Ezabelle, Dear

Dear Ezabelle,

Many thanks to you for two things.

First Thank You

The first is this: In commenting on my article, Why I Won’t Use John Paul II’s Luminous Mysteries, (published here on April 9, 2025),  you have paid previous writing of mine the highest compliment that a writer can receive: you said it was beautiful.

Beauty is a “transcendental.”  Transcendentals are conceptual categories that go beyond the things one can learn through the senses about things that exist. Transcendentals are not based on, and do not depend on, a personal belief, cultural diversity, or religious dogmas or doctrines. They are objective properties of what exists.

Over the centuries, philosophers, scholars, thinkers, and theologians have discussed transcendentals, like unity, truth and goodness. A “transcendental” was first considered to be something that did not fall within the scope of any of the “categories” of Aristotle. His category system was an effort to provide classifications for reality, for all that could be said about things; e.g., substance, quantity, quality, and relation. Transcendentals went beyond – transcended – his categories.

St. Thomas Aquinas dealt with six of these:  ens, res, unum, aliquid, bonum, verum; i.e., “being,” “thing”, “one”, “something”, “good”, and “truth.” For Thomas the transcendentals, in the realm of being, are convertible: e.g., where there is being, there is truth, where there is unity, there is goodness.

Although the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not directly discuss transcendentals, it does say this:

All creatures bear a certain resemblance to God, most especially man, created in the image and likeness of God. The manifold perfections of creatures – their truth, their goodness, their beauty all reflect the infinite perfection of God. Consequently we can name God by taking his creatures’ perfections as our starting point, “for from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator”. (Wis 13:5). [Catechism, Paragraph 41]

Thomas considered beauty to be a trancendental:

The beautiful is the same as the good, and they differ in aspect only. For since good is what all seek, the notion of good is that which calms desire; while the notion of the beautiful is that which calms desire by being seen or known. . . . Thus it is evident that beauty adds to goodness a relation to the cognitive faculty, so that ‘good’ means that which simply pleases the appetite; while the ‘beautiful’ is something that is pleasant to apprehend. (Summa Theologiae,  I–II, q. 27, a. 1, 3).

In developing the notion of the good and the beautiful being the same, Thomas discussed the connection between beauty and love. For Thomas, love occurs in, is received in, the appetite. Beauty is the experience of this reception, and so there is a coincidence between love and beauty. This beauty is not simply physical beauty, but includes both moral beauty and spiritual beauty. Beauty, virtue and the divine are all interconnected.

Without going into the logic and the argument, one conclusion is that writing can be beautiful. And, Ezabelle, this is why I say to you, “Thank You.”

Second Thank You

Ezabelle, I said “thank you” for two things. The second is this: You said that you found my article about JP II and the Luminous Mysteries “upsetting;” and that you “don’t understand the point of it or how it brings anyone closer to God.”

Your comments have made me think, in a good way, and rather than thinking I owed you a response, I want to let you know I am indebted to you, and your words have made me consider, in retrospect, my reasons for saying what I said and publishing it. I know what follows may not assuage your upset, but I want you to know I did proceed consciously aware of what I was saying and of its possible impact on some readers. Please know that upsetting you was never my motive.

Recently, before I published the article about my choosing not to use the Luminous Mysteries, two things happened almost simultaneously; 1. in writing and in my presence in church I heard St. John Paul II referred to as “the Great;”  and 2. Theodore McCarrick died at the age of 94. In my previous article I only touched on the interrelationships and connections between: JPII; many of those in power in the Vatican both since 1998 and some of them now still in power within the church up to the present; and  “Uncle Ted” and his crimes.

Here are excerpts from one summary of [now] Mr. McCarrick’s sordid life:

“Theodore Edgar McCarrick (July 7, 1930 – April 3, 2025)  . . .  was laicized after being convicted of sexual misconduct in a canonical trial. Ordained a priest in 1958, McCarrick became an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York in 1977. . . . A prolific fundraiser, he was connected to prominent politicians and was considered a power broker in Washington, D.C. After his mandatory age-related retirement from Washington in 2006, he continued traveling the globe on the unofficial behalf of Pope Francis.  . . . McCarrick was accused of engaging in sexual misconduct with adult male seminarians for decades.”

One point of my article was to make all this known and to – very briefly – note JPII’s dealings with Uncle Ted. I will never be able to unring the bells about this whole situation.

In my opinion, and it is clear that whether or not a pope is “great” is purely a matter of opinion and has nothing to do with dogmatic announcements, church declarations, papal proclamations,  or even canonization, to me JP II in terms of his papacy considered as a whole, is not “great.”

The published comments about my article exhibit far better than I can describe that there are those who have the opposite opinion and those who think like I do. At some point in the future, maybe a hundred years from now, when someone is researching how good catholics felt – and it is in large part based on feeling – in trying to say whether or not JP II was “great,” they will learn that some catholics did not believe in his greatness as a pope [without denying he has been canonized and without denying his stature for what he did accomplish and his role in world-changing events]. Perhaps this will only be noted with an asterisk by his name, St. John Paul II*.

In my recent article, and in what I write about all sorts of topics, I often keep in mind the following:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“We’ve had enough exhortations to be silent. Cry out with a thousand tongues – I see the world is rotten because of silence.” [attributed to] St Catherine of Siena

“He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.”  St. Thomas Aquinas

“If I were to remain silent, I’d be guilty of complicity.” Albert Einstein

“It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.”  Moliere

“I cannot stand by in the presence of evil.” Alita, Battleangel

In other words Ezabelle, I feel that I cannot be silent when I hear a pope described as “great” when, for serious reasons, I am not of that opinion. Also, I keep in mind words from the Bible:

For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord. Walk then as children of the light. For the fruit of the light is in all goodness, and justice, and truth; Proving what is well pleasing to God: And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of. But all things that are exposed, are made manifest by the light; for all that is made manifest is light. (Ephesians 5:8-12; emphasis added).

Third Thank You

Dear Ezabelle, Finally, thank you for your insights and your beautiful words to me and to others, which appear here often.

Conclusion – Right Back Atcha Re: Beauty

Ezabelle, as has always been my experience with your comments, your words are thoughtful and much more. You too write words of beauty. For this, thank you. Guy, Texas