Missing: feared dead. Catholic intellectuals

The late Pope John Paul II believed that culture is the engine that drives history, the arena wherein God's plan for our salvation is worked out in the intimate drama of individual lives coming together in families, communities and countries. And the Pope further charged us, lay Catholics, with the task of redeeming the present secular culture from...

I was going to write 'mess', but that scarcely describes the situation. The best analogy I can find is anorexic decline: where a person knows that she is slowly destroying herself, yet continues to do so, since her anorexia is paradoxically the only thing she's found to give any meaning to her life.

So, how on earth (or in heaven) do we set about reclaiming such a mess? Well, one obvious area where we are most needed is in the realm of intellectuals and artists. The intellectual and artistic currents of the last fifty years have scarcely provided food for either mind or soul, and their poverty becomes clearer every day. So now is the time for Catholic intellectuals and artists to step into the gaping void that lies at the heart of modern culture and proclaim the Church's message to people who might now actually listen.

Er, the problem is, where are they? Where have they all gone?

If we look back to the first half of the twentieth century we had a positive wealth of Catholic artists and intellectuals. There were people like: JRR Tolkien, GK Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Christopher Dawson, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Elizabeth Anscombe and that is just in Britain. If we widen our search we can include in the list such figures as Jacques Maritain, Etienne Gilson, Flannery O'Connor, Edith Stein and so on.

And then what happened? Where did they all go? It seems like there are no Catholics born after 1950 to carry on the tradition. Wracking my brain, the only candidates I can come up with who are now active and at a level in some way comparable to the people I mentioned above are: George Weigel, Joseph Pearce, Fr Neuhaus and, er, I'm stuck.

So, two questions. First, are there people out there I don't know about? If so, please tell me.

Second question. If there aren't, what's happened? Why have the intellectual and artistic wells of the Church dried up?

Comments

[Chad]

Al, I commented in a longer post over at my blog. For some reason your trackbacks aren't working... I suspect it's due to a combination of different forces: anti-intellectualism in the popular culture, the poor catechesis that resulted from that, and the mind-numbing effects of technology that may have caused the anti-intellectualism in the first place.

[Boeciana]

Have you been reading the Catholic Herald? John Haldane (isn't he a candidate to add to your list?) says the same thing.

This all chimes in with my Great Project to write a book about theist history (or historiography?). But first I have to finish my thesis and work out what to do with my life (and goodness knows what God will step in and do there) and other such minor details...

Maybe I should just have taken the Belloc line and joined the French army?!

[Albertus Minimus]

Chad, thanks a lot for your comments. I don't know what's up with the trackbacks, but I'll check to make sure I haven't switched them off accidentally.

Boeciana, you got me in one! I did read that article (and probably should have referenced it). Still, in my defence I've been thinking along these lines for a while, so I didn't just steal the idea.

As to why I didn't add John Haldane, to be honest I hadn't really heard of him before. I hope you do attempt, and complete, your Great Project. You have one reader here.