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R e v i e w s
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This Rock
Volume 3, Number 1
 January 1992 
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The Lure of Lourdes
Hilaire Belloc, before writing a history, would often visit the locations the events occurred in. He would go out to a battle site, for instance, and walk around the fields on which bloodletting took place and view the spot from the same vantage points as the contenders. He felt this gave him insight into the material facts, as well as into what must have been in the minds of those involved.
That came to mind as I was going through this little book on Lourdes. Whenever I’m reading a history or a hagiography it becomes much more vivid and palpable with visual material to connect with it. If you can’t meet the people or visit the location, having a reservoir of pictures available is a good second best.
As I went through the Illustrated Story of Lourdes, though, I was unexpectedly impressed by a nostalgic or sentimental feeling this book engendered. It was like finding an old box or album of family photos that had been long forgotten or not even known to exist. Pictures of people, places, and events were discovered that you had heard so much about but had never seen. There are many photos in this book that I have never encountered before.
In the Illustrated Story of Lourdes, the emphasis is definitely on the illustrations. It is simple and doesn’t attempt to be a slick work of technical virtuosity. There are no stunning sunsets or special effects in the shooting. I don’t know if the writer and publisher planned it that way (their budget was most likely the determing factor), but, given who Bernadette was, the book is appropriately unpretentious and direct.
There have been movies, such as The Song of Bernadette with actress Jennifer Jones, that were well cast and nicely produced and directed. In a movie we can get some appreciation of the events, but we still know we are seeing actors’ faces and Hollywood sets.
In this book we have the real faces and places, not flattered and even homely, the way family photos can be. Bernadette was a peasant girl from the poorest of families and we see all that quite clearly. She is rustic and without affectation, perhaps even a bit awkward and camera shy.
There are dozens of color photos of the present-day shrine and the town, and dozens more older shots, closer to the time of the apparition, in black and white. There are many pictures of Bernadette, her family, and others who were involved in the events, ranging from the police commissioner to the pastor.
There have been many books on Lourdes printed over the years. This book probably won’t replace any of them, but it will complement them. For instance, Bernadette, by Frances Parkinson Keyes, is a standard and sensitive biography. Ruth Cranston’s The Miracle of Lourdes is a popular chronicle of the apparition and the subsequent miracles, an excellent resource.
These books are very good and, fortunately, still in print, but neither contains illustrations. The Illustrated Story of Lourdes complements books like these very well. The three books together would form a comprehensive little collection on Lourdes.
The Illustrated Story of Lourdes is by no means exhaustive, but easily stands on its own with a narrative that is concise, effortless, and satisfying. Text and captions can all be read in a short afternoon.
Lourdes still ranks as the greatest pilgrimage site in the world, exceeding even Mecca, with millions visiting the shrine each year. On the practical side this book is a good guide for the pilgrim. It is a paperback that can easily be packed and carried around. It shows points of interest to the pilgrim, who will be able to set an itinerary and recognize the places easily when reaching Lourdes.
This book will go on my shelf, to join a dozen or so other books on Lourdes. It will reside there not just for my own pleasure, but as an apologetical tool. I frequently find myself lending books on Lourdes to non-Catholics.
Practical apologetics has to appeal to the heart as well as to the head. Some heads can be very hard. The hard data on Lourdes can be very effective on the hard heads.
The miracle of Lourdes did not happen "once upon a time"; it is still happening. The healings still occur, and at the Medical Bureau the registered list of miraculous cures continues to grow. Hard facts are hard to dispel, and Lourdes can be precisely the thing to wake up a non-believer.
Bernadette and her Lady can find their way into even the most hardened heart and this little book, along with others, will help to get them there.
-- Clayton F. Bower, Jr.
Illustrated Story of Lourdes
By Don Massimo Atrua
(Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, England: Anthony Clarke Publishers, 1973)
93 pages
$9.95
A New Specter
A new specter Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels began The Communist Manifesto with the words, "A specter is haunting Europe--the specter of Communism." That specter turned out to be a ghost of a most unholy sort.
A different kind of specter began to haunt the Catholic Church in the late 1960s, and it erupted into full fury in the 1970s and 1980s. That specter is Catholic feminism.
Feminism has been a particularly troublesome issue to critique because it wraps itself around some quite legitimate concerns. Any criticism, however serious or thoughtful, is often buried under a hail of epithets, "sexist" being the most common of them. As the movement began to wane in the secular world, it was transplanted to and took on a new life in the Church. Once there, it took a particularly insidious turn.
That turn seems to have been caused by two things. First is feminist antipathy toward anything masculine, an attitude usually attributed to the most radical feminists but too often found in the most benign. Second is the shaken and sometimes shattered confidence of women’s religious orders in the institutional Church following Vatican II. (Many of the most ardent feminists come from religious orders.)
When dissident theologians and feminist activists began to plant seeds in this fertile ground, the resultant growth was rapid and widespread. As in the secular world, what started as concern over real issues gave way to irrational anger toward men.
One of the aims of radical feminism in the secular world was the toppling of "masculine" or "patriarchal" institutions and the replacing of them with "feminine" ones. When feminism moved into the Church, the secular model was repeated, but now the target was the ultimate "male symbol," God.
Although such an allegation may seem, if not preposterous, at least alarmist, it is something Donna Steichen’s new book relentlessly and exhaustively documents. Steichen attended many women’s seminars, workshops, and conventions. She relates, in straight investigative reporting style, what she found. She quotes liberally from feminists’ writings, speeches, and interviews.
What she finds are controversialists and theologians who pass themselves off as Catholic, but who have rejected explicitly the Church and its teachings. They also have rejected objective scholarship, objective morality, patriarchy, and, not surprisingly, God. As substitutes they have erected Women Church, matriarchy, false history and mythos, and the goddess--in short, paganism. They use the term "Wicca," referring to an "older religion" of nature worship. Their rituals, which Steichen describes in detail, sound like something out of a bad movie about witchcraft.
There is a good news/bad news aspect to all of this. The good news is that the number of women who hold these views is proportionately small. The bad news is that they have had, and continue to have, an influence far greater than their numbers would indicate.
They have this influence because they are in positions that control education in many dioceses in this country. For several years they have dominated Catholic education. As Steichen notes, "Most of a generation of young Catholics have been lost to the faith because their trusting parents sacrificed to send them to Catholic catechetical programs, schools, and colleges."
Although Steichen names names--a valuable catalogue of people who may be speaking in your diocese--what is more important is that she exposes the feminist agenda so anyone can recognize it. After all, the Rosemary Ruethers, Elizabeth Schussler- Fiorenzas, and Mary Dalys won’t be around forever, but their ideas may outlive them. By identifying their ideas and by providing suggestions for combating them, Steichen performs a service.
Just as communism collapsed on its Godless center, so feminism will collapse. Before communism’s demise, it claimed many victims, and no doubt feminism will claim many of its own. The Catholic apologist needs to know what feminism’s real target is--souls--if he’s to do his work effectively.
-- Thomas W. Shaw
Ungodly Rage
By Donna Steichen
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991)
420 pages
$15.95
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