On April 23, 1975, Pope Paul VI appointed Nguyen Van Thuan coadjutor archbishop of Saigon in South Vietnam. One week later, communists from the north entered the city and took control. A few months later, during a conference of priests at the city’s opera house, soldiers seized the young archbishop and took him to Independence Palace for interrogation. He was arrested and confined without trial. He was accused of colluding with the American CIA, of supporting lay organizations opposed to the new regime, and of holding reactionary beliefs. (He had been an outspoken anti-communist for years.) For six months he was held, but managed to write spiritual reflections on his captivity that were passed to a seven-year-old boy who gave them to others to be printed and circulated. The writings were read widely, which led authorities to move the archbishop to solitary confinement for eight months in a dank cell overrun with worms and centipedes, with periodic interrogations and torture sessions. Years of prison time followed, which at least gave him contact with other (confined) people. These years make up a central episode of a new biography, Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan: Man of Joy and Hope, a worthy read in an age of weak leadership.
On May 30, 1984, the Prince of Wales delivered an address to the Royal Institute of British Architects at a gala at Hampton Court Palace. It was not what the architects expected. At the time, a grand project was about to commence, a high-rise tower near St. Paul’s Cathedral designed by renowned modernist Mies van der Rohe. Also in the works was an idea for an extension to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, following a modernist design by a prominent London firm. Neither one bore any relation to the buildings around it. True to modernist principles, the designs included no historical features or decorative elements. Here is how Prince Charles characterized the Mies conception: “yet another giant glass stump.” And here is his description of the gallery extension: “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.” This was a remarkable declaration, a layman’s challenge to the experts, to whom old architecture was an inefficient, backward, and immoral practice. Charles judged the ways of modernism demoralizing and sterile, interesting to the intellectuals, perhaps, but awful for people who had to live and work in those spaces. Clive Aslet’s King Charles III: 40 Years of Architecture chronicles his efforts in favor of a humanizing architecture, which have continued as a personal passion and civic duty.
Michael Pakaluk is a philosopher at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. The Shock of Holiness: Finding the Romance of Everyday Life collects his observations on the actual experience of ordinary things with the intention of revealing them as not so ordinary. Subjects include mothers and children in church, sex in Catholic marriages, the death of St. Joseph, Thomas More’s epitaph, a sermon by a sixth-century bishop, the song “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and dozens more that, with Pakaluk’s commentary, may lead to “the recovery of wonder and re-enchantment.” Some of the events are extraordinary, yes, but Pakaluk focuses on elements of them that are not—for instance, the nature of Elizabeth’s “loud cry” during the Visitation. In each one, an insight is drawn. Keep this book for a month by your bed and read one chapter a night. There is a payoff, such as the final note of a poignant section on the Martyrs of Compiègne—“teach us a holy fear, and pray for us!”—or the opening of chapter 24: “The Crucifixion is so horrible that we naturally recoil from it.”
“If you’re skeptical about the existence of demons, you won’t benefit much from the book.” So announces Harold Ristau in Spiritual Warfare and Deliverance: How to Minister to the Demonically Oppressed and Possessed. The incredulousness disturbs him. There is an “accelerating tolerance, and even appetite, for evil things,” and skepticism (“the poison of postmodernity”) makes it hard to resist. A Lutheran pastor, Ristau has performed many exorcisms and speaks of them in scientific tones, for instance, his division of the oppressed and the possessed. The possessed have lost all control; the demon owns them. The oppressed retain some awareness and will, but that actually makes them harder to treat, because the aims and actions of the demon are harder to discern. Chapter 2 details one such exorcism including the convulsions of the victim, a mangled crucifix around the pastor’s neck, and conversations with the demon (which should be avoided). The rest of the book contains practical advice on how to interact with demons, the kinds and symptoms of possession, the nature of demons themselves, and what to do when a loved one is afflicted. When he was a child, Ristau suffered nightmares that sound like a horror movie—for instance, being trapped in an old house and pursued by a demon. Eventually, he began to fight back in his dreams, turning on the demon with a sword in hand, ready to battle in the name of Jesus. “God’s Word is powerful,” he says, and we must fight.
Finally, a word about books published by Word on Fire, the ministry headed by Bishop Barron, two of which just came into my mailbox: Gate of Heaven: Reflections on Mary, the Mother of God and The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. The first one collects poems ancient and modern, prayers, passages from Scripture, reflections by Bishops Barron and Sheen, and much, much more. The Graham Greene novel is part of a “classics” series that Word on Fire has issued and includes Brideshead Revisited, The Seven Storey Mountain, and a Flannery O’Connor anthology, among other famous works. Word on Fire has “academic” and “votive” (children’s books) series as well. Let me emphasize what I said to Bishop Barron on our last podcast: “Whoever your designers and printers are, they produce beautiful books.” The cloth and leather bindings, the paper and font, the visuals on the dust jackets—all superb enough to satisfy an interior designer who cares more about the look of a book than its contents.
