By DONALD DeMARCO
The name Clare Boothe Luce is one that should not remain absent from the minds of contemporary Catholics. She may not have been a saint, but was vitally concerned about how much a saint can do to restore a backward culture. She understood only too well that in times of crisis we need saints. In 1952 she edited a classic entitled, Saints for Now. It was a compilation of 20 essays written by 20 distinguished authors (mostly Catholic) about their favorite saints and how much these servants of God meant to the times in which they lived.
In her introduction, Mrs. Luce made the following comment:
“We live in an intellectual climate of ambiguity, of multiple and conflicting ‘truths,’ of exclusive and warring ‘freedoms.’ In a world where truth is relative, where one man’s ‘truth’ is another man’s ‘lie,’ and his definition of ‘freedom’ is his neighbor’s definition of ‘slavery,’ plainly the burden of carrying the argument…must fall on an appeal not to the mind, but to the emotions. Advertising, propaganda — the sophisticated tools of irrationalism — supersede fact, persuasion, and logic, the tools of reason.”
Pulitzer Prize winner Phyllis McGinley reiterated the point in Saint-Watching when she stated:
“Ours is an age of violence and disbelief. But in spite of that, or because of it, the earth’s interest in virtuous accomplishment is stronger now than it has been at any time since the Age of Reason began ousting religion from its seat of authority.”
The “now” that Luce described better than six decades ago and McGinley lamented 17 years later seems an apt description of the “now” of 2015. Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose. (The more things change, the more they stay the same).
Three questions leap to mind: Are cultures always confused and divided? Is it futile to insist on reason and logic? Who are the saints of today that will rescue culture from ruin?
McGinley believed: “They may well be rising among us now, preparing to lead us out of the onrushing night which so threateningly descends.”
The “now” should not be dissolved by the following moment in time, but should be prevented from passing into oblivion by connecting it with what is timeless. This is the office of the saint.
Clare Luce was led into the Church by Archbishop Fulton Sheen and was often referred to as America’s most famous Catholic convert. Her talents were various and prodigious. She was a novelist, a playwright, editor, essayist, philanthropist, member of Congress, diplomat, and ambassador to both Italy and Brazil.
The opening night of her play, Margin for Error, which is an all-out attack on the Nazis’ racist philosophy, was attended by Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann. Several of her plays were adapted to the screen. In 1983 President Reagan awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was the first member of Congress to receive this award.
She was a critic of her times (and, prophetically, of the current times as well). Yet, she understood how difficult it may be to shed one’s prejudices and think objectively and rationally.
On one occasion, she confronted her house guest, the renowned philosopher, Mortimer Adler, who, staring blankly at his feet, seemed bored. When she asked him if there was something he would like to do, noting her puzzlement, he explained: “I’m thinking. And that’s the hardest thing in the world, because, you see, when you really want to think a question through, you’ve got to begin by laying all your prejudices on the table. And that’s the toughest thing for anyone to do, even for a philosopher.”
In 1980, Dr. Adler (December 28, 1902 to June 28, 2001) wrote, How to Think About God: A Guide for the Twentieth Century Pagan. His lifelong preoccupation with thinking was not unfruitful. Two years before he died at age 98, he entered the Catholic Church.
“Finally,” wrote his friend, Ralph McInerny, “he became the Roman Catholic he had been training to be all his life.”
In a 1977 issue of The Human Life Review, Clare Boothe Luce reminded the world that “no Supreme Court ruling is considered infallible.” It was an important message she left to posterity. As she went on to explain, “historically the Court has been prone to reflect the political mood (and emotional prejudices) of the public, and as the mood changed or new facts emerged, the Court has often reversed itself…as in the case of the Dred Scott decision, the Court’s decision has been reversed by amendment to the Constitution when it ceased to reflect a public consensus.”
It is hard to set aside one’s prejudices, even for members of the Supreme Court, and to think objectively, fairly, and without prejudice. Mrs. Luce would not be astonished, if she were alive today, at the recent Obergefell decision on same-sex marriage. It is a continuation of mankind’s penchant for allowing emotions, the temper of the times, fashions, and trends, to interfere with judicious thinking. We need hard thinkers like Sheen, McGinley, Adler, McInerny, and the redoubtable Clare Boothe Luce. But even more, we need saints.
The distinguished playwright one remarked: “Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.” There can be no sanctity without courage, the courage to stand against contemporary prejudices and hold firm to what is true. Moreover, there can be no virtue without courage, and a culture without virtue is indeed destitute.
And what is sanctity? It is, as Phyllis McGinley avers, and Mrs. Luce would most certainly endorse, “the world’s strangest and highest form of genius.” Culture should welcome such geniuses as the music world embraces Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. But first, culture must lay aside its own prejudices and open itself to truths that transcend time.
Clare Boothe Luce passed away on October 9, 1987 at the age of 84. She is buried at Mepkin Abbey, S.C., a plantation that she and her husband, Henry Luce, had given to a community of Trappist monks.
May her legacy and their prayers be a source of healing for our battered times.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That is Going Mad; Poetry that Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart; and How to Flourish in a Fallen World are available through Amazon.com. Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum. He is the 2015 Catholic Civil Rights League recipient of the prestigious Exner Award.)
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