A New Christian Republic of Letters

A New Christian Republic of Letters | Bradley J. Birzer | Ignatius Insight | February 8, 2010

Tom Hoopes has stirred up a lot of good web discussion with his recent article, "The Catholic Greatness Void" (Feb. 4, 2010), on the National Catholic Register blog. Certainly, Hoopes makes a number of profound points, and I'm glad he's optimistic in the end. And, of course, there's no doubt that the article is thought-provoking in many ways.

But, ultimately, I think he misunderstands what is truly needed for the future of the Catholic intellectual movement.

Born in the summer of love (1967), I never really trusted the baby boomers in my church, in my community, or even those who served as my immediate teachers—although folks such as Fr. Wilson Miscamble, Fr. Brian Stanley, Barbara Elliott, Mark Brumley, John Hittinger, and some others remain definite exceptions.

Okay, let me be very plain about this: I don't consider the so-called "greatest generation" to be in fact the greatest generation, in very large part, because I see their children, the baby boomers—divorced, purposeless, and promoters of gutless consumerism, mediocrity, and conformity. Frankly, how could the "greatest generation" be so great if they produced the radicals of the 1960s? But, this is all probably an unnecessary and self-indulgent aside, and, yes, I know I'm writing so grossly as to be absurd. But behind my madness, there's a fair point. What makes a generation great: what it's willing to do on the beaches of Normandy (itself, a profound act of western sacrifice) or how it raises its children and passes on the traditions it has inherited? The answer, of course, is a both/and, not an either/or.

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[Robert Miller]

"Born in the summer of love (1967), I never really trusted the baby boomers in my church, in my community, or even those who served as my immediate teachers—although folks such as Fr. Wilson Miscamble, Fr. Brian Stanley, Barbara Elliott, Mark Brumley, John Hittinger, and some others remain definite exceptions.

Okay, let me be very plain about this: I don't consider the so-called "greatest generation" to be in fact the greatest generation, in very large part, because I see their children, the baby boomers—divorced, purposeless, and promoters of gutless consumerism, mediocrity, and conformity. Frankly, how could the "greatest generation" be so great if they produced the radicals of the 1960s? But, this is all probably an unnecessary and self-indulgent aside, and, yes, I know I'm writing so grossly as to be absurd. But behind my madness, there's a fair point. What makes a generation great: what it's willing to do on the beaches of Normandy (itself, a profound act of western sacrifice) or how it raises its children and passes on the traditions it has inherited? The answer, of course, is a both/and, not an either/or."

This is really good. The boomers are a huge problem for society generally -- and especially for the Church. By virtue of their upbringing, they should be devout traditionalists, but they have been subverted by the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s. Even the (very few) priests and Religious among their numbers are largely complicit in this deceit.

I don't blame the "greatest generation" so much as Birzer does. The boomers, after all, had Pope Pius XII, the Latin Mass and neighborhoods full of Catholic kids. They rejected all that -- not because their parents led them astray, but because they willed "change". They (we) are a generation of narcissists -- we were too "privileged" and "sheltered" from reality.

Now the boomers' main cause is making their children and grandchildren pay higher taxes to support their pensions, and forcing young people to take health insurance to pay for their healthcare. (Got hope?)

Shame on us old b______s!

[Andrew Seeley]

I am on board with Brad's and Dawson's call for a Catholic Republic of Letters. I have often thought how much Mozart, great genius though he was, was the culmination of a cultural movement. He imbibed what his predecessors had done, what his culture admired, and took it as far as it could go. Born in another time or place, Mozart would never have produced what he did.