A Cautionary Tale: Augustine, Aquinas, and Anne Rice

Less than five years ago author Anne Rice, most famous for her vampire novels, was named "Literary Convert of the Year" by National Catholic Register. She went on to write two books about the childhood of Jesus, both of them acclaimed quite widely by Catholics such as Peter Kreeft and others. Sadly, as you might already know, she has now renounced Christianity, writing the following on her Facebook page (ht: First Thoughts @ First Things):

For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten ...years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else. ...

As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I'm out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of ...Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen. ...

And, most recently:

My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.

Sad, yes, but not surprising. In fact, I think that anyone who is surprised by this has not been paying attention to what Rice has said over the past five years or so. Back in January 2006, an article in The Baltimore Sun reported the following about Rice:

Her views will not please all of the devout. Rice favors gay marriage. She believes the church position regarding birth control is a grievous error that is not supported by Scripture. She repudiates what she sees as intolerant, "sex-obsessed" church leaders and says she does not find support in the message of Jesus for their focus on sexual orientation or abortion. She argues for a more inclusive church.

"Think of how the church bells would ring and the pews would fill if women could become priests and priests could marry. It would be the great resurgence of the Catholic Church in this country," Rice said recently, seated in front of a roaring fire, in the La Jolla, Calif., mansion she moved to after she left New Orleans.

I wrote the following back then:

Some Christians are using rather grand language to speak of Rice's conversion. The Sun reports that Christian columnist David Kuo, "a former aide to President Bush who was the deputy director of the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives", says: "This is a conversion story on the level of Augustine. Anne Rice was a daughter of darkness." And the National Catholic Register (which I write for on a regular basis) named her as "Literary Convert of the Year" in its January 1-7, 2006 edition. The Register notes that Rice's conversion is still ongoing, and quotes Archbishop Philip Hannan, retired archbishop of New Orleans, as saying, "She is somebody who needs a little bit of maturity. There are already a lot of people in the Church already who think that way. We don't give up on them."

It's a point well taken and — believe it or not — I'm not interested in bashing Rice or questioning her faith. And since I've not read her novel, I have nothing to say of it. But Archbishop Hannan's remarks have a flip side: those in the Church who agree with Rice may see the acceptance as an affirmation of their dissident views about key issues (which is not to say, again, that Rice is not sincere in her return to the Church). And Rice's seemingly foggy understanding of how important issues of life are ("She repudiates what she sees as intolerant, 'sex-obsessed' church leaders and says she does not find support in the message of Jesus for their focus on sexual orientation or abortion") and how they are part of a cohesive theological/moral fabric is disconcerting, to say the least.

There was at least one huge difference between Augustine of Hippo and Anne Rice: when he became Catholic, he fully submitted his heart and mind to all of the teachings of the Catholic Church: theological, moral, and otherwise. Recall that in his Confessions, Augustine recounts how prior to converting he struggled deeply with the "disease of lust", uttering the famous prayer: "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet" (Confessions, Bk. VIII, vii). He later makes the observation that

as I deliberated about serving my Lord God (Jer. 30:9) which I had long been disposed to do, the self which willed to serve was identical with the self which was unwilling. It was I. I was neither wholly willing nor wholly unwilling. So I was in conflict with myself and was dissociated from myself. Yet this was not a manifestation of the nature of an alien mind but the punishment suffered in my own mind. And so it was 'not I' that brought this about 'but sin which dwelt in me' (Rom. 7:17, 20), sin resulting from the punishment of a more freely chosen sin, because I was a son of Adam. (Bk. VIII, x).

He then admits, "Vain trifles and the triviality of the empty-headed, my old love, held me back. ... I hesitated to detach myself, to be rid of them, to make the leap to where I was being called." It doesn't matter that Augustine struggled with lust and pride and Rice has taken issue with Church teaching regarding homosexuality (her son, apparently, is homosexual), women's ordination, and contraception. The issue for both, as it is for all of us, is submission to the authority of the Church established by Jesus Christ, regardless of the particular issue or issues at hand. For Augustine, submission to the Church was submission to Christ; entrance into the Church was entrance in to the life of Christ: "The effect of your converting me to yourself," Augustine writes, "was that I did not now seek a wife and had no ambition for success in the world. I stood firm upon that rule of faith on which many years before you had revealed me to her" (Bk. VIII, xii; see Bk. III, xi).

