By JAMES BARESEL
And Rightly So: Selected Letters and Articles of Neil McCaffrey, published by Roman Catholic Books, P.O. Box 2286, Fort Collins, CO 80522
When I recently saw an advertisement for And Rightly So: Selected Letters and Articles of Neil McCaffrey, I was immediately if moderately curious. Though my knowledge of Mr. McCaffrey did not extend much beyond the fact that he had played a role in the world of publishing, I had begun to seriously examine the condition of the Church when his son Roger was editor of Latin Mass Magazine, which, despite some disagreements, I found to be among the more helpful periodicals of those then in publication.
I have also long been familiar with the younger McCaffrey’s Roman Catholic Books, publisher of And Rightly So, whose main business is reprinting early to mid-twentieth century works which tend to contain valuable information not readily found in more recent writings, though often presenting it in the mawkish tones typical of their era and off-putting to all but those nostalgic for it.
And Rightly So typifies, in some ways, the strengths and weaknesses of its publishing house. Looked at in themselves the contents are useful and unavailable elsewhere. Unfortunately, however, the compilers of the volume do not seem to have intended it for the professional scholars who might make advantageous use of it but for average readers — for whom its repetition of true but commonplace observations is superfluous, who will be either confused or repulsed by its errors, and who could be interested in the remainder of the contents only to the extent that they wish to take a trip down memory lane.
The book’s reflections on ecclesial, political, and social issues can, for the most part, seem those of a layman who tried to point himself in the right direction but sometimes put his foot wrong due to a lack of theological sophistication. Unlike many of his contemporaries, McCaffrey recognized both that faithful Catholics must accept the legitimacy of the Missal of Paul VI and are permitted to argue for continued use of the Tridentine Mass, yet he still denied the extent of papal authority over liturgical discipline.
While correctly treating papal economic policy proposals as debatable prudential judgments, he seems not to have recognized the binding nature of the moral doctrines behind them and to have favored a secularist view of economics as “pure science.” One letter compared a romantic act which the unmarried must be cautious about engaging in to premarital sex, implying the former is inherently sinful and condemning a nun who refused to categorically oppose it.
More serious concerns are raised by McCaffrey’s attitude towards papal infallibility. His letters make consistent reference to the Council of Constance (which ended the Great Western Schism), claiming it put limits on papal authority. Particular texts are not referenced but their identities are easily ascertained. After Anti-pope John XXIII called a schismatic council at Constance, Pope Gregory XII authorized it meeting and then abdicated in the interests of ecclesial unity. The schismatic “pre-council” approved documents which put forth heretical views about papal authority and which never received ecclesial approbation but which (confusingly) have often been published together with the officially promulgated documents of the legitimate council.
McCaffrey wrongly believed these to have been promulgated by the authority of Pope Martin V, who was elected following Gregory’s abdication.
Even if it can be argued that, in most cases, McCaffrey’s errors concern sufficiently technical points to call for charitable correction rather than harsher criticism, one must still wonder what good can be done by consistently including them in a volume seemingly aimed at a non-specialist readership — particularly since they are found in texts which are otherwise uniquely insightful but alongside either commonplace truths or reflections on the ephemera of the time in which they were composed.
It is, however, precisely the abundant ephemera in And Rightly So which constitute the tip of a scholar’s goldmine. What they reveal is a man whose low public profile and limited contributions to the world of ideas masked how close he stood to the center of American conservative intellectual circles from the mid to late-twentieth century.
Though not an original thinker, McCaffrey’s importance as a promoter and popularizer of the ideas of others, his role in influencing which original thinkers shaped important segments of opinion, is not to be underestimated and was more considerable than I had supposed. Among his friends, acquaintances, and correspondents were most of those who were, in his day, the leading writers and thinkers of traditionalist conservatism, nationalism, libertarianism, and classical liberal individualism in the U.S.
And Rightly So convincingly demonstrates that the complete correspondence of Neil McCaffrey ought to have a significant place in the sources used by those engaged in an advanced study of the American conservative intellectual life of his day. Unfortunately the book does not seem aimed at such readership and includes too limited a selection for such purposes.
(James Baresel has written for Claremont Review of Books, Catholic Herald, New Oxford Review, American History, Military History, National Catholic Register, University Bookman, Catholic World Report, The American Conservative, The Imaginative Conservative, and other publications.)
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