not transpose a modern (not used in a perjorative sense) mind to his.
Long story short: I seem to have missed most of this discussion but if anyone has any particular questions about Knox to ask I would be more than happy to try to field them.
BTW, I’ve often heard people complain that Waugh’s biography is unreadable due to the language/culture gap between the English & Americans. Fr Walsh is writing for a modern Catholic audience, which might explain why those who have a better grounding in the Faith (and the English language) than the norm find it lite going.
Vicki, I think we’re all glad that you did found that website. I have made use of it on a number of occasions. And thank you for your comments here.
I hope it came through in my original post that I was only disappointed with Fr. Walsh’s book in as much as it obscured or didn’t have time to cover aspects of Knox’s life which had first excited me. That’s not Walsh’s fault. Oh, well, and there’s also this point about Walsh’s tip-toeing language in places, which hinted at post VII theological outlooks.
At any rate, I myself am very happy to say: Floreat Ronaldus!
I guess I will venture this further comment, taking a tack from TP’s comment about enthusiastic women: it’s entirely possible that Knox is dismissed by liberals & trads alike as both these groups have enthusiastic tendencies. And they’re both looking for spokemen. But Knox was the apostle of balance in the spiritual life. I can’t imagine what he’d make of the state of affairs in the Church today!
And … congrats to Clara! May you see your children’s children!
Thanks, Iosephus. I think you would really enjoy Penelope Fitzgerald’s book ‘The Knox Brothers’, which is readily available second-hand thru Amazon, as she covers a lot of biographical ground ignored by Waugh. They were a fascinating family; and the book is well written.
Many thanks, Vicki! And congratulations also for the marriage of your son!
Thanks, Iosephus. I think you would really enjoy Penelope Fitzgerald’s book ‘The Knox Brothers’, which is readily available second-hand thru Amazon, as she covers a lot of biographical ground ignored by Waugh.
Indeed, after reading Fr. Walsh’s book in which he often quoted from The Knox Brothers, I purchased it and I’m looking forward to reading it.
Cool!
Here is Walsh, tiptoeing onto the Cornell blog re discussion of my recent book. I certainly would not even try to compete with Evelyn Waugh! The reason for my cursory intro was the experience of repeatedly receiving blank stares when I mentioned I was writing a book on Ronald Knox. He has all but disappeared from the scene - a state of affairs I want to redress. My hope is that my book might introduce him to a new generation, and encourage them to read more about him, and preferably more OF him.
Regarding apologetic tip-toeing, it is certainly true that the scene in the
early 1980s was either indifferent or hostile to the field. (In the Preface
to my dissertation, I noted that “Apologetics” appears in a standard
dictionary after the entry “Apollyon: the angel of hell.”) That being said,
it was my bishop, here on the left coast, that suggested I do my studies in
apologetics, and my director was most encouraging. If I seem to step away from some of RAK’s earlier positions, this is in part because he himself did so. (Not regarding dogma, of course, but manner.) He was not enthusiastic about “A Spiritual Aeneid” being republished, and his Preface “After 33 years” is interesting in this regard. (It appears in the 1950 and later editions.) His pamphlet “Proving God”, to which I refer frequently in my book, also reflects Knox’s desire to approach apologetics differently.
The other reason for my stepping away is that the understanding of the Church herself regarding other Christians communions has changed somewhat in the past 50 years. I don’t know what Knox would have made of Vatican II, but he tended to be a middle-of-the-road Catholic and I don’t think he would have been as negatively affected as Waugh was.
By the way, there is an interesting incident related in Waugh’s letters: he met Fr Feeney in the 1950’s and was dismayed by Feeney’s very negative views of his good friend. Waugh describes Fr. Feeney speaking of Knox’s conferences to school girls (the “Slow Motion” books) as if the chaplain were reading “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” to these innocent girls. When asked if he had read much of Knox, Fr. Feeney responded to Waugh: “I don’t need to eat an egg to know it’s rotten!” It’s not often someone could out-curmudgeon Waugh.