'Catholic and Bookish': Lumen Fidei, Libraries, and the New Evangelization

I'm still working my way through Pope Francis' new encyclical, Lumen Fidei. It's nice to pause between sections to really drink up the whole thing. I love when new encyclicals are released-nothing like some new fresh breath to revitalize us. And thanks to the wonders of the internet, we all flock to the virtual watering-holes to excitedly share what we're reading. As one friend of mine pointed out, it's like a virtual Harry Potter release party...only with encyclicals. We all wait giddy with anticipation, and then rush to read the whole thing immediately. Technology enables us to share the faith with greater speed and facility than ever before. It's a shame that Brandon Vogt's eagerness to share the new encyclical in e-reader formats was suspended so quickly...but I guess even the Good News is subject to quibbles over distribution rights these days. 

Then, today, I was delighted to see that some friends of mine have banded together to encourage people to request that a print copy of Lumen Fidei  be added to the collection at their local public library. I hope that many more people decide to do the same. I'm especially excited to see this happen because it strikes many chords with things I've previously written about evangelization and libraries. I think we all spend so much time tinkering around on the internet and caught up in discussion of 'the new evangelization' that we forget that books have a tremendously important role to play in spreading the faith-after all, "tolle lege" got St. Augustine's conversion going, and as St. Josemaria once said, "Reading has made many saints."

I think it's relevant here to revisit the words of Mr. Thomas Loome (of Loome Theological Booksellers fame) as he highlighted the great destruction of many Catholic library collections in the wake of Vatican Council II:

"The only other lesson that occurs to me is this: as believing Catholics we have a responsibility to preserve the patrimony of the Church, certainly in so far as it has been entrusted to us as librarians and as professionally interested parties. Much has been destroyed forever. Those who wreak the damage have mostly passed from the scene (although one would like to think that in the end they acknowledged their wrongdoings and perhaps clothed themselves in sackcloth and ashes). And so only we, presiding over the wreckage, are left to tell the tale. 

"What is the lesson for us? To start afresh. Slowly to recreate, in some small measure, what is gone forever. We shall do this, however, only if we are both Catholic and bookish: commmited to the Church, passionately devoted to books, and, as a consequence, deeply rooted in the Church's literary and theological tradition. This is the indispensable condition for an even tolerable future for Catholic libraries. Absent this profound commitment to Catholicism and books, I frankly see virtually no hope at all for Catholic libraries."

2012: Books in Review

Always carry a sword an a book-it worked for St. Catherine.

2012 is almost at its end. It has been an interesting, and at times, sporadic, reading year. I'm not about to offer a litany of book reviews, first because I tend to have lengthy opinions about nearly everything I read, but also because I have this terrible habit (or wonderful, depending on how you look at it), of moving on so quickly to the next book that book reviews get neglected (save my personal notes). But here is a rough approximation of what I read in 2012, in no particular order (* indicates titles I have started):

Eugenics and Other Evils, G.K. Chesterton

On Being Human, Bl. Fulton Sheen

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Ever Seen, Christopher McDougall

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, Susan Cain

Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence, Jean-Pierre de Caussade

St. Ignatius Of Loyola

Ignatius of Loyola reads, when not founding religious orders and doing radical mission work.

Happy Feast Day!

June Mash-Up

A move, a marathon, and matrimonial celebrations have turned June into a perfect storm for derailing my blogging efforts. After all this activity, and at long last valiantly conquering the ISP tyrants, I am now back online. Inevitably, this hiatus has come at a time where I have far too many things to write about. In an attempt to cover some of this ground, I have herded some snippets together so my thought corral does not bulge too much.

--1--

I have thus far avoided doing reviews for this blog, since they have a tendency to quickly turn into overwrought intellectualized op-eds, but I think this has to change soon, lest I become too much of a quietist. Some friends of mine are often surprised at how much I follow movies. This is more a symptom of habits acquired on the job last year than any natural inclination, but I am a natural critic (on occasion I've been ordered not to say anything after viewing a movie for the sake of not prematurely ruining the experience for others). This summer's theater line-up includes several highly-anticipated movies, among them "For Greater Glory." On the heels of all the anticipation, I went to the theater opening weekend. I came out of it wishing I was from south of the border. Several other bloggers have published detailed reviews, including both rants and raves, so I won't beat this horse to death. Despite some of the more critical reviews, I found this film very moving, especially for its portrayal of Bl. Jose Sanchez del Rio. "For Greater Glory" has its flaws (unremarkable score, time restraints curtailed some character development, some slightly off liturgical details), but they don't define the film. The story could have benefited from a more raw portrayal of the main character's internal conflicts, but still a film worth seeing, and a story that needs to be told. 

