A Catholic Renaissance

The Catholic Thing

By Randall Smith
I read an article recently by a professor who described how, years ago, she was expressing enthusiasm at an English Department meeting at her Jesuit university about a course on Catholic poetry that she had developed. She experienced some resistance. Finally, a senior member of the department "who seemed to be speaking for both himself and his skeptical colleagues" announced: "Someone is going to have to prove to me that this is a legitimate way to approach the study of literature." I heard a similar sentiment recently from a student at a Catholic university; she has an English professor who insisted that "Catholic literature" is not a useful category.
There are courses in Spanish poetry, French literature, Renaissance poetry, nineteenth-century literature, and ancient lesbian poetry. But a course on Catholic poetry or literature is beyond the pale? This wouldn't be evidence of anti-Catholic bigotry, would it?
Courses dealing with various influences on art and literature are ubiquitous. Why not the author's Catholic faith? Can Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dante's Commedia, Manzoni's The Betrothed, or Flannery O'Connor's short stories be understood if you ignore the authors' Catholic faith? Some people seem to believe that "art" and the Catholic faith are mutually exclusive - this despite the nearly endless numbers of works of great art, literature, and music inspired by the Catholic or Christian faith of the artist.
I had the privilege recently of attending a wonderful conference at the University of Notre Dame on "The Catholic Imagination" sponsored by the incomparable de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. My experience there solidified something I have been noticing for several years.
There is a renaissance in art, architecture, poetry, and literature in this country. Beautiful classical churches are being designed and built again rather than ugly shopping mall churches. Young people are studying the crafts of the classical arts of building, sculpture, and painting. Poets are writing in verse again, and people are inviting them to read their work. Composers are composing symphonic music of great beauty that appeals to general working-class audiences and not merely elites trying to show off their more sophisticated taste in "culture." Elementary and secondary schools are offering Latin and Greek again and teaching courses on the classics of Western literature.
And who's in the avant-garde of this counter-cultural "classical" revolution? Catholics. By this, I don't mean the Catholic Church or Catholic authorities. I mean Catholics - mostly laypeople, but also some priests - who have decided that truth, goodness, and beauty should have a prominent place again in our culture and in the education of our youth. For whatever reason, "classical" these days is almost always paired with "Catholic."
Where is classical architecture being taught? Catholic schools. Where can you get courses in writing like the great poets and fiction writers of the Western tradition? Well, I don't mean to brag about my own institution, but the best place for that would be in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. Where do you find growing numbers of young people learning polyphony and chant? In Catholic schools. Who commissioned and produced the first new classical ballet written in decades, Rafaella? A Catholic. And who wrote the classical score to accompany it? A Catholic. Catholics aren't the only ones involved, but they're often found suspiciously lurking about.
At a friend's house recently, the seven-year-old seated on the stool next to me suddenly asked: "Have you read the Iliad?" "Well, yes I have," I said. "Do you like stories with a lot of battles and warriors?" I asked, thinking I might encourage him to read it. "Oh yes," he told me eagerly. "Well, then, you might like the Iliad," I told him.
To my surprise, he had already read a version of it and recounted for me the entire story. "No o...