Which brings us to St. Thomas Aquinas and a particular statement he makes in the Summa Theologica about the theological virtue of faith. It is made in response to the question, "Whether a man who disbelieves one article of faith, can have lifeless faith in the other articles?" (II-II, q. 5, a. 3). St. Thomas writes:

I answer that, Neither living nor lifeless faith remains in a heretic who disbelieves one article of faith.

The reason of this is that the species of every habit depends on the formal aspect of the object, without which the species of the habit cannot remain. Now the formal object of faith is the First Truth, as manifested in Holy Writ and the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth. Consequently whoever does not adhere, as to an infallible and Divine rule, to the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth manifested in Holy Writ, has not the habit of faith, but holds that which is of faith otherwise than by faith. Even so, it is evident that a man whose mind holds a conclusion without knowing how it is proved, has not scientific knowledge, but merely an opinion about it. Now it is manifest that he who adheres to the teaching of the Church, as to an infallible rule, assents to whatever the Church teaches; otherwise, if, of the things taught by the Church, he holds what he chooses to hold, and rejects what he chooses to reject, he no longer adheres to the teaching of the Church as to an infallible rule, but to his own will. Hence it is evident that a heretic who obstinately disbelieves one article of faith, is not prepared to follow the teaching of the Church in all things; but if he is not obstinate, he is no longer in heresy but only in error. Therefore it is clear that such a heretic with regard to one article has no faith in the other articles, but only a kind of opinion in accordance with his own will.

Put simply, anyone who is Catholic and who obstinately rejects and disbelieves one article of faith does not have faith regarding what he accepts, but holds it merely as an opinion. (Note the important, specific qualifiers!)

Faith, in other words, is of a whole cloth, virtue of faith is total, as Fr. Thomas Dubay explains in his book, Faith and Certitude (Ignatius Press, 1985). Fr. Dubay notes how an accommodation to secularism can erode and eat away at one's faith, eventually destroying it: "We are told in this eroding dilution of the gospel that it is sincerity that matters, not a rigid clinging to doctrines. Morality is reduced to 'not hurting others', and Christianity itself becomes nothing more than a vague adherence to Jesus without our finding out exactly who he is." This erosion is almost always evident, in our day and age (but also, obviously, in Augustine's time), in the realm of moral theology and teaching, as it is in the case of Rice.

Rice states she is no longer a Christian: "I quit being a Christian." She should have been more specific, for she has actually (without saying so directly) renounced the Catholic Church, Catholic teaching, and the authority of the Church. She says that "following Christ does not mean following His followers," which is quite contrary to what Jesus taught:

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." (Matt. 28:18-20)

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. (Matt. 16:18)

Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. (Matt. 18:18-19).

Rice has, in essence, taken up a sort of secularized, liberal Protestantism that attempts—almost Marcion-like—to extract a Jesus from the dust and difficulty and reality of history and turn him into a private guru who is "freed" from and separated from the humanity he embraced, the Church he founded, and the authority he granted to mere mortals. Rice claims her faith is in Christ, but it is a Christ made in her likeness and image: politically correct and socially trendy, anti-Church, disdainful of authority, with an open hostility toward traditional morality.

Whoever her Christ is, he is not the Christ embraced, at last, by St. Augustine, nor seen, near the end, by St. Thomas; he is not the Christ who said:

"I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." (Jn. 17:20-21)

Say a prayer to Sts. Augustine and Aquinas for Anne Rice, that she might be restored to faith and communion.

• "Revert" Anne Rice: Pro "gay marriage," pro women's ordination, and pro contraceptive. What gives? (Jan. 3, 2006)
• The Source of Certitude | Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M. | Epilogue to Faith and Certitude

Comments

[Sawyer]

Yes, consistent with the analysis offered by the Angelic Doctor, I have often thought that there are indeed a number of Catholics who do not realize that they do not have the theological virtue of faith; they do not have Catholic faith. Why are so many of them in catechetics?