--2--

The past several weeks have seen a wide-spread bemoaning of libraries who have opted to take Fifty Shades of Grey off their shelves. What has resulted is a typical flip-flopping of the title going in and out of circulation, depending on the library and the response of the public. What has once again come to light is the discussion of how libraries select for their collections and how they enforce their circulation and collection policies, along with hefty debate over whether or not porn or erotic lit has a place in libraries. Some argue that removing Fifty Shades of Grey  from circulation would be inconsistent, since most libraries have an entire section dedicated to Romance novels, to which I say that if you really can't live without your Danielle Steele, county taxpayers shouldn't be enabling your bad habits. How exactly do romance novels and erotic lit fit into the pursuit of upholding Enlightenment values? It's still ridiculous that some public libraries have decided not to install porn filters out of concern for 'intellectual freedom.' To the best of my knowledge, porn filters aren't expansive enough to prohibit the average patron's internet-browsing needs.

--3--

Speaking of censorship, I am tremendously delighted to be the new owner of a 1940 copy of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. After a quick look through, I'm not sure what the historical fuss was/is all about, even at that time. Few popular novels and literature were on the list, which was mostly focused on published works that include serious doctrinal error on religious matters, although there was a general provision that covers heretical books, and most works of some notable authors, e.g. Nietzche, fall under that category. Some works by Kant and Machiavelli, however, did make the 1940 Index explicitly. The next time one of my colleagues starts hyper-ventilating about the "Church's Banned Books List," I really hope they take my suggestion to actually study the real Index. I'm still seeking out a good book that covers the actual history and use of the Index, since there is so little that I know and understand about it myself.

Fr. James V. Schall: "A Kindle is not a book-it is an image of a book."

I've been meaning to put together a few thoughts about some recent LJ  columns for a while, but the business of work and my move have gotten in my way. In the meantime, I discovered a sweet little lecture given recently by Fr. James V. Schall at Dartmouth College, entitled "What is a book?" In his talk, Schall considers the role of books and reading in the modern age in relation to those of ages past.  Some highlights, with my comments:

On reading from desire: 

[Quoting from Boswell's Life of Johnson] "Dr. Johnson advised me today to have as many books about me as I could, that I might read upon any subject upon which I desire for instruction at the time. 'What you read then,' said he, 'you will remember, but if you have not a book immediately ready, and the subject mulls in the your mind, it is a chance if again you have a desire to study it...If a man never has an eager desire for instruction, he should proscribe a task for himself, but it is better when a man reads from immediate inclination."

I find a lot of truth in Boswell's advice. I used to be very rigid and particular about following my reading lists in order, not starting another book until I finished the last. Then I realized that my entire education consisted of reading dozens of books at once, and I concluded that it was silly to retain this attitude. Disciplined reading definitely has its virtues, but some of the most fruitful reading I have done has come from impulse.

The relational nature of books:

"A book at first sight is an artifact, something ultimately made by being with the mind and the hand. Remember that Aristotle defines the human being as that being in the universe and the only being in the universe with a mind and a hand...if you only have a mind, you can't make anything, and if you only have hands, there is nothing to be made...A book does not grow on trees...thought in a sense we can call it a living thing-as intelligible, it only exists when it is being known by a writer or a reader." 

 On e-readers:

"Paper books of various sizes, shapes, and durability are still, thank goodness, with us. They may still be preferred in this solid form by many of us as the way to read and keep our knowledge...I do not look forward to the day, already here in principle, when the only way I can make inexpensively available the  10-12 books I usually assign a semester class would be to put it on Kindle, where they exist not as my physical tangible book, but as a right to read an image. [A] Kindle is not a book-it is an image of a book."

