Good Things out of Nazareth

by Flannery O'Connor

  It turned out later that the reason you and I were left alone Saturday morning was the expectation that somehow some great Apostolic Catholic sparks would fly and Katallagete would be fecundated by many noble ecumenical ideas.12 When the truth is I haven’t had an idea for months. Anyhow it was a pleasure meeting you and something I have aimed to do for some time.

  Would you mind giving me the name of that book on Bantu metaphysics. It suddenly fits into a novel I am trying to conceive. It concerns, as I think I told you, the decline and fall of the USA as a consequence of its failure with the Negroes. It takes place in a pleasant all-white 100% Christian exurb named Paradise. As a consequence of internecine conflict between right-wing “patriotic” anti-Communist “Christians” and left-wing scientific-artistic euthenasic psychodelic pagans, the country falls apart, the whites more or less kill each other off, leaving a black guerilla group in control of Paradise. These latter I conceive as middle-class blacks who have turned from Christianity and adopted Bantu metaphysics. It seems proper and fitting to have the Paradise Country Club taken over by middle-class Bantus (who employ a few whites as caddies etc. and who even develop paternalistic affections for my whitey, cf. the Southern expression: He’s my n_______).

  Therefore, I need some Bantu lore, particularly the sacramentals of mana or its equivalent.

  Sincerely,

  Walker

  * * *

  Percy registers his skepticism about the growing dissent against the Vietnam War. He remains aloof from Merton’s criticism, as well as that of other antiwar activists such as Dorothy Day and Father James McCown.

  AUGUST 27, 1967

  Dear Father Louis:

  Most grateful indeed for the stuff on the Bantu eclectics and the reference, Sundkler’s book. Am most entranced by the prospect of a society of prosperous middleclass fallen-aways from the African Castor Oil Dead Church who will have taken over the Covington Country Club Estates in 1977 following the ideological wars among the Whites.

  Also much gratified by The Long Hot Summer of Sixty Seven with which I largely agree—although I must confess I have reservations about uniting race and Vietnam under the same rubric, since I regard one as the clearest kind of moral issue and the other as murderously complex and baffling.13 At least it baffles me.

  There’ve only been two sensible pronouncements following this Hot Summer that I’ve read. One is by John McCone [chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, 1959–1960; director, Central Intelligence Agency, 1961–1965], who said that the situation may very well be hopeless and the country may be destroyed but we must resist the temptation so to regard it. The other was said by Whitney Young: “You’ve either got to shoot all the Negroes or treat them with justice.”14

  Prosper in your hermitage,

  Walker

  WALKER PERCY TO CAROLINE GORDON

  The letter reveals the different trajectories of two novelists. Percy has completed one of his most popular novels. He admires Gordon’s new novel but politely implies she may have wandered from her regional roots. Gordon’s novel exhibits technical skill and innovation but did not achieve the acclaim of Percy’s novel.

  FEBRUARY 6, 1971

  Dear Miss Caroline:

  I do wish you could come to New Orleans. How could you turn down the Yucatan. I must find out from Percy [Wood, Gordon’s son-in-law] where to stay. I’d love to go.

  So happy you got shut of Glory of Hera.15 Heracles for God’s sake. I do hope there’s also some Tennessee in it.

  I too just got rid of mine. Love in the Ruins; it ended up subtitled: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World—the salesman at Farrar Straus said the bookstores wouldn’t go for it, but I insisted on the subtitle. After all a bad Catholic ought to be attractive. Anyhow I’ll send you mine if you send me yours.

  Please give my best to Father Abbot and Fr. Charles if you get to Conyers. I’d love to join you, but I can’t leave my daughter just now. I have to tutor her every night.

  Fr——— is crazy if he doesn’t stay put right there in Conyers. He called me up, stoned in some motel in Georgia where he was traveling with a young man in a Volkswagen. I told him if he didn’t sober up and go back to Conyers he’d be dead in 6 months so God bless him, I’m glad he did (God bless the Abbot too).

