A Brief Paglian Diversion

Camille Paglia from Vamps and Tramps:

My disaffection with American Catholicism, which began during my adolescence in the late Fifties, was due partly to its strident anti-sex rhetoric and partly to its increasing self-Protestantization and suppression of its ethnic roots. Within twenty years, Catholic churches looked like airline terminals--no statues, no stained-glass windows, no shadows or mystery or grandeur. No Latin, no litanies, no goregous jeweled-garments, no candles--so that the ordinary American church now smells like baby powder. Nothing is left to appeal to the senses. The artistic education of the eye that I received as a child in church is denied to today's young Catholics.

Her disagreement with the Church's teaching on sex is fundamental, and requires a greater mind than my own to discuss, though were I given the opportunity, I would recommend to Miss Paglia the late Pope's talks on the Thelogy of the Body.

That said, I cannot agree with her more about the second reason for her disenchancement with American Catholicism. Bring back the Latin! Bring back the candles, the stained-glass
the statues!

There is little that bothers me more than a boring church--perhaps heresy from the pulpit. I do not know if anyone really enjoys the sterility of the modern churches, but I know I am not alone in clamoring for more traditional churches. People still spend hours in the churches of Europe--though seldom to worship, and less frequently are the worshippers Europeans--for good reason.

No one is going to want to visit a mega-church in fifty years, let alone five hundred. I hope God burns every one of the monstrosities when he returns. It's not as if any of them spend a lick of time talking about his Son's death and ressurection anyway.

It's back to Wise Blood for me, in which Hazel Moates founds the "Church Without Christ". Someone should have told wayward Christians that Flannery O'Connor intended sarcasm, not a plan for action.