The Anchoress

I recall reading an article once, by I-forget-now, but the fellow who wrote it told of meeting Mother Teresa and finding himself giving her the lowdown on all his life difficulties. He said she just gave him a smile and said, “if you prayed, it would all be easier for you,” or something like that. Must look it up. She wasn’t being dismissive, just telling what she knew.

I have no idea how much of this story and this exchange between Christopher Hitchens and Fr. George Rutler is accurate, and I want to say that upfront. It happened over four months ago, and I tend to think that if it were real it would have generated a great deal of print…but on the other hand, if neither man was at his best, perhaps they preferred the downplay.

I tend to doubt that Hitchens was intoxicated. While the man makes no secret that he enjoys a cocktail (nothing wrong with that, either, if you’re not doing it to excess, hurting others or making a spectacle of yourself) I don’t think he’s going to go about promoting his book and debating religion and atheism while in his cups. I could be wrong but he doesn’t strike me as that sort. And of course, I like Hitchens, so I’m inclined to believe the best about him. Oh, I know, I know, he’s a bigot about religion and he has issues. We’re all bigots about something and we all have issues. I just think there is greatness within him and he fascinates me. His potential fascinates me.

What intrigues me about this strange story - which sounds very dramatic - is this part:

FATHER RUTLER: I have met saints. You cannot explain the existence of saints without God. I was nine years chaplain with Mother Teresa [inaudible]. You have called her a whore, a demagogue. She’s in heaven that you don’t believe in, but she’s praying for you. If you do not believe in heaven, that’s why you drink.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Excuse me?

FATHER RUTLER: That’s why you drink. God has offered us happiness, all of us. And you will either die a Catholic or a madman, and I’ll tell you the difference. [Emphasis mine - admin]

Whoa! Imagine saying that to someone! By today’s standards, the first part of Rutler’s remarks are presumptuous and judgmental, but once upon a time they wouldn’t seem so. Once upon a time they would have seemed like “tough love” coming from a priest who means to be a shepherd - can’t you just hear Spencer Tracy saying it to Mickey Rooney?

But the second part -imagine saying that to someone, “you will either die a Catholic or a madman…”

Think about that for a second. A Catholic priest gets up and says that…it is impossible not to be tempted into saying “and good Father, is there a difference? Are they one and the same? Are you, in fact both?”

I can’t tell you how much I want to know what Fr. Rutler was going to say, how he was going to illustrate the difference. I absolutely yearn to know, because I think he probably had a profound distinction to make…but he never did.

“You will die a Catholic or a madman.” The world has often called Catholics mad. I wrote about some of the “mad Catholic women” here:

…there has been no other institution in history which has given women such free reign to create, explore, discover, serve, manage, build, expand…usually with very little help from the coffers of the diocese in which they worked, and often with little to no intrusion on the part of the male hierarchy.

And these have not been mealy mouthed “sheeplike” women, but educated, accomplished women who have chosen their lives because they could do nothing greater with their gifts. Rose Hawthorne, daughter of Nathanial Hawthorne, founded the Hawthorne Dominicans, an order of nuns who take care of cancer patients - free of charge - and who subsist entirely on donations. The Grand Duchess, Elizabeth left her royal privilege behind to serve the poorest of the poor in Russia and suffered a 20th century martyrdom. The daughter of General Patton joined forces with a nun, Mother Benedict, in France after WWII to come to America and form the Abbey of Regina Laudis, an abbey that is still attracting educated women, sculptors, writers, linguists, musicians - creative women - to use their gifts in the praise of God and for the good of us all. Did I mention that Mother Benedict, before she became a nun, was a medical doctor who helped to hide and treat Jews who were being hunted by the Nazis?

I can go on…Mother Theresa built an international order of women which thrives, doing work no one wants to do, wouldn’t do in a million years. For that matter, she might seem quite mad - she probably is - but there is in Alabama an extraordinary and strange woman named Mother Angelica, who founded a Franciscan monastery and church in (of all places) the hottest bible belt in the deep South, and then - with two hundred dollars ($200.00!) and no help from her bishop - was inspired to build a television station (and a radio station), which has become EWTN, a global Catholic network - also founding an order of friars - while hobbling around on crutches, yet. She even formed Knights!.

Extraordinary, mad women…all of them…and I cannot think of a single institution on the face of the earth other than the Catholic Church which would have allowed them to run with their madness, BE who they were and accomplish great things.

I love the saints - many of them are my good friends (perhaps I am a madwoman, myself, but I know I need classier company than my own vulgarity!) - and I know that more than a few heroic Catholics were at some point considered madmen or mental deficients: St. Francis of Assisi gave up his inheritance and place in society to wear rags, beg, preach and “rebuild” a church both physically and metaphorically. St. Teresa of Avila would, when her nuns were restless, break out the finger cymbals and set them to dancing. Dorothy Day turned away from the elitist pals pundit table at the Algonquin Hotel Hotel like Eugene O’Neill and founded The Catholic Worker, living in near-squalor, carrying with her only her breviary and her jar of instant coffee. (Ugh…a love of instant coffee might well be madness!). Actually - were Hitchens ever to become a Catholic, I’d guess he’d be a lot like Dorothy Day. Pierre Toussaint was a former slave who some considered mad due to his kindness to his former owners.

What is the difference between a madman and a Catholic? I dearly want to know…I have an inkling that it has something to do with potential and intent. I hope someday Fr. Rutler spells it out.

Meanwhile, I’d love to see Mr. Hitchens and Cardinal (whoops, wishful thinking!) Archbishop Chaput onstage together. I’m not a fan of apologetics, but that would be a fun ticket.