Anne Rice and the Catholic Church in an Age of Discontinuity

I was listening the other day to Canadian national radio (CBC). Its Tapestry program interviewed Anne Rice, author of The Vampire Chronicles (Interview with a Vampire was turned into a movie). After many years as an atheist, she recently returned to her Catholic faith. (The Tapestry podcast is of the interview is available for download in .mp3 format.)

I was held by the beauty of her language, the journey that took her so far into darkness searching for bearings after the death of a daughter and the end of all possibility of believing in God. I was struck by the deeply literate ways she described the journey into atheism and its long returning. You can read it in Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession. Anne Rice is no naive fool filled with romantic illusions about the church. She’s indwelt church history, so knows its glory and broken humanity. She also knows the philosophies of our time better than most.

We keep asking about the signs of the times in these days of disorientation. We know ourselves as living in a clearing (or a deep forest — it depends on the metaphors one chooses) where the markers that gave us direction and place are gone. The metaphor of exile doesn’t work in this space. I am struck by how some people think all this can be neatly explained by invoking the post everything liturgies believing this incantation dismisses so much. It’s disconcerting how too many conversations suggest the historic churches are done. When I listen to Anne Rice my suspicion these claims are thin are confirmed.

I was trained for several years in a Jesuit seminary. I listened the other day to a Jesuit teaching (that is what they do) a class of evangelical leaders about the nature of the call God places on our lives. These men and women were enthralled by the way he wove together Scripture and contemporary thought to help them understand that God is up to an amazing task in creation. They applauded when he was finished. I loved what this Jesuit said: Jesuits don’t teach subjects; they call people to life. He explained that, of course, a Jesuit is trained in a set of subjects. But a good teacher listens first to the person(s) before him/her, then brings a series of resources (subjects) into the conversation that call the other forth as the image of God in a community of faith (I’m reminded of another teacher, Parker Palmer, who is a Quaker and would say the same thing).

I wonder if the church that shapes Jesuits and where Anne Rice finds again the presence of God stands a better chance of addressing our culture(s) in this strange new clearing than most of the gurus and books I find coming from those who proclaim the ‘post’ church? At least we need to give this some consideration.