Good Things out of Nazareth

by Flannery O'Connor

  FLANNERY O’CONNOR TO FATHER JAMES McCOWN

  O’Connor seeks counsel about religious regulations. Father McCown observed that “as a Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor was abreast of the most advanced theological concerns in the Church, in the early days of the great Second Vatican Council…Yet she was inclined to strictness with herself in anything concerned with morality and having to do with Church discipline.”30

  MILLEDGEVILLE

  7 JANUARY 60

  I’m sending back your book with many obligements together with another one that I think you would like.

  I have been in the hospital with the disintegrating bones. They have discovered that what is making them disintegrate is the medicine that I have been taking these ten years to keep the lupus under control. So they are going to try to withdraw that and see if I can make it without it. If I can’t the bones will just have to go on disintegrating. A cheerful thought.

  Inform me on this point, if you will. We ate out on a Friday and as I was not feeling so hot, I didn’t order the fish but just got three vegetables and desert. When this came and I tasted it, I decided that one of them had been cooked in ham stock, as it tasted hamy. My mother said if you’re in doubt, don’t eat it, but I said if you’re in doubt you can eat it. Who was right? I ate it, intent on getting my money’s worth—but of such scruples are made. I know I ain’t going to hell over a plate of butterbeans, but I don’t know if I have to run to confession before I go to Communion. I am always afraid of sacrilege. It turned out they were cooked in ham stock. I enquired after I had eaten them. There is something about you can use drippings but you can’t use stock. I hate this kind of question.

  Billy Sessions spent the night with us on his way back to Mobile. My mother is his marriage counselor. He is looking for a wife, someone who is a combination cook, washwoman and fashion model. We tell him he would run any woman crazy in short order. Your mother has been nice to him and I think Tommy and Sugar introduced him to somebody.

  Do you see Jubilee? If you do, I am going to have some genuine Catholic writing in it in February or March [“Introduction,” A Memoir of Mary Ann, Jubilee, May 1961]. If you don’t get it, I’ll send you one. It is the introduction I have written to a book by the Dominican Sisters at the Cancer Home in Atlanta. The book itself is pretty bad as far as the writing goes, but it is something which deserved an introduction so I supplied it, and am highly pleased with the result.

  A happy new year to you.

  FATHER SCOTT WATSON TO FLANNERY O’CONNOR

  A student of Father Watson wrote:

  I was a student of Fr. Watson from 1965-67, and his colleague at Loyola University, New Orleans from 1976 until his death in 1989. Fr. Watson was born Sept. 7, 1914. He was from Natchitoches, LA—I always said he was from “the country gentry.” His brother, whose name was Arthur as I recall was chair of the LA Democratic Party in the 1950s and 1960s. The Watsons were related to the proto-feminist author Kate Chopin. He entered the New Orleans Province of the Society of Jesus Aug. 30, 1932. He was ordained June 21, 1944. He earned a doctorate in philosophy at the Gregorian University, Rome, in the late forties (the degree was not actually awarded until 1972 when he finally took the trouble to get a chapter from his dissertation published). The chapter from the dissertation is available from Abe Books. Its title was “Esse in the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas.” The dissertation challenged the then and still current orthodox interpretation of Thomas on “Esse.”31

  JANUARY 13, 1960

  About two weeks ago Father McCown wrote me to ask if I could send you something by way of answer to the old accusation that the Jesuits teach that the end justifies the means. When his letter arrived I was away from Mobile and when I returned I was so extremely busy that there was no time to engage in the little research necessary to fulfill his request. Even now I won’t be able to give you as satisfactory an account as I should like.

  At this time I’m having the librarian here [Spring Hill College, Mobile, Alabama], Father Benedetto (from Georgia, incidentally) mail you a copy of Readings in Ethics, compiled and edited by J.F. Leibell (1926). It contains an article or essay: “Does the End Justify the Means?” by John Gerard, revised by Herbert Thurston (pp. 193–207) which, I think, may serve your need. I don’t know about John Gerard, but Father Herbert Thurston is a Jesuit, famous, by the way, for his constant debunking of pseudo mystics, legendary accounts of the lives of the saints, etc. The book is stamped as due for Feb. 13th, but if you should need it for a longer time, the librarian will gladly overlook technicalities!