  Love,

  Walker

  —Hope your brother is better

  A few letters chronicle both O’Connor’s and Percy’s consistent anti-Communism from the 1950s. As the collective memories of the massive sufferings and cruelties of socialist/Communist ideology are forgotten, the letters of O’Connor and Percy provide a valuable record. The precision of Percy and O’Connor in the use of political words is vital given the profound ongoing confusion about “Russians” and “Communists” caused by sloppy, partisan journalism.

  FLANNERY O’CONNOR TO MISS DANADIO

  MILLEDGEVILLE

  GEORGIA

  19 APRIL 56

  About the Czech and Polish publication possibility: I wouldn’t want my work published in any Russian-occupied country as the danger that it might be used as anti-American propaganda is apparent. I understand some of Jack London is now being used that way.

  Yours,

  Flannery O’Connor

  FLANNERY O’CONNOR TO MAURICE-EDGAR COINDREAU

  Echoing the sentiments of the previous letter, O’Connor does not sanction the translation of her fiction in some countries. Always vigilant for possible scenes for stories, she describes a rivalry between an evangelist and a Muslim religious.

  MILLEDGEVILLE

  GEORGIA

  27 MARCH 60

  Dear M. Coindreau,

  We were sorry to hear we won’t see you Easter but the last of May or early June will be fine. We don’t care when you come just so you get here. Let us know when and we will be at the bus to meet you.

  It came up a few years ago about my having a translation in one of the iron-curtain countries. I forget which one it was. I asked Denver Lindley [editor] what he thought about it and he said he would advise against it. I wouldn’t want my books used for any purpose opposite to their meaning. We would like to meet the Polish lady though [Jurast Domska]. I am going to have to be in Savannah April 30 and May 1, but before and after that we’ll be here if she calls, and would be delighted to have her come down.

  My friend in Paris, Ville Rolin [Gabrielle], wrote me that there was an enthusiastic piece in L’Expresse (?) about La sagesse dans le sang [Yves Berger]. I don’t know if this was the one illustrated with Billy Ghrame or not. I hope Billy doesn’t sue me for defamation of character. The Moslems have been giving Billy a time. I guess you read about his being challenged to a healing contest by the Moslem leader. The Moslem’s message to Billy was quite insolent with brotherly love. The whole episode might have been written by Mr. Waugh [Evelyn].

  I am so glad you showed my book to M. Maritain and that he liked it. I hope he will read the other one too one of those days. People seem to be finding it strange: however, there have been one or two good reviews.

  WALKER PERCY TO COMMONWEAL

  Percy criticizes anti–Vietnam War activism by Daniel and Philip Berrigan, both Catholic priests. A famous protest entailed Philip Berrigan and other activists breaking in to a Selective Service office in October, 1967 in Baltimore and pouring duck blood over draft records. In May, 1968 the Berrigan brothers also broke in to another office in Catonsville, Maryland, and set afire draft records with napalm.

  AUGUST 3, 1970

  THE EDITORS

  COMMONWEAL

  NEW YORK, N.Y.

  Dear Sirs:

  I think the Berrigans are wrong.

  They have violated federal law, destroyed public prope
rty and terrorized government employees.

  These actions they justify as the moral expression of their convictions about U.S. foreign policy.

  It would follow, by the same logic, that a Catholic opposed to the use of public funds to promote population control could with equal propriety destroy the files of the Internal Revenue Service.

  No society could long endure if many people resorted to the same violent, not to say illegal, means of translating belief into action.

  But perhaps that is what the Berrigans want.

  You and the Berrigans consider the United States’ policy in Southeast Asia to be criminal. It is hardly necessary to point out that a great many people, perhaps as decent, as courageous, as equally distressed by the Vietnam War, do not agree with you and the Berrigans. Shall the issue be determined then by the more successful stratagem of violence?