[Aisanchez]

Well I think too many Christians want God to be in their own image, hence all the "in-fighting". But as Dr Peter Kreeft says, If God loves His Church, He will prune its branches, and allow the dead wood to fall. Its unfortunate that Ms. Rice feels this way, but most Christians probably do want God in their own image so its not a shock. May God bless His Church and may He grant grace to those who walk in darkness.

[Mundabor]

The woman is confused in so many ways one doesn't even know where to start.
Firstly, Christ cannot be separated form Christianity. You can't say that you remain committed to Christ whilst not being part of Christianity and if you refuse to be part of Christianity, you are not committed to Christ.
Secondly, Christ has never said that Christians would not be quarrelsome, or lose credibility as Christians if they are. Only those who don't love don't quarrel. Besides, people with her ideas will obviously get the worst out of the saintliest people, it is no surprise she would perceive them as "quarrelsome" when they tell them she got it all wrong.
Thirdly, I'd like to hear from her how she thinks that she "got" Christ better than two thousand years of Christianity.
Fourthly, I'd like to know whether she has ever been introduced to the Church as the Body of Christ and where did she read that she can accept the Bridegroom, but refuse His Bride.
Fiftly, she is tragically unable to see that she is making her own god and shaping it at her own resemblance.
Sixthly, she cannot even understand how outrageously blasphemous her words are.

She needs our prayers, but she also needs to switch her brains on, sharpish.

M

[Dominic]

"Think of how the church bells would ring and the pews would fill if women could become priests and priests could marry. It would be the great resurgence of the Catholic Church in this country,"

A quick look at the many nearly-empty churches of the Church of England would strongly suggest otherwise.

[crazylikeknoxes]

At least she had the grace to leave.

[David K. Monroe]

This really isn't surprising. As you pointed out, she has always had heterodox opinions and never really embraced the whole of Catholic teaching. She simply fell in love with the person of Jesus, or perhaps rather the image of Jesus that she has inherited from the Church but carefully cultivated and pruned in her own mind. Since her conception can never agree with the Church, then she has to discard the Church rather than correct her own misunderstandings.

This is sad, and sadder still that this is another example of how Christians, especially in the media, fixate on celebrity converts and pump up their testimonies, not realizing that we have no idea where these "converts" are going to go or what shape their nascent faith is going to take. This seems far more common in the evangelical world, where I could name probably a dozen celebrities, mostly musicians, who have "accepted Jesus" or been "born again" and have turned out to be either heretics or simply have rejected the "missionary" role to which they aspired to at first. Of course, not every Christian need be a "missionary", but the point is that we tend to put new celebrity converts on a pedestal and expect that the erudition that made them famous and successful will somehow translate into a deep and fruitful spirituality, and one really has nothing to do with another.

But also, it must be pointed out that for Ann Rice, and for all of us, the story is ongoing; the end has yet to be revealed.

[M. Burns]

Re: "But following Christ does not mean following His followers." (In fifth paragraph from top.)

By Ms Rice following Ms Rice, she IS following His followers (inasmuch as she professes to follow Him)!

Actually, we MUST follow His chosen leaders, the Apostles and their legitimate successors (i.e., the bishops--including the Pope, bishop of Rome). For example:

God (Matthew 23:1-3) Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach."

St. John (1 John 4:6) We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

St. Paul (2 Thessalonians 2:15) So then brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.

St. Paul (1 Corinthians 11:2) I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I handed them on to you.

St. Paul (2 Timothy 1:13-14) Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

St. Paul (2 Timothy 2:2) and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well.

The early Church Fathers also affirm this in their writings.

[JP]

I must give her credit for admitting her realization publicly. She's given up following Christ and His Church to follower her'christ'.
It does all remind me of Abp Fulton Sheen's quote about people who think they hate the Church.

[Neil]

Good post Carl, and a far more thoughtful response than most of the comments about this story on another blog.

[joe]

"Convert of the Year" is a completely wrong-headed concept, as this especially illustrates. Too bad about Rice.

[Nancy]

Too many fail to recognize that our complementary nature as Male and Female is endowed to us from God, "Let Us Make Man In Our Image", and that it can be known through reasoning, that The Blessed Trinity exists within a complementary relationship of Perfect Love through the Unity of The Holy Spirit.(Filioque)

[Joe]

Anne Rice should be applauded. If only people with her views would realize and publicly state that they are not part of the Christian faithful we would have a more cohesive and effective church.