  There is another good treatment of the matter in French by Georges Goyau in the DICTIONNAIRE APOLOGETIQUE DE LA FOI CATHOLIQUE, Tome II, columns 10-17 under the heading “Fin justifie les moyens?” I didn’t ask if I might lend you this volume, as I know that all librarians are strongly averse to letting volumes of encyclopedias, etc. be taken out of the reference room even for a short time; but if you judge that the piece by Gerard and Thurston is not adequate to your purpose, I could copy out Goyau’s article for you. It in great part overlaps the one I’m sending you; however, it adds a few things, which I’ll try to summarize for you here. In regard to Count von Hoensbroech, Goyau says that he explicitly admitted that the arguments (aimed to prove that the Jesuits have taught that the end justifies the means) which had been based on citations from Jesuit moralists, and especially on citations from Busenbaum, had had no probative force, and that Busenbaum was by no means speaking of means that were in themselves morally wrong. This was in a German review called Deutschland, about 1903. The Count attacks other authors on other points, which Goyau treats in detail and proceeds to refute, though the whole is too complicated to summarize satisfactorily. Another book which I consulted, T.J. Campbell, S.J. The Jesuits (which has only a very brief account of the question) adds that the Count was “seriously hampered” by some of his own earlier utterances. Thus, when he left the Society in 1893, he wrote in “Mein Austritt aus dem Jesuitenorden,” as follows: ‘The moral teachings, under which members of the Society are trained, are beyond reproach, and the charges so constantly brought against Jesuit moralists are devoid of any foundation.” (p. 288). According to Goyau, the first court to which von Hoen[s]broech brought the case, namely, that of Treves, declared itself incompetent (rather than, as Gerard says, in Dasbach’s favor). But the court of appeal, at Cologne, declared itself competent and did decide in Dasbach’s favor and so equivalently in favor of the Jesuits! On another point too the article by Goyau corrects that of Gerard. The latter seems to have erred in thinking that Pascal had not accused the Jesuits of teaching the end justifies the means (see p. 205). Actually he did do so in his Provincial Letters (7th letter). To be sure, Pascal missed the point: the Jesuits to whom he refers are simply saying that a confessor may sometimes find that a penitent has used illicit means to a good end without having been aware of, or without having reflected on, the illicity of the means; in such a case the penitent is not to be judged as formally or subjectively (personally) culpable, although what he has done is certainly wrong in itself or objectively.

  St. Ignatius himself is not usually the butt of the calumniators, but Goyau has something to say about him too. He refers to the book of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius. In the “Second Week” of the Exercises the saint is urging the retreatant to consider his state of life and whether or not he ought to make some change in this regard. For example, he is a priest, then should he seek some endowed position or post or should he rather choose to practice evangelical poverty? or he is an unmarried layman, then should he seek a wife or perhaps take a vow of chastity? St. Ignatius continues: “Therefore, my first aim should be to seek to serve God, which is the end, and only after that, if it is not more profitable (i.e. if it is more expedient toward this end; the Latin has “quatenus expedit”), to have a benefice ((= an endowed ecclesiastical office)) or marry, for th
ese are means to the end. Nothing must move me to use such means, or to deprive myself of them save only the service and the praise of God our Lord, and the salvation of my soul.” ((L.J. Puhl translation, Newman Press, 1953, p. 71)). Now let us look at the very first point of the “consideration” immediately following this; St. Ignatius here tells us: “It is necessary that all matters of which we wish to make a choice be either indifferent or good in themselves…” In other words, he is saying that our lofty aim of serving and giving praise to God will not sanctify our choice of means if these are bad in themselves. They must at least be indifferent, that is, morally neutral, as is, e.g. taking a walk. Goyau also points out that if one consults the various means actually proposed to its members in the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, no one will find there any means which anyone—even the most rigorous moralist—would charge with being illicit.