  In these parts, the Ku Klux Klan burns churches and tries to scare people in various ways. Their reasons are, to them, the best: they do it for God and country and to save us from the Communists. I would be hard pressed to explain to a Klansman why he should be put in jail and the Berrigans set free.

  As it happens, I stand a good deal closer to the Berrigans than to the Klan. The point is, however: God save us all from the moral zealot who places himself above the law and who is willing to burn my house down, and yours, providing he feels he is sufficiently right and I sufficiently wrong.

  The less said about Father Berrigan’s comparison of his own difficulties with the persecution of the English Catholic clergy of the 16th Century, the better.

  Sincerely yours,

  FATHER JAMES MCCOWN, PUBLIC LETTER

  Father McCown describes two pilgrimages: one to revisit Flannery O’Connor’s home and the other to Nicaragua. Since his visit in 1987 to Andalusia, O’Connor’s home has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places. There have been frequent celebrations there, including a twenty-four-hour marathon reading of her stories on Andalusia’s front porch, commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the author’s death, August 3, 2004. In August 2017, Andalusia was given to Georgia College and State University (Milledgeville). The university president stated that the donation would “help preserve, protect, and enhance the memory of one of our most influential alumni, Flannery O’Connor.”16

  NEWSLETTER

  from Padre Jaime

  MAY 8, 1987

  FR. J.H. MCCOWN, SJ, IN RES.

  SPRING HILL JESUIT COMMUNITY

  4,000 DAUPHIN ST. MOBILE, ALABAMA 36608

  SPIRITUAL ODYSSEY WITH “WITNESS FOR PEACE”

  Dear ones

  Ordinarily I get a letter to you about every three months. This time I am rushing things to reach you before I leave for Nicaragua on April 23. Dry those tears! I’ll be back on May 8 full of new information on what is happening in that distressed country. I will go as a member of WITNESS FOR PEACE, a highly structured, prayerful, biblically based, ecumenical organization committed to bringing back to the people of the U.S. an awareness of what is really happening in Nicaragua, and to sharing first-hand the sufferings of the poor in that country. In two weeks we will visit many parts of the country, especially the embattled zones. We will interview people from all parts of Nicaraguan society, and actually work in the fields with the campesinos. We will return full of determination to mobilize public opinion in the U.S. to help bring justice and peace to the people of Nicaragua. I am trying to go with an open mind. I have heard of endless atrocities committed by the Contras, the counterrevolutionary army sponsored by the Reagan administration. But I have also heard serious complaints about the Sandinista government, especially its communism and its alleged persecution of religion. I hope to get some hard answers. It’s hardly necessary to tell you that I hope for your prayers and best wishes. When I get home I shall tell you about my trip there, what I did, what I found out, and what I hope to do about it.