On cell phones and memory:

"These instruments [cell phones] isolate people as much as they expand their scope, I think...Now every statistic about the 1937 World Series game is in the Baseball Almanac, which is now online. Indeed I presume today that online somewhere you can actually find a video version of every game of any World Series in recent years...What does this availability of all facts in non-book, immediately accessible form mean?...The online world takes the place of books, or it is another form of a book...in a sense, it also, to recall Book X of Augustine's Confessions, takes the place of memory itself. Why remember what you can look up, usually with a more accurate answer?...The things are in our memories, and not just on a machine, means that they are immediately related to all else that we know. Our memory, as Augustine says, and Aristotle too, is the necessary foundation of your intelligence...I presume that the visible medium that a man uses-book or electronic device-does not matter. The matter is the same. Education cannot mean teaching ourselves just to use a computer so that we can look up facts quickly and deftly. The essential thing is the immediate inclination. And this inclination can be none other than the desire to know and retain the truth of things, of what is." 

On what to read:

"I have spent a good deal of my life recommending books to read. In several of my books, I include lists of books to read-books to keep sane by, and books to keep awake by, and books to stand outside of yourself by...I do not consider myself to be a voracious reader, thought I have somehow had in my days, considerable time in which to read...What has interested me more, is what to read...Not all the important books to read are difficult. What are called 'Great Books' are not the only ones worth reading. And indeed as Leo Strauss pointed out, the Greak Books often contradict themselves and tempt us unnecessarily to skepticism."

'What to read?' is really the eternal question. My personal approach is rooted in the conviction that my time on earth is finite, and as such there is only a very small portion of written human civilization that I can consume and study, so I ought to use my time  reading the 'best of the best.' This attitude is often the animating flame for proponents of Great Books curricula, but it can easily lead to reading snobbery. I've been plenty guilty of entertaining elitist attitudes towards book selection in the past. As Schall points out, not all the important books are difficult, and they need not be a member of the definitive Western Canon either. Great Books' lists are still wonderful foundations for a nutritious literary diets. The world would be a better place if readers replaced some of their James Patterson and Jodi Picoult with Dante and St. Augustine.

Books can change the world:

"Changes in the world first take place in the souls of men. What causes us to be good or evil will happen to us at a given time in a given place. The factors that brought the changes about will look from the outside to be accidental-and they are in a sense. The world was changed when the young Augustine decided to become a philosopher...So again-what is a book? A book is something that can change the world, because it records the ideas of men. Ideas that can be tested for coherence or incoherence, truth or falsity, because of the order of things." 

[Quoting from The Haunted Bookstore, by Christopher Morley:]"Living in a bookstore is like living in a warehouse of explosives. Those shelves are ranked with the most furious combustibles in the world-the brains of men." 

You can watch the whole thing here:

Day of DH: Thomistic Roots

I shouldn't be blogging at all today with a paper to finish, but as I logged into my feed reader today I realized it is Day of DH. For those of you who are non-librarians, Day of DH is a day when digital humanists around the world spend some time documenting what they do, usually by blogging or shout-outs in the Twitter-sphere. I'm not a digital humanist, but I have a marginal interest in DH activities, especially because I'm interested (as any archivist who wants to survive the future) in digital archiving and  preservation. There are a lot of really cool DH projects out there, done by both scholars and non-academics. One of my favorites is the Rosetti Archive (it's cool to see the poems and art of a poet-artist juxtaposed on the same page). Despite some attitudes to the contrary, the humanities are not dead, and technology is only helping to re-vitalize them.

One interesting piece of trivia about digital humanities, humanities computing, or whatever you want to call it, is that it has Jesuit origins. Fr. Robert Busa, S.J., collaborated with IBM to conduct linguistic analysis on the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, resulting in the production of the Index Thomisticus. Fr. Busa, bless his heart, spent years working with punch cards to produce this. He began this not in the 1980s, nor the 1970s, but 1949 (!). He is known as an early pioneer in digital humanities, and his death last year was a loss for the international DH community. So take a few minutes today to see what is happening in DH!

Fateful meeting with St. Thomas: a drawing from Fr Busa's last Christmas card (2010).

On Twitter: #DayofDH

Some DH links:

Bethany Nowiskie

Association for Computing in the Humanities

Digital Scholarship in the Humanities

4Humanities

Institute for Digital Arts & Humanities (IU)