Eldon Roehl
At 03:19 PM 4/3/97 +0000, you wrote:
>In light of the discussion about Fr. Smith's admonition that "tenderness
>leads to the gas chambers" and Tom More's daughter who died of a brain
>tumor, I wanted to point out an interesting connection between Percy and
>Flannery O'Connor. At the request of the sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual
>Help Free Cancer Home in Atlanta, O'Connor wrote the introduction to _A
>Memoir of Mary Ann_, the story of a young girl with brain cancer whose
>bravery astounded the sisters. O'Connor's introduction is one of the most
>brilliant pieces on the mystery of suffering I've ever read. In the piece
>she warns those who are quick to gauge the "quality of life" of Mary Ann and
>others like her:
>
> In the absence [of faith] now, we govern by tenderness. It is a
>tenderness which, long since cut off from the person of Christ,
> is wrapped in theory. When tenderness is detached from the source
>of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced
labor
> camps and the fumes of the gas chamber. (_Mystery and Manners_ 227)
>
>As I recall, Percy said in an interview that he had never read O'Connor's
>introduction and did not realize that he had echoed O'Connor's words. The
>similarities between More's daughter and Mary Ann and between the
>ruminations on tenderness are striking indeed.
>
>As for Prof. Manier's question about what Tom More thinks about Fr. Smith's
>precis that "tenderness leads to the gas chamber," I think that it signals
>his final revelation in the "dark night," which as St. Ignatius and others
>note, precedes the movement toward grace--signaled in the novel by Tom's
>agreeing to be a "substitue altar boy" (movement from his earlier refusal to
>assist Fr. Smith due to uncertainty of belief). In the end, Tom bears
>witness to Mickey LaFaye's recognition of her soul, which presumably has
>import for his own spiritual condition. As is always the case in Percy's
>fiction this recognition is unspeakable except in the simplest terms:
>"Well, well, well."
>
>Ted Atkinson
>
>