The richness of the Church’s past is a liberation, not a straitjacket. It is a source of confidence in launching into an uncharted future- Eamon Duffy
A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views- Edmund Burke
I first encountered Duffy in his Stripping of the Alters. Looking back, it is clear to that this was when I first encountered real history. Stripping is a classic work, and it completely redefined the English reformation history. Its passion has been deeply influential to me, it has set me on the path I am now treading. After Stripping history was an exciting field for its own sake, and no longer a way to spend three years before entering the real world.
Duffy finally lit the catholic church for me, and in this book he has thrown more new light. For a long time Catholicism was an alien structure to me, and an object of derision. It was marked by ritual I dismissed as superstitious, and tradition which I saw as a sign of a corruption. It still seems to be a church marked by too much sexual prudery, and just as much sexual prurience. It seems prurient because it see porneia where I choose instead to see love. By unweaving medieval “superstition”as a wonderful tapestry of true faith Duffy set me on the road of historical revisionism. Now I am likely as not to strike against the protestant dismissal of the medieval church, and the practices of its people.
I now also refuse to see myself as a protestant. The protestant, as I now understand it, has thrown too much of value away. I would rather see myself as reformed. Laying my main allegiance with a church I still see as being in (indirect) continuity with the mother churches of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem..
This book is composed in part as a collection of articles, and speeches that Duffy has composed concerning his Catholicism. They mainly act as an apology for the Catholic faith, especially aspects of pre-conciliar faith. He reveals some of the value of the old mass, and the old practices. He doesn’t entirely reject Vatican II, but he thinks it threw out a lot of value alongside a lot which was clearly in need to disposal.
The most important thread running threw the book is one regarding Tradition. The quote I included at the top typifies the thrust of the book, as far as I am concerned. It was this thread I most enjoyed. As far as I can tell many protestants totally misunderstand tradition. (Although some “traditionalists” misunderstand it as well). Tradition is not hidebound adherence to a “way of doing things”, it is an organic process on building on the wisdom of ages. Tradition sees the desire to reinvent the wheel with every generation as not only redundant, but also arrogant. The wholesale rejection of tradition in religion relies on an assumption that those who preceded us had nothing of value to say. This doesn’t mean tradition is constant, it is added to, and we can detract from it. But with good reason, not out of ignorance. My opinion on tradition in religion is informed by my reading of various catholics, prompted originally by Duffy, reading Faith of the Fathers reaffirmed my opinion on tradition, whilst it applied it to various aspects of Catholic faith. Also crucial in forming my attitude to tradition is that seminal work of Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France. Whose quote included above is merely a more strongly phrased way of putting aspects of Duffy’s argument.
Faith is not without flaws. Sometimes Duffy comes over curmudgeonly, sometimes irrational. The book mainly addresses (Roman) Catholics, so there was much that went above my head entirely. Overall though, I was very glad for reading it. I feel educated. There are few callings more higher for a work of letters than the call to edify its readers.
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