  Goyau makes a final interesting observation. Are the Jesuits to be blamed, he asks, for thinking and maintaining that in order to judge an action, we must consider its end, its motive? In this case, it is not they alone, but all Catholic moralists that are to be condemned. All consider that together with the thing done, the end for which it is done and the circumstances under which it is done, influence the morality of any action. It is odd that Catholic moralists are so often accused of being too formalistic, too “objective”, of ignoring the personal equation; yet by others (perhaps even by the same at other times) they are accused of overstressing the subjective intention or end and not paying enough attention to the objective order, that is to the exterior act.

  Of course, we Jesuits, for all its objective seriousness, are inclined to laugh when we hear accusations like this. To us they are so palpably ridiculous. Certainly in the long history of the Order, some individual Jesuit might have gone temporarily insane and defended the doctrine that the end justifies the means; it is even theoretically possible that he should have gotten an article containing the doctrine past a sleepy censor, but if this had ever happened (and I know of no evidence that any such thing ever has actually happened), of one thing I’m sure, that when the thing done would come to the knowledge of his superiors, that Jesuit would be in serious trouble! The principle in question is so plainly immoral and so gravely, not to say, horribly; so, that it is incredible that anyone should attribute it to a body of men whose sole purpose, as their Constitutions lay down, is to seek the salvation and perfection of their own souls while working at the same time most earnestly for the salvation and perfection of their neighbors’ souls. Yet the old canard appears in the unlikeliest of places. Just a year ago the Sat. Even. Post (Jan. 17) had a friendly, not too far from accurate article on the Society of Jesus, but in the midst of it the old, many-times refuted accusation, with due reference to Busenbaum, crops up. No answer or explanation was given, and one was left with the impression that perhaps this was because none could be given. Yet if the accusations were true, most of the article would have made no sense at all; for an order holding such a nefarious principle, the least praise would seem to be de trop. To do the POST justice, in a later issue they did publish a short letter from Father Joseph E. O’Neill of Fordham University setting things straight on poor old Busenbaum.

  Short letter! That’s what this isn’t. In fact, this is precisely the kind of letter I don’t like to write. I wish I had time to revise the thing so you wouldn’t be tempted to think that if Jesuits don’t hold wicked principles, they are (much worse!) lacking in a sense of humor and utterly self-righteous.

  Instead, I must bring this document to a close. Father McCown, as he perhaps told you, sent me your request because at the retreat house where he is stationed there is as yet no appreciable library for him to consult. He tells me—to pass on to something as pleasant as what has gone before has been disagreeable—that your new book will soon be out. I’ve been all eagerness to hear this good news since I read in AMERICA’s Fall Book Issue (Oct. 17, 1959, p. 75) “The most eagerly awaited fiction titles—by AMERICA readers, that is—will be a novel by Karl Stern…and the first full-length novel by Flannery O’Connor, The Violent Bear It Away (Farrar, Straus and Cudahy). This Catholic author is well remembered for her superb short stories in A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” (This perfectly expressed my own sentiments, especially if one omits the words about Karl Stern).

  I’m about equally delighted to hear that you are going to give a talk at the college [Spring Hill] here next spring. Don’t make me explain that “about equally,” let me just say that the explanation would lead me to two new letters, one describing the joy of a day in Macon reading your books, the other the joy of a day in Milledgeville visiting you and your mother.

  To your mother, my best regards.

  Sincerely yours in Christ,

  Father Watson

  [handwritten postscript]

  Dear Hooty, P.C. [Fr. McCown]

  I’m sorry I’m so late; truly I have been, & am crushingly busy. In a ps to my letter, I recommended Fr. V[ictor] White, O.P.’s two bks on Jung. Delighted that Flannery is to come to Spring Hill. Saw your picture (with lay retreatants) in clipping from Dallas or Fr. Worth paper—very edifying!

