Chuck,
That's a good question! You at least deserve to reclassify
yourself into semi-pro status!
I want to think about it for a couple of days before
venturing any thought out answers. Also, I'd like to hear
some responses from others with other information. But I do
not recall WP ever being scornful about any V2 changes.
Also, I'm not sure what a "true" V2 Catholic is, anymore
than I am sure what a "true" pre-V2 Catholic was.
Percy might have said he was a "bad Catholic" before V2 and
remained a "bad Catholic" afterwards, meaning both
ironically, of course, as a sidestep into a peculiar act of
personal humility, and then, if it happened to be a Friday,
head over to a restaurant on the Lake in Mandeville for a
Jack Daniel's followed by some salad, good bread, and a
plate of Trout Almondine.
But this is all speculation.
Marcus Smith
----- Original Message Follows -----
From: chaslow53 AT aol.com
To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [percy-l] Retaining My Amateur Status
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 22:51:07 EST
--
Unlike many of you on this list, I neither knew Walker
Percy nor am able to study his work for extended periods
in an academic setting. I am what Kieran Quinlan
characterized in The Last Catholic Novelist as a
nettlesome amateur, or what the Victorians more kindly
called a "general reader."
Here is my observation, which leads to a question: WP
obviously was an advocate of a pre-Vatican II theology,
both in terms of the articles of belief themselves and in
the way that those articles were taught and held. He
makes that clear in essay after essay directly, and in
the novels indirectly. His views on dissenting clergy,
liberation theology, etc., expressed in the decades after
the Vatican Council, could just as easily have been
regarded as common before the Council.
The question, then, is this: is there any indication of
what he thought of some of the day-to-day changes made
following the Council? Was he sorry to see the Latin
Mass go? Did he rush to trade fish for hamburgers on
Friday? Did he abandon the Rosary or any other of those
devotional elements that were widespread at the time of
his conversion but which are now much rarer?
Father Samway, in his biography, makes the very specific
assertion that WP was a true Vatican II Catholic. I just
haven't seen much evidence of it, and I thought that
maybe others on the list could offer insight.
Thanks. I would be grateful for any insight forwarded to
the list or any private responses. Apologies to any on
the list who are not particularly interested in this type
of question.
Chuck Lowry
Brooklyn, New York
--
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