[Jon]

When I get frustrated with the *people* in church it helps me to remember that the treasure is in earthen vessels (2Cor 4:7), and that they are people just like me -- sinners in desparate need of God's grace.

[Tim H]

Mundabor said, "Secondly, Christ has never said that Christians would not be quarrelsome, or lose credibility as Christians if they are. Only those who don't love don't quarrel."

Mundabor, I have to call you on this.

Perhaps Christ never verbally stated that Christians would not be quarrelsome but to say that Christ somehow permits or accepts infighting and factionalism is simply not true. One of Christ's most fervent prayers to God the Father was for Christian unity. Christ stated that unity among Christians was a way to show the world that He and the Father are one.

"Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are." (John 17:11)

"...so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me." (John 17:21-23)

Unity of doctrine, a visible hierarchy under which all are united and to which all are loyal, and the abscense of quarrles among the Church's individuals was something for which Jesus prayed fervently and at length.

We absolutely loose credibility when we fight. Our unity is an outward sign to the world that Jusus is the incarnate Word of God and visible proof of the love of God. Even more than that, unity is one of the ways in which God brings us to perfection!

Ms. Rice is right to hate quarrels between Christains but her decision to abandon organized religion only adds to the problem as she sees it. The correct response would have been to unite herself to the Pope, embrace the magesterium of the Church, to try to understand why the Church teaches what it does and then live it.

The Holy Roman Catholic Church is not anti-anything except sin.

-Tim-

[Peter]

'Obedience (to the church) is the mother and guardian of virtue.'

St Augustine

[Richard G.]

God bless her and help her!

Let's not forget what Jesus said to the seventy-two disciples as He sent them out: "He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me" (Luke 10:16).

I've never really paid much attention to Anne Rice (not out of disrespect or anything, but simply because I'm not usually interested in these matters), but I'll pray for her. We are, after all, earthen vessels carrying a heavenly treasure so that the glory of God may be manifested. Jesus sat with the sinners. If she leaves the Church of sinners, to what will she turn? Jesus is found only in His Father's temple, calling out to "any man" that thirsts for living waters, inviting sinners to dinner. We have to bear with each other's faults, for Jesus said, "Love one another as I have loved you" (He loved us to the death) and "Love your neighbor as yourself," continuing, "On these two commandments depend the whole law and prophets." Not just love of God, but "these two," love of God AND love of neighbor, made in the image and likeness of the Creator.

If we leave the Church, we're without a mother, without a home, without Christ, who is the bridegroom of the Church. Lord, have mercy on us sinners.

[Brian J. Schuettler]

She said goodbye like a celebrity, she couldn't let it go. There is such a sadness to what she said. There was such pain. It must have been very difficult for her to enter such a narrow way. Submission in obedience and prayer for perseverance to the end. Augustine said it over and over again. Wheat or weed? Your identity is discoverable only at the end.

[Paul Rimmer]

Even though I agree with St. Thomas Aquinas, on the point of believing all that the Church teaches, I doubt I'd have the same list as him. I think everything necessary, everything certain, is in the Nicene Creed.

We live, or at least I live, with far more uncertainty than those bound to the Bishop of Rome. I'm not either where Anne Rice is, but I understand her well-deserved frustration with an institution that is, in my opinion, far over-defined.

[Brad Birzer]

Thanks very much for this, Carl. I've very sorry to read this, but I'm glad to know. I've never read anything by her, and the few scenes I've seen from the movies look deeply disturbing. Still, I saw her conversion (or reversion) as a bright spot in the amoral or immoral morass that is most of popular culture.

[John Hetman]

Golly!! Life is short and fame fleeting. Will it sell more books? Get her on "The View"?

Next celebrity, please, for their moment in the spotlight.

