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# 5
Bard's 'History Plays' Scholars' Joy
PAGE 13 — The Georgia Bulletin, June 7,1990
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, THE HISTORY PLAYS,
Henry Holt and Company, Inc. (New York, 1990) 448 pp.,
$39.95.
REVIEWED BY BROTHER JOHN ALBERT, OCSO
Imagine a Trappist abbot and an archbishop conniving
with a governor to murder the President pi the United
States. Or consider the Holy Father sending bombers to
destroy revolutionaries in Central America. Add money,
romantic intrigue and pageantry. Move everything back
four or five centuries and you have entered the mind of
William Shakespeare (1574-1616).
After the Bible, no literary creation has so absorbed the
imagination of English speaking peoples than the writings
of this poet, actor, dramatist, husband and father. Claimed
by both the Church of England and the Church of Rome,
Shakespeare was rediscovered by the early 19th century
Romantic poets.
Keats took him as great “Presider.” Newman, winning
Lamb’s The Tales of Shakespeare as first school prize,
found in him the loftiest expressions of the human soul and
his finest prose instructor.
Oscar Wilde perpetuated his legend in The Portrait of Mr.
W.H. In our own times. Bob Dylan encounters Shakespeare
in the alleyways of “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Mem
phis Blues Again,” a catalogue of contemporary social con
fusion.
Now, the texts of King John, Richard II, Henry IV (1 & 2),
Henry V, Henry VI (1-2-3), Richard III and Henry VIII have
been republished in a single volume by Henry Holt and
Company. Unlike the copiously annotated Rowse edition
(Greenwich House reprint 1988) and the critical text ac
cording to conjectured composition and performance
edited by Wells (Oxford University Press 1987), The
History Plays is truly a “reader’s” edition.
The text is that of Peter Alexander (Collins 1951), unen
cumbered by verse enumeration, textual glosses or foot
notes. The arrangement is by historical sequence. David
Fordham and Neil Adams have provided hundreds of
period portraits, devices of heraldry, maps, drawings and
illuminated manuscripts whose captions serve as narrative
guides.
Printed in Portugal on high quality coated stock, its
signatures sewn and bound in maroon buckram casing with
red and gold headbands and gold stamping on spine and
cover, plus glossy illustrated dust-jacket, this is a serious
child’s dream book and a scholar’s delight.
Shakespeare used Holinshed’s Chronicles, existing plays,
and events of his day as material for his dramas, which are
really historical fiction. Places and events are changed to
intensify his stories. We meet King John, poisoned by a
Cistercian monk of Swineshead Abbey and Falstaff, "that
trunk of humour.” We watch wanton Prince Harry realize
his manhood on the bloodied field of Agincourt and equal
any Romeo in his wooing of Princess Katherine of France.
Then there’s Joan of Arc, “holy prophetess new risen up,”
and many other known figures speaking in Elizabethan
verse.
Shakespeare has always had much to tell us about the
human struggle, the conflict of nations, God. King John
declares: "But as I traveled hither through the land,/I find
the people strangely fantasied:/Possess’d with rumours,
full of idle dreams,/Not knowing what they fear, but full of
fear ... (Act 4 Scene 2).
His brittle glory shattered in betrayal. King Richard II
cries out before his death: “Nor I, nor any man that but
man is,/with nothing shall be pleas’d till he be eas’d/With
being nothing.” (Act 5 Scene 5)
This book is an investment in our own truth.
* .* .i
Engraving by Martin Droeshout.
Brother John Albert, OCSO, is librarian at the Monastery
in Conyers. Under the title, “Portraits in Rhyme,’’ a se
quence of five of his sonnets appeared in the June issue of
Emmanuel Magazine, published by the Congregation of the
Blessed Sacrament.
A Useful Study Of Fundamentalism
am
NEW BOOKS
BY RICHARD PHILBRICK
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Here is a list of books of par
ticular interest to Catholic readers.
“Faith in a Wintry Season,” by Father Karl Rahner,
Crossroad, $22.95, 207 pp. Subtitled “Conversations and in
terviews with Karl Rahner in the last years of his life,” this
volume is a sequel to “Karl Rahner in Dialogue” and in
cludes interviews given by the famed theologian in his final
two years.
“Mentoring: The Ministry of Spiritual Kinship,” by Ed
ward Sellner, Ave Maria Press, $5.95, 166 pp. How Chris
tians can help one another on life’s way by achieving a
deeper appreciation of what it means to be a spiritual
friend.
“Healing the Ache of Alienation,” by Jesuit Father David
J. Hassel, Paulist Press, $9.95, 183 pp. Prayer in the midst
of anger, despair and ill health.
FUNDAMENTALISM: A CATHOLIC PERSPECTIVE
by Thomas F. O’Meara, O.P., 1990 Paulist Press (103 pp.,
paper $5.95.
REVIEWED BY FATHER DONALD R. CARON
The “Bible Belt” has a strong and well-deserved reputa
tion as the heartland of American Biblical fundamentalism,
which is often antagonistic toward Catholicism. O’Meara
makes his reader aware that this is only one of a number of
fundamentalisms, all of which are irreconcilable with
Catholic ideals and understandings.
Fundamentalism, as O’Meara defines it, “offers simple
answers to complex problems.” It “springs not so much
from prayer and biblical study as from psychological
needs. It is a response to uncertainty and change.
