As we don’t publish readers’ letters in the St. Austin Review I am going to publish the occasional letter on the Ink Desk, especially if the content might be of general interest. Here is an e-mail that I’ve just received from a subsciber asking for some advice about books on the history of the Catholic Church. I’ve preserved the privacy of the correspondent. My response follows …
Dear Mr. Pearce,I wanted to thank you for your work in the St. Austin Review. I have found the magazine thoroughly inspiring. I look forward to learning a little more about Catholic history and perspectives. I wish my Catholic high school would have taught Catholic history. I feel like I have missed so much.My wife and I were at the Chesterton Conference last year in Reno and got a chance to meet you. I was the guy with the Hook Norton Brewery shirt.I would like some advice. I am looking for a reading list of books that go through basic history of the Catholic Church and was wondering if you could suggest a dozen or so books to me.In reading the article on Glastonbury in the recent issue of the St. Austin Review, I went to the Glastonbury Abbey website. I have a question for you after going to the website. Where does the rumour that Jesus himself helped build the abbey come from? I have never heard or read that Jesus ever left the surrounding area of Israel (except, of course, when he went with Mary and St. Joseph to Egypt).Also, I have never read that Joseph of Arimethea was Christ’s uncle. Where does this come from?I read your book “Bilbo’s Journey: Discovering the Hidden Meaningin the Hobbit”. I enjoyed your insight on how the book goes along with Catholic feasts. Very eye opening. It has been several years since I read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. I plan on rereading these books with a new perspective on them. A Catholic perspective.I look forward to your presentation on the Hobbit at the Chesterton Conference in Worcester this August.May God continue to bless your work.
Dear ________,
I remember you well from last year’s Chesterton Conference. How could I forget someone who was wearing a tribute to one of my favourite breweries!
Thanks for your kind words about the St. Austin Review. My work on it is truly a labour of love and it is greatly encouraging to learn that others see its value and importance.
I’m afraid that I’m so inundated with work at the moment that I don’t have time to compile the list that you’ve requested. Perhaps, in lieu of such a list, you will accept a list of good Catholic historians whose books you should read. You can then do a google search for the titles of individual books. These are the authors I would recommend: Hilaire Belloc, Christopher Dawson, Warren Carroll, Eamon Duffy, John Lingard and William Thomas Walsh. I would also recommend William Cobbett’s History of the Protestant Reformation.
Regarding Glastonbury Abbey, I am not an expert. The legend is that Joseph of Arimethea brought the Christ Child to England when Jesus was a boy. The status of Joseph of Arimethea as Jesus’ uncle is part of tradition and is not scriptural.
I look forward to seeing you again at this year’s Chesterton Conference.
Lenten blessings,
Joseph
Watch out for Walsh – he’s got some quite nasty views on the Jews.
The authors you suggest are all very good ones. I might also suggest Henri Daniel-Rops; he was a Frenchman who wrote extensively about the history of the Church in the post WW II years.
I would also suggest Philip Hughes, who was a priest who also taught at Notre Dame if my memory serves.
I can’t be sure, but I think the British historian Michael Burleigh is a Catholic. In any case, he understands and sympathizes with the Church, and he writes excellent history – particularly ‘Earthly Powers’, which is a history of politics and religion in Europe from the French Revolution to the outbreak of World War 1. Riveting stuff.
Harry, I’m aware of Walsh’s anti-semitism but this does not detract from the excellence of his books, such as Isabella the Crusader.
Harry Colin, Philip Hughes is good (I’ve read his History of the Church), but he’s a little too liberal for my tastes.
That’s a good list you’ve offered there. If I may, I’d additionally recommend Christopher Hollis, Regine Pernoud and Sir Charles Petrie; the latter two especially. Pernoud was maybe the last modern writer who could comment on the Crusades without throwing a tantrum, and Petrie did much to dismantle the 400-year old Anglo-Saxon myths about Spain and all the Black Legend nonsense.
Happy hunting.
Actually I’d go further with my warning on Walsh’s anti-semitism. A quick google revealed his stuff has apparently found a home with other anti-semites and White Supremacists. Plus his book ‘Isabella’ – although praised in some respects by other historians – re-iterates common slurs against the Jews, accepts without question ridiculous charges leveled against the Jews of the day (Hosts stolen, Christian children crucified etc) and offers a defence of their expulsion from Spain.
“…it is obvious to any well informed person that the Jews (as a race) are playing the same part in history today that they played in the Middle Ages? From the time they caused the crucifixion of their Redeemer and called down upon themselves the curse that so unmistakably has followed them, they have been the
persistent enemies of Christian culture…”
– That’s from Walsh’s reply to a polite critique of his book on Isabella from a Jewish author – I found it on a Neo-Nazi webpage. He goes on to accuse the Jews of hating the Church, rejecting Christ and bringing all their misfortune upon themselves. When we’re dealing with venom of this magnitude I don’t think we can really dismiss it as an unfortunate quirk in the authors personality – it taints everything they do.
I would recommend that you pick up someone else in your historical reading on Spain – perhaps Hugh Thomas. Having a Catholic author defend the Church from slurs is all very well, but at the end of the day you want cold hard facts, not propaganda. Writers like Walsh will only lead you astray.
…and there’s something about a tree planted there (Glastonbury) by Joseph of Arimethea…which one may speculate provided the idea of “the white tree” so heavily symbolic in Tolkien as necessary evidence of the “return of the king.”
Quite an old post, but for those who may find it as I did, I can propose Hugh Ross Williamson’s defense of the legends of Glastonbury in “The Flowering Hawthorn”, including a treatment of Joseph of Arimathea, the Glastonbury Thorn, Our Lord’s visit to England as a child, Joseph’s relation to Our Lord, and so forth. He presents evidence that the legends are possible, and perhaps plausible, though likely unable to be proven or disproven.