[Redfeather]

Anne's books, "Out of Egypt" and "The Road to Cana" are absolutely beautiful, thrilling and not at all at odds with Catholic orthodoxy, IMHO. She has written two beautiful books about the hidden life of Christ, his parents, cousins, friends and neighbors. It is a beautiful legacy she will have left, her vampire novels aside. I will keep her in my prayers, as she is now very confused and angry, probably because her surviving child (another died of cancer in early childhood) is a homosexual. She cannot understand the Church's proscribing his behavior. She clings also to the tired feminist ideology that demands women priests.

[Augustine]

If only the likes of Joan Chittister would follow her lead!

[Mary Ellen]

"I refuse to be anti-life." Really? I continue to be amazed that intelligent, gifted people can't feel empathy for a child in the womb. All secularists cloud the meaning of abortion in euphamistic language, but the truth is abortion is killing, and killing is death, thus "anti-life." And, exactly what kind of "creation" issues forth from gay marriage? Ann Rice has simply re-aligned with the culture of death. And, then there is the the culture of celebrity ... how, I long for some of these people to just quietly turn inward for a few years and work out their dark night of the soul issues without having to send out public relations announcements or blog postings.

[Luke]

I believe the author of this article has misinterpreted the passage quoted from the Summa, "Neither living nor lifeless faith remains in a heretic who disbelieves one article of faith." Aquinas would not have considered church teaching on the morality of homosexual marriage, for example, "an article of faith", which title rightly refers to the basic tenets of Christianity, such as the truth of Christ's resurrection. Were being in disagreement with any attitude or even explicit teaching of the Church throughout its history to be considered as disbelieving an "article of faith," even Augustine and Aquinas (and most certainly Dante) would have been unbelievers.

One may perhaps suggest that Ms. Rice would do well to try to better understand the wisdom of current Church teaching, or that she should not be so willing to give up on the rest of us. However, it strikes me as ironic that the author accuses Ms. Rice of "protestantism", for to claim that surrender to Christ and to the Church requires the complete surrender of all of one's intellectual and moral faculties and intuitions is to encroach upon the moral masochism of Luther.

[Carl E. Olson]

Even setting aside the issues of "same sex" marriage, homosexuality, and contraception, there is one article of faith that Rice is clearly rejecting, which is the nature, purpose, and authority of the Catholic Church. And, as the Catechism notes:

To believe that the Church is "holy" and "catholic," and that she is "one" and "apostolic" (as the Nicene Creed adds), is inseparable from belief in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (CCC, par. 750)

One may perhaps suggest that Ms. Rice would do well to try to better understand the wisdom of current Church teaching../

Perhaps? Well, yes, at a bare minimum, I would surely hope so! After all, she has flatly denounced Church teaching on a number of issues, and in doing so has rejected, at the very least, the ordinary magisterium of the Church (see CCC, 88-100, 890-892).

However, it strikes me as ironic that the author accuses Ms. Rice of "protestantism", for to claim that surrender to Christ and to the Church requires the complete surrender of all of one's intellectual and moral faculties and intuitions is to encroach upon the moral masochism of Luther.

You are either misrepresenting or misunderstanding what I wrote. If what you are saying is true, then the Catholic Church apparently adheres to the "moral masochism of Luther" (whatever that means):

Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and, in a particular way, to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a "definitive manner," they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals. To this ordinary teaching the faithful "are to adhere to it with religious assent" which, though distinct from the assent of faith, is nonetheless an extension of it. (CCC, par. 892)

The meaning of the comment about "secularized, liberal Protestantism" should be obvious. Rice has rejected the authority of the Catholic Church, publicly accepted teachings contrary to Catholic teaching and the natural law, and openly supported beliefs about sexuality, morality, and theology that are in keeping with secular humanism (which she openly praises), all of which is rather standard in the general world of liberal Protestantism. As a former Evangelical Protestant, I am well aware that many Protestants strongly disagree with Rice on many of those matters and agree with the Catholic Church. Hence the qualifiers.

[Luke]

Dear Mr. Olson,

Thank you for your response. If it was not your intention to suggest that theological faith in all Church teachings was requisite for the theological virtue of faith as Aquinas defined it, then I did indeed misunderstand your article (through my own fault, I believe). My apologies.

