Last week, in the previous posting in this series, we
discussed the question of vocation or “calling” as it affected the satiric
fiction of Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson, author of Lord of the World (1907) — and (of course) the critical importance
of widespread capital ownership to empower people to be able to live their
vocations without being unduly constrained by the need to gain a subsistence
for themselves and their families.
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| Stupendously appalling |
Today we look at another aspect of Benson’s work, one that
surprises many of his latter-day fans, or those whose only acquaintance with
his fiction is through the stupendously appalling Lord of the World, or his stunning historical fiction (which we
won’t get too much into in this series).
That is, Benson’s remarkably positive attitude toward America and
Americans.
From a number of hints, it seems obvious that Benson appears to have considered Americans the hope of humanity in some fashion. This was a view in which both Pope Pius IX and Leo XIII seem to have concurred. We have only to read Rerum Novarum with its emphasis on widespread ownership in
the means of production, a condition that still, even at that late date, marked
American society, to see the importance that the pope placed on a property-based economic order.
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| Archbishop John Ireland |
True, small ownership as well as the opportunity
and means to acquire a capital stake had virtually disappeared, even in the United States by the 1890s. This was a concern of Archbishop John Ireland
(1838-1913) and Judge Peter S. Grosscup (1852-1921), who were both friends of
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (1858-1919) and who served on the same committee in Chicago in
October of 1907 to investigate trusts and combinations. Ireland promoted small land ownership, while
in a series of articles in major magazines in the early twentieth century Grosscup advocated ordinary people becoming significant shareholders (with full
rights of property) in reformed corporations.
Leo XIII, however, was adamant that most people had to own
capital, and America was the one place where widespread capital ownership had
been achieved — after a fashion. He
also considered the United States a model for Church-State relations when
Catholicism was not the religion of the majority.
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| Clement XIV |
Consequently, Leo XIII was very popular in America . . .
with everyone except violent anti-Catholics, modernists, and
traditionalists. What surprises most
people is the fact that a Protestant Senator, Cushman Kellogg Davis (1838-1900)
of Minnesota, eulogized Leo XIII on the floor of Congress as “the greatest Pope
since Ganganelli,” Ganganelli being Clement XIV (Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio
Ganganelli, 1705-1774).
The ultramontane
(traditionalist) party detested Clement XIV for his suppression of the
Jesuits. Other people of all faiths held
him in high regard in the late nineteenth century, however. Jews in particular had great respect for him,
as his investigation of the notorious “blood libel” in 1758 at the behest of
Pope Benedict XIV (Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, 1675-1758) revealed the falsity
of the charge. (Lorenzo Cardinal
Ganganelli, The Ritual Murder Libel and
the Jew (1760). London: Woburn
Press, 1934, 67-94.)
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| Washington Hall, right of the Golden Dome, across from the church |
Benson
seems to have enjoyed his relatively frequent visits to the United States — he
gave a series of Lenten sermons there every other year for a number of years. He even gave a talk on the papacy to students
at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, a few months before his
death in 1914. It was rumored he was
going to talk on the dangers of “spiritism,” and Washington Hall on campus (one of the oldest buildings at Notre Dame still surviving) was packed for
the appearance of “the distinguished English visitor” (Notre Dame Scholastic 47:25, April 25, 1914, 614-615.)
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| Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, foundress of theosophy |
A word about spiritism, which concerned Benson greatly as a danger to all religion. Spiritism,
of which Madame Blavatsky’s version of theosophy became the most widespread sect,
merged and morphed to become the New Age movement, which was absorbed into
various social theories, and is influential even today under various names and labels. Benson had seen the dangers
of spiritism first hand, having been an associate for a short while of one of the oddest of odd couples in
recent history, the weird Marie Corelli (not her real name) and the sinister Baron
Corvo (not his real name, which was Frederick Rolfe), until he realized their
true characters and the nature of what they were teaching, whereupon he
immediately cut ties — in revenge for which Rolfe began spreading vague accusations and stories about Benson, some of which still circulate today despite their obvious falsity.
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| Small is Beautiful: "The classic book on New Age economics" |
Strangely,
as Father Mitch Pacwa, S.J. and other commentators have noted, many Catholics and members of other mainline
Christian denominations seem to have a fascination for the “Esoteric Buddhist” aspects of
the New Age . . . that orthodox Buddhists shy away from. This influence has been strongest among Fabian
socialists, Christian socialists, and disciples of Fabian head R.H. Tawney and fellow Fabian E.F. Schumacher, especially
through Schumacher’s books, Small is
Beautiful (1973) — warmed over socialism originally marketed as “The New Age Guide to Economics,”
and today often categorized as “Buddhist Economics” — and Guide for the Perplexed (1977), a title (but nothing else)
“borrowed” from the Aristotelian philosopher Moses Maimonides, which rehashes
standard theosophical concepts into pure moral relativism and which, remarkably, has found its way onto
some Christian recommended reading lists — one noted Catholic commentator even describes it as "a wonderful little book" (!!).
In
tomorrow’s posting we’ll take a look at how Benson viewed Americans — and why
he had such a positive view of them as they were in his day.
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| Msgr. R.H. Benson |
Sources for Benson’s novels and related material: