Remembering Ralph McInerny, Author And Scholar
By JUDE DOUGHERTY
In 1982, Ralph McInerny and Michael Novak launched Crisis Magazine — which McInerny described in its opening pages as a journal of lay Catholic opinion. McInerny (1929-2010) at that time was a highly respected professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.
Having studied in the United States, Canada, and Europe, he was aware not only of what was current in his professional field of study but in the Catholic intellectual world as well. Novak at that time was a scholar in residence at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of the newly released, and soon to be acclaimed, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism.
McInerny perceived that what used to be called “the liberal Catholic tradition” had virtually disappeared in North America. “Many who used to be called liberal had moved decisively to the left, both in substance and in style of argument.” At the same time, he noted, many former conservatives had become socially conscious and politically concerned.
McInerny was an early opponent of postconciliar theology. He questioned the value of national conferences of Catholic bishops and their bureaucracies, which he thought were exacerbating political divisions within the Church. He was alarmed by how we have come to replace words of faith and holiness with words like prophecy, witness, and charism. The crisis in the Church, he argued, is that the Church seemed in danger of losing its true original and profound identity in order to become what it is not, an instrument of temporal power.
In that first issue of Crisis, he wrote: “To be Catholic is to have a sense of community, of tradition, of faith and prayer, and of contemplation, and perhaps of tragedy. . . . We believe that history has a narrative form, that social progress, though difficult and reversible, lies within human possibility and that liberal society is an authentic, although imperfect expression, of the Gospels in political economy, made possible by the long leavening of biblical faith. We dread the ‘great climatic battle’ which Solzhenitsyn sees on the horizon.”
Along with founding Crisis, McInerny wrote two serious works of fiction that addressed the ills which he found in the aftermath of Vatican II, The Priest (1973) and The Red Hat (1998).
And then there were what Graham Greene used to call “entertainments.” The Father Dowling mysteries, twenty by my count, the “Monica Quill” series in which Sister Mary Teresa was the detective heroine, and yet another seven-book mystery series starring Andrew Broom, a fictional Midwestern lawyer.
McInerny was indefatigable. He could, on a trans-Atlantic trip, seated in second class, turn out the draft of another mystery. All, directly or indirectly, had something to do with the faith, and sometimes with his personal interests. In real life he shared the fictional Fr. Dowling’s perennial hope for the Chicago Cubs, but did not live to experience their World Series victory in 2016. Some of his fiction could be found in translation in major bookstores across Germany.
He became world famous when his Fr. Dowling mysteries were turned into a television series. In the contract for that series, he was careful to stipulate that no action on the part of Dowling would ever be adverse to the Catholic faith.
But I digress. In professional circles, McInerny is known for at least a dozen books on St. Thomas, most available to the layman. He is known also for his commentaries on Aristotle, and on Boethius and Albertus Magnus. His high regard for Kierkegaard may surprise some, given that the Danish philosopher is regarded as a fideist.
Of his modern predecessors known for their apologetic work, McInerny held in esteem the works of of Lord Acton, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, and Orestes Brownson.
McInerny was not without honors. He was the recipient of a half-dozen honorary degrees. He was fellow of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas. No stranger to good eating in Rome, he often referred to that membership in that Academy as membership in PASTA.
As a deliverer of the Gifford Lectures in 1999-2000, he entered the ranks of distinguished American philosophers who had given the Lectures before him — Josiah Royce, William James, and Alfred North Whitehead. His Gifford Lectures were delivered in Glasgow and published as Characters in Search of Their Author.
After the creation of Crisis, Michael Novak went on to an astounding career as a scholar, diplomat, and social commentator. He is the author of dozens of books, including some novels, on the philosophy and theology of culture. Novak’s story awaits another occasion.
If this brief tribute has any merit, it may lead the reader to Ralph McInerny’s extraordinary late work, published a few years before his death, I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You: My Life and Pastimes. The book is a remarkable summary of a crucial period in the Church to which he was faithfully dedicated.
