The fearless wit and wisdom of Fr. George William Rutler

(Photo of Fr. Rutler: EWTN/YouTube)

The fearless wit and wisdom of Fr. George William Rutler | K. V. Turley | Catholic World Report

Fr. Rutler’s writing is filled with fearlessness, and it is the best type of fearlessness: a willingness to perceive the truth of matters.

For three decades or more, Father George William Rutler has been an eloquent contributor to thought at the intersection—or is it the collision point?—where the secular meets with the divine. Ignatius Press has just published He Spoke to Us: Discerning God in People and Events, a collection of Fr. Rutler’s essays and talks drawn from the last few years. Many of these pieces have appeared in Crisis Magazine, where Fr. Rutler is more an institution than simply a regular columnist. Nevertheless, as he himself admits in his introductory note, essay collections are never an easy sell to publishers. In his case, I suspect, it was not so hard. His work is avidly, at times rapturously, received by an audience that has grown ever more enthusiastic about the writing and thought of this New York pastor.

That said, there remains an air of mystery about the priest. His erudition is so dazzling that it is hard at times to see the man behind it. Perhaps that is as it should be, as it is his words and the impassioned thoughts that often lie just beneath the surface that really matter.
While reading this latest collection, an image came to mind: a dinner party of the best kind: convivial, excellent food and drink, and the promise of good conversation, the sort that sparkles as much as the fine wines on offer. And it is then there is a ‘knock’ at the door, ushering in our guest—Fr. George William Rutler.

Just to be clear, I have never met Fr. Rutler. So what follows is based solely on observations drawn from his essays. Nevertheless, within them there is a pattern to discern. Take his essay entitled "Humpty Dumpty