In a chapter, O’Meara sketches the psychological profile
that gives rise to fundamentalism, inside as well as outside
the Catholic church. He cites the drive for certitude in an
age of anxiety as a primary factor. People seek to cling to
something unchanging, whether that is an interpretation of
the scriptures, the message of a visionary, or the authority
of church officials.
Frequently, in organized fundamentalist groups, the
special insight, the interpretation of scripture, the authori
ty of a single leader (as seen especially in the television
evangelists) becomes the central focus of belief and devo
tion. This insight creates a sense of isolation from others
who do not accept it; hence, fundamentalism is elitist. Fun
damentalism fears change, therefore vehicles of change,
for example the Second Vatican Council, are suspect and
despised. They are labeled anti-Christian or anti-Catholic
or anti-Christ.
Fundamentalism is characterized by "three unhealthy
deformities of religion: elitism, fetishism, compulsion.”
The elitism of fundamentalism begins with the sense of
separation already mentioned, and goes on to suggest that
“I am better than you,” or, all those who do not believe as
we do are damned. “Fetishism invests some thing (a book,
a medal, a religious phrase) with a divine presence and
power too strong and too certain. A no vena prayer, “Jesus
is Lord,” even the exact words of scripture can be seen to
have this power. "Compulsion is the active side of a fetish:
a relentless God demands that this or that action be
done...”
O’Meara says, “Catholicism is the opposite of fundamen
talism.” He characterizes a living church as growing and
changing, and cites Richard McBrien, Raymond Brown,
and even novelist Flannery O’Connor as critics of a stag
nant fundamentalism.
This is a book that would prove useful especially as a
study in parish adult education programs. I did find the ear
ly chapters difficult to follow, as O’Meara cited
characteristics of fundamentalism and Catholic responses
without clearly differentiating between the two. This will
require that a reader be very careful.
Father Caron is parochial vicar at All Saints in Dun-
woody.
Greeley Sniping Undermines His Sociological Input
THE CATHOLIC MYTH: THE BEHAVIOR AND
BELIEFS OF AMERICAN CATHOLICS, by Father An
drew M. Greeley, Charles Scribner’s Sons (New York, 1990)
309 pp., $21.95.
REVIEWED BY SISTER MARY ANN WALSH
Catholic News Service
U.S. Catholics are angry with church leaders but stick
with the church because their faith has a poetic hold on
them. Being Catholic makes them feel good. It puts them in
touch with the warm embrace of a loving God, tender
mother Mary and comforting rituals.
It’s all part of their “sacramental imagination,” says
Father Andrew Greeley in “The Catholic Myth: The
Behavior and Beliefs of American Catholics.”
Here, as a sociologist, Father Greeley defines people ac
cording to how they see God. Catholics picture God more as
mother, lover, friend and spouse than as father, judge, king
and master, he says. The view has such a pervasive in
fluence that it affects how they vote.
“It is difficult to find a single issue in American politics
on which Catholics are not leaning :n the liberal direction,”
says the priest.
Yet Catholics still are seen as the blue-collar vote read
intolerant, uneducated, opposed to change), a mistake,
especially for politicians, he says. He estimates that a
quarter of the people in the United States are Catholics —
well-educated, financially sound, broad-minded ones.
Catholics generally agree with the Democratic Party
platform, but the party does not see this and ignores them.
The mistake has cost Democrats all the presidential elec
tions after Lyndon Johnson’s, except Jimmy Carter’s, says
Father Greeley. And even Carter would not have won if his
opponent, Gerald Ford, had not pardoned Richard Nixon,
the priest says.
Father Greeley draws other provocative conclusions in
this work, which is based on his 30 years of sociological
studies. Whether the conclusions are justified or not only
his fellow sociologists can properly say. The rest of us can
just ponder his remarks.
He declares, for example, that the church’s financial
crisis is due to Catholic alienation from church leaders who
sound irrelevant. He repeats what he has said for the last
30-plus years — that the church suffered a severe blow in
confidence with the issuance of “Humanae Vitae,” the en
cyclical banning artificial birth control. He also says that
Catholics are dissatisfied with the quality of the preaching
they hear in church and faults parish life, which, he notes,
is the Catholic Church for most Catholics.
They react not by leaving the church but by sending a
message through their wallets.
Father Greeley has other pungent positions.
He continues to support Catholic schools and chides social
activists for not doing more for them. However, he is
scathing in his criticism of Catholic colleges, which are
"resigned to a permanent condition of inferiority,” he says.
He slams church evangelization programs, stating that
“the so-called evangelization movement is a farce if not an
outright fraud.”
Unfortunately, as in previous books, he continues to
almost smear people he disagrees with. Father Greeley, a
priest of the Chicago Archdiocese, as usual has a special
sling for his own archbishop, Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin
of Chicago.
This time Father Greeley takes his cheap shot as he
quotes Cardinal Bernardin at an airport bar calling
“Humanae Vitae” “that goddamn encyclical.” The car
dinal denies making the remark, Father Greeley tells us.
The cute writer’s game — quote something outrageous and
then agree to let the one cited deny the comment — would
be laughable if the priest were 14 years old.
However, he’s over 60, and the sniping is getting to be
scandalous. It’s amazing that a man of his ability can so
undermine his work that way. It keeps some serious people
from taking him seriously.
Sister Walsh is media editor of Catholic News Service.
