Dialogue With A Cistercian Monk

“There is a great deal of what is good and pure and holy amongst the catholics of the day, but we want the trumpet blast of a Tertullian to awaken us to higher things for the old cry, ‘can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ is in the hearts of worldly catholics today, although it is not on their lips. They are prepared to admire everything, provided it is not introduced to their notice under the church’s sanction. They will go hundreds of miles to hear a Mass, but it must be sung in a public hall by herectical or perhaps infidel artistes. The music of the Church is the ‘barbarous jargon of Philistines.’ In philosophy you are called to admire Plato, but not St. John. Porphyry and Plotinus we know, but who was St. Justin? The hybrid greek of Lucian we admire, but what of Clement or Origen? We are told there are hidden beauties in Plautus and Tibullus, Bion and Moschus, but who ever heard of Ephrem the Syrian? We know all about Giordano Bruno; what of St. Thomas? We call Kant and Fichte and Spinoza the demigods of science; what of Suarez and Vasquez? For one Catholic who has heard of great apologists like Abbe Moigno, a hundred have heard of men like Spencer and Darwin. We are ashamed of our immortals; we are proud of the parvenue of science. And yet what a glorious beadroll of illustrious names illumines the history of the Church! Even in modern times, what a litany one may sing of Tycho-Brahe, Corpernicus, Descartes, Galileo, Leibniz, Paschal, Bossuet, Gerdil, Malebranche! In oratory, what a galaxy of French and Italian genuises.

In science, three-fourths of the world inventions sprang from children of the church – from the discovery of gunpowder down to the discovery of dynamic electricity. All the great composers where Catholics. And yet your boys know nothing of names that made the pulses of other generations beat more quickly… We conquer the world, and bow down before its idols; we lead the world, and suffer to be harnessed to its triumphal car… you know all things but your religion.”