  My main work now is traveling from place to place giving parish retreats, or missions, or revivals. (That last is such a beautiful word. It tells exactly what my set of talks is, a re-kindling of faith that is already in my listeners.) First I drove to Macon, Georgia, where I feel much at home, having worked there for five years early in my priesthood. Just breathing Macon air does something wonderful for me. Forty miles north of Macon I stopped in Milledgeville the home of Mrs. Regina O’Connor, Flannery’s mother. First I visited the State Women’s College, Flannery’s alma mater, hoping to get into the O’Connor Archives. But it was Saturday & the whole college was closed. I went to Andalusia, the old farm where Flannery had lived and done most of her writing. The sign was gone, and, though the drive was open, the road was neglected, muddy, rutted. The inner gate was locked, and the weeds and woods have taken over. The circular pond where the mean swan once lived is now hardly visible because of the gums and pines and willows that crowd its edges. The house is unchanged, and I noted again what must be the highest, steepest un-bannistered brick front steps in Georgia. I had forgotten all about them. I climbed a fence and walked up to the house hoping to find a caretaker at least. No luck. Then I drove back to Milledgeville determined to find Mrs. O’Connor. I asked a native Georgian in a filling station where the Catholic church was. A long, pregnant pause, and a final, careful statement, “Never heard of it.” I found the church, and remembered the fun Flannery had telling about it and its Irish-American pastor. I got no answer from my doorbell ringing. But in the church itself a genteel lady was arranging flowers. She knew all about “Mary Flannery” and Mrs. Regina O’Connor, and directed me where she lived, but with the warning that she had become something of a recluse and probably would not receive me. She said that the dear lady had been much annoyed by callers who wanted to write about Flannery, and who so often misquoted her, or tried to make something gothic about her relationship with her famous daughter. Regina now lives in the once gorgeous ante-bellum home of her girlhood. Formerly it was the governor’s mansion, but was now rundown and needing a paint job. I rang the bell and pounded on the heavy front door, but had no response. I walked through a weedy yard around to the back and found clear signs of life. An elderly black man answered my knock and told me that Mrs. O’Connor was not well and did not receive visitors. We talked, and he was delighted when I told him I had known Shot, the yard man at old Andalusia. I gave him my card and he quickly returned with word of welcome. Regina was in bed, and had a nurse with her. She looked wan and wasted. She is well over ninety now. I expected her to be senile, but her sharp blue eyes and clear articulation put that fear to rest. In our conversation I thanked her for some generous contributions she had in the past made to my poor kids’ camp. I said, “You have been good to me, Mrs. O’Connor.” She shot back, “I sent that money for the camp not for you.” I had understood that, of course, but was a little taken aback by her vehemence. Anyhow, we had a nice visit, and I was glad to see her after many years. She has been good to me…

  The second pilgrimage concerns Father McCown’s ecumenical mission to Nicaragua to assess the volatile political situation. In stark contrast to his earlier anti-Communism in With McCown in Mexico, the narrative O’Connor hoped would be published, Father McCown’s views shifted dramatically in the trip to Nicaragua. He admires the Marxist regime. The position contrasts with O’Connor’s earlier letters and her unwavering theological resistance to atheistic tyranny that she shared with Father McCown. She once wrote in a classic summation: “Communism is a religion of the state and the Church opposes it as a heresy.”17

  The subsequent Jesuit resistance to Latin American dictatorships in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and other countries and support of revolutionary governments like the one in Nicaragua led to frightful violence against members of the order. Father Henri Nouwen cites the murder of six Jesuits in El Salvador in 1989 as an example of the order’s “commitment to peace and justice” and “represents the best that the Church has
to give to the world.”18 A global perspective might be invoked to assess such judgments. While some Jesuits supported revolutionary governments in Latin America, the situation in Western Europe was reversed. John Paul II, having survived Polish Communism, orchestrated a powerful witness with other leaders such as President Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. They helped bring about the miraculous crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the dismantling of the Soviet Union, the source of support and funding of Marxist dictatorships in Latin America.

  FATHER H. CLANCY TO FRIENDS OF FATHER JAMES McCOWN

  JESUIT SEMINARY & MISSION BUREAU

  MOBILE ALABAMA

  NOVEMBER 27, 1991

  Dear Friends of Hooty,

  Fr. James McCown died of cancer at 9:18 p.m. on Tuesday 26 November 1991 at Ignatius Residence…the Jesuits of the community gathered around Hooty’s bedside along with Hooty’s sister, Rosemary.

  Hooty had told me before that one of the things he liked best about Ignatius Residence was the personal and tender care he received. He did not want to die in an intensive care unit with tubes up his nose. He died as he wished surrounded by his brother Jesuits…

  I have just returned from Ignatius Residence. Rosemary told me of his beautiful death. Hard-bitten Jesuits told me that they had never seen a holier death…

  May he rest in peace.

  H. Clancy, S.J.

  FATHER ROBERT McCOWN TO SALLY FITZGERALD

  Father Robert McCown, Father James’s brother, never actually met O’Connor but wrote some brilliant analysis of her fiction. He outlived his beloved brother and died in 2012. Like many readers, he recognizes O’Connor’s gifts as beautifully conveyed in her letters.