  All good wishes & prayer,

  Youree [Scott Watson]

  FLANNERY O’CONNOR TO FATHER SCOTT WATSON

  O’Connor anticipates a hostile reception for The Violent Bear It Away, her new novel. She praises Teilhard de Chardin, a view the presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States also expressed in his homily at the wedding in May 2018 of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.32 O’Connor beseeches prayer that will soon be answered by Father Watson’s commentary.

  17 JANUARY 60

  Thank you so much for your letter and your labor and for having the book sent. I am rather embarrassed at having put you to this, but very glad nevertheless to have the information. I was surprised to find the accusation in a book of Jung’s. I have Fr. White’s book, God and the Unconscious for which Jung contributes the introduction and I also have a book by a Belgian priest on Jung. I have read Jung myself with considerable profit, but this last book given me is full of ranting. He is about 85 or so now and I suspect he could just not hold back his hankering to be a preacher any longer.

  I have been reading Pere Teilhard de Chardin’s Phenomenon of Man and I believe that he is the great Christian prophet of this century. This is a book that makes demands on the scientist and the philosopher and the theologian and the poet; of these I think the artist will accept his vision quickest.

  You should receive a copy of my book shortly if you haven’t already [The Violent Bear It Away]. I am afraid the reception of it is going to be very poor—the grotesque infuriates everybody. Please remember me and the book in your prayers and thank you again for taking the trouble to get this information for me. I’ll send the book back on time. I’m enjoying it very much.

  ROBERT LOWELL TO FLANNERY O’CONNOR

  Lowell makes interesting comments about O’Connor’s novel, linking it to Crime and Punishment. Comments about a famous poet may have been included because of parallels to O’Connor.

  ROBERT LOWELL

  239 MARLBOROUGH STREET

  BOSTON 16, MASSACHUSETTS

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 1960

  I guess the South is in the same as the rest of this perilous world, and the imperious character of my daughter would shape up there, much as here. I don’t think you’ve ever written about three year olds, their inquisitive, voluminous bossiness….

  I’ve just read your “Prophet” enthralled, at almost at one sitting, a day long, for I read slowly [The Violent Bear It Away]. A queer contrast with Moll Flanders—a product of the eighteenth century Protestant mind, so the books say—which I have been studying lately for a course. Moll is all sanity and daylight, though performing her trade inches from the gallows. Your fello
w is very dark, though mostly a hero, I think, a fearful warning and yet a finger of accusation against the environment. He’s a little bomb, treated lovingly in a way, a true homicidal lunatic, and somehow a true prophet. The dark explodes, as it so often has since Crime and Punishment.

  I think you are one of the very few people, who can handle such things with irony and insight. Your plot moves much more clearly and forcibly, and there’s far less humor and oddity, a gain one regrets at times…but in the third part it all seems to come right. I don’t know whether [it] is your best book or not. Certainly it adds; the [cir]cle is held with patience, and everywhere there’s a heroic struggle to be clear. I have been thinking that we perhaps have something of the same problem—how to hold to one’s true, though extreme vein without repetition; how to master conventional controls and con…normal expectations without washing out all one has to say. This [a] hurried way of saying it sounds cynical, but I think something like this happened to Shakespeare in moving from his clotted, odd, inspired Troilus and Cressida to the madder but more conventional…

  Perhaps I overemphasize. For the last two days, I’ve been looking at the three volume collected…Emily Dickinson, and reading her letters and accounts of her life. Chaos! She really was a raspingly better and more serious poet than anyone in the country, and also so innocent of control that she was nine tenths of the time an amateur, winning through in spurts, in earnest and right by accident. How safe all the licensed and conventional daring that now prevail seem in comparison! The really inspired and helpless hurts. Anyway, I am awed and cheered by you.

  FATHER SCOTT WATSON TO FLANNERY O’CONNOR

  Father Watson experiences a conflict between teaching and giving O’Connor’s novel proper attention. A former student observes,