Your response mentions the necessity of adhering to the ordinary teaching of the Church with "obsequium religiosum", which, according to Donum Veritatis, is the third (below "theological faith" and "firm acceptance") in the hierarchy of levels of assent required of the faithful. Certainly Ms. Rice is not showing "religious assent" to many ordinary teachings of the church, and may not be displaying the "firm acceptance" of "definitively" propounded Church teachings such as the inherent evil of abortion (I do not know Ms. Rice's views on abortion). Yet the distinction between "theological faith" and "religious assent" needs to be maintained if we are not to entirely separate ourselves from the intellectual and moral compasses God has given us, and if we are not to close ourselves off from possible future developments of doctrine.

Finally, I cannot say what exactly Ms. Rice believes as to the "holiness" or "catholicity" of the Church--though it does indeed seem possible that she is not holding to it with theological faith. Nonetheless, it is always important to remember, when dealing with questions of assent and dissent, that the passage you cited from the Catechism (CCC 750) is actually only half of the article. The second half reads:

In the Apostles' Creed we profess "one Holy Church" (Credo . . . Ecclesiam), and not to believe in the Church, so as not to confuse God with his works and to attribute clearly to God's goodness all the gifts he has bestowed on his Church.

[Sawyer]

Am I alone in believing that the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts is an infallible teaching of the ordinary and universal Magisterium?

Anyone who thinks that the Church might "develop its doctrine" to consider homosexual acts neutral, or even good, is deluded.

The theological virtue of faith assents to what God has revealed to be true. The disorderedness of homosexual acts is revealed in Scripture and has been faithfully and constantly taught by the Church's ordinary and universal Magisterium. God has revealed the evil of homosexual acts, therefore faith assents to it. To obstinately and willfully deny that item of revealed truth, as Anne Rice has explicitly done, is to demonstrate that one lacks the theological virtue of faith in the sense in which Aquinas meant.

[Carl E. Olson]

You're far from alone, Sawyer, and your comment is spot on, as an examination of Lumen Gentium (pars. 12, 25), Veritatis Splendor (pars. 65-84), and the Catechism (par. 888-893) makes evident. I'm also puzzled by Luke's remark re: "development of doctrine". The Church's magisterial teaching about homosexual acts, contraception, the ordination of women, and related matters is clear and will not be changed; any development of doctrine re: those issues will involve a deepened understanding, not an acceptance, say, of "same sex marriage", contraception, or women's ordination.

In addition, the Church has dogmatically defined (Trent, 24th session) the nature of the sacrament of marriage, which Rice rejects by advocating "same sex marriage". I can understand giving Rice the benefit of the doubt, but there is no doubt about where she stands on these issues, so I'm not sure why Luke is trying to parse where parsing is nigh impossible.

[Manuel G. Daugherty Razetto]

The exacting directives needed to follow our Faith are not for the faint at heart. The path to salvation is not without pain and worries. I'd illustrate it thus, if Martin Luther, exemplary model of a good monk aiming at pleasing his God, could not obtain fulfilment after years of trying, unlike many, desisted by opting the much easier way of self interpretation; how can we grant any respect for a soul that has chosen the facile choice, the wrong choice as Rice has done.

I find it quite arrogant and frivolous to see how she boasts her faulty preference; her contradictions, mistaken statements, one observes, denote how poorly has she understood our Doctrine.

I agree with the penetrating opinion given to us by Carl in which Rice pronounces a self tailored belief of what Jesus taught.

[LJ]

As a convert myself, I can say that the learning curve to becoming Catholic is quite steep, deceptively so. And though it may level off some, to my surprise and joy it never ends.

Therefore, as others have mentioned, thank God for the gift of faith. It is the first thing that the priest says in the confessional, and in the beginning I thought it was simply just a part of the official form of the rite. It is that, but it is so much more and so fundamentally essential to all that we believe.

It is also what gets one through the intellectual hard times and confusion. It is also what carried me through in the beginning when I could not understand and had difficulty accepting doctrines I had been indoctrinated to thoroughly and vehemently reject.

Did Anne Rice have the gift of faith and reject it? Did she never have it? Only God knows. There is still hope for her, as some have pointed out. This rejection of the faith may be just one step on the way to her eventual salvation. We know that the Holy Spirit has not given up on her, whether or not she has given up.

I am glad that she has publicly stated her mind, because she is a public person. And she does have the integrity to realize that she cannot hold the beliefs she does in opposition to the faith and carry on the pretense of being Catholic in faith and practice. Would that others with like beliefs had the same integrity. But Anne Rice is not runnning for political office and doesn't see the need to fool anyone.

A cautionary tale indeed Carl. In a self-centred world the "obedience of faith" is a truly alien concept. Some of us still have the remnants of the Evangelical quick and easy conversion mentality we left behind and many in the Catholic Church have been influenced by it in the dominant religious culture. The fast-food fast-fix thinking of the wider culture as well lends its weight and the cult of celebrity is almost irresistible. So we tend to rush forward to acclaim the conversion of those with high profile.

I've even heard the expression that so-and-so would be a good "catch" for the Church. My instincts and fault lie in the other direction. I have trouble bending the knee to anyone, let alone a celebrity, so that kind of talk always makes me cringe. And that is also why I understand what a hurdle it is to submit to the authority of the Church. While I vehemently reject the culture of death ideology that has entrapped Anne Rice, I can sympathize with her struggle. It is only faith that can overcome it, until such time as the Holy Spirit enlightens her mind. If she truly loves Jesus Christ, and she says she does, that will be the thread of life, of faith, that can bring her back home.

I pray that it will be so.

[James R. Johnson]

The best comment yet made by Augustine: "If only the likes of Joan Chittister would follow her lead" Amen!!! Chittister is a true cancer within the Church and should be cut out.

[Virginia L. Connor]

I know very some liberal Catholics, but they haven't given up being Christian just because they disagree with the Church. To say I'm disappointed-but not surprised-would be an understatement. I should've known better than to have believed she'd give up her atheism, and I told friends about her conversion; now I'm going to look ridiculous (to them) now that she's renounced her faith. Maybe she should've joined the Episcopal Church so she could keep her liberal beliefs and not felt threatened. I'm not Roman, but Anglican, Catholic-I grew up as a Lutheran,but the Ch. grew to be too liberal so I joined the Anglican Ch. in the late '70's-and as much as I love the Roman Catholic Ch., I find that sometimes it's even too liberal for me. But my father didn't quit the Lutheran Ch.;he was outspoken and converted some to his conservative beliefs-I wish he's lived long enough to visit the Ch. My mother joined with me before she too died 11 yrs.ago. Still, I'll pray for Anne that she'll see the light and never stray again. I never read her vampire books-no interest in vampires anyway-but I did like her CHRIST books and ANGEL TIME. She should pray and thank God she survived her diabetic coma though. I pray and thank God I'm alive everyday.

[Virginia L. Connor]

Who is Joan Chittister? Would it have been better-or easier-if Anne Rice never converted in the first place? Everyone has their disappointments-whether at home,work, school,or in their Church. I left the Lutheran Church because it had gotten too liberal for my tastes and the Episcopal Ch.wasn't too different(as is any Ch.in the NCC);the other reason was that I didn't feel accepted in the Ch.because I was regarded as "retarded" despite the fact that I was going to college then. I transferred to another college and when my dad died in '84, transferred to GSU and graduated in '87 with a BA.No longer could those folks say that any "retard"(not my word)could graduate from college! I believe God helped me all along and if he disappoints me, I can't say I won't ever give up my life for HIM,but I doubt it as long as I have family and friends that support me, especially those at my Church.

[abby schult]

Anne Rice's temptation to leave I believe came through her homosexual son. She left her Church for him, to reassure him that his 'choice' to act out homosexually is ok. May God have mercy on her. The emptiness of that choice will haunt her always.

[Mundabor]

Tim,
I didn't say that Jesus calls us to indulge in factionalism.

What I say is that:

1) we are imperfect. Whatever we do, we do in an imperfect manner. Ms. Rice should know that. I don't think she is better, either.

2) If you are Christian, you are going to be quarrelsome, because your faith requires you to contrast the secular mentality. We are bound to quarrel with fake Christians, with abortionists, with feminists, with homosexualists, with communists, and the like. To refuse doing it is to be accessory in their sins. I am rather sure this is the kind of "quarrels" she refers to as you can't go around with your own brand of Christianity without getting a lot of flak from Christians.

M

[Paul Adams]

How right Pope Benedict, then Cardinal Ratzinger, was back in the 1980s when he responded to his interviewer's question (The Ratzinger Report, p.45) that the key to the crisis in the Church is in ecclesiology. "My impression is that the authentically Catholic meaning of the reality 'Church' is tacitly disappearing, without being expressly rejected. Many no longer believe that what is at issue is a reality willed by the Lord himself."

I admired the works of Anne Rice's Catholic period, but a glance at her Facebook page, with tens of thousands of followers, shows that she always used that site more to attack the Church than to evangelize for it. And whenever she brought up a topic on which Church teaching is settled and clear, but on which she continued to hold heretical views, she elicited a flood of vehemently anti-Catholic posts from her followers.

It seems that sometimes celebrities--Tony Blair appears to be another example--join or return to the Church more in the hope of bringing her round to their way of seeing things than to submit to her teaching, especially where that teaching conflicts with liberal-secularist orthodoxy.

(I discuss the phenomenon of "anti-Catholic Catholics" on my blog at http://ethicsculture.blogspot.com)

Thanks for this helpful essay.

[S Henning]

I listened to Anne Rice talk about her conversion on Focus on the Family with James Dobson. I had my doubts then so I am not surprised that she is now renouncing what she never truely surrendered to in the first place. I think that the comments posted about this article are just as articulate and well-said as the article itself and I recommend it to everyone to read.
In the words of Ray Comfort: Anne Rice has broken the second commandment: She has created a god to suit herself.
Why? Because she never followed the first commandment: love the Lord your God with all your heart mind and soul. Jesus said if you love Him you'll keep his commandments. Rice claims to love Christ but she refuses to obey him. Well, I'm being redundant. Other posters have already said it so well.

[Bob Mahaffy]

Ever since Anne Rice's bombshell landed, church reactions, RCC and Protestant Evangelical have mirrored what any intelligent observer could have predicted, a circling of the wagons, a wrapping round of the robes of righteous indignation. Nary a word of the possible truth underlying her reasons.Right off her person was attacked.
Is she the problem, or does the church need to do some serious introspection? Could there be some truth in her recorded rationale?
C'mon now, at least consider what she said. This is taking on a life of its own -- better catch before it does some real damage.

[David]

I couldn't even finish reading this column, Anne Rice is nothing in comparison to St. Augustine.
We need to stop looking at these celebrity conversions as if they were really that serious, people are different. Flippant, and as Archbishop Hannan has described psychologically immature people like Anne Rice need to be left alone even after their conversion to see how they fare. There is a challenge for every Christian in the faith, that is the faith, we all are tested, Anne Rice is not special. Besides the fact she ought to have considered her positions on these matters before she committed, like the man in Luke 14:30 who started to build but could not finish. I am appalled by the fact that people like Anne Rice condemns the Church's teachings according to their own decree's and desires. The Church is not "anti" anything, these positions like homosexuality are the ones that are against God's law and natural law, never let these confused, indulgent and selfish people decided things from their on subjective values and turn the Truth upside down as the "anti".

[Manuel G. Daugherty Razetto]

" A. Price is not special"; "Rice needs to be left alone".

I believe we are lingering on with Ann Rice's case not because of her but because she has awaken interest about a theme of the utmost relevance: Christ and the Church; it goes to the core of our innermost understanding of who is our God. The depth of such challenge is ours to study, for no Catholic in good standing and comprehension can feel neutral about it.

Comparing her to St. Augustine is as bad as comparing Rap with Bach.

[Ardell Fitzgerald]

A blogger mentioned Joan Chittister. Joan Chittister is a Catholic nun who has been a prophetic voice in the church. I am reading her profound commentary on the Rule of St Benedict and she is a deeply spiritual woman. She has received the prestigious Thomas Merton award for her work in the church. What is it about name calling that makes everyone feel so good?

[william]

We listen to a woman who tryed to lead this country down a very dark path....profited greatly writing about evil and polluting the mind of the filth she wrote,i use to think she had a conversion,now are sales up miss rice?
Remember we all must atone for everything we do aqnd say..some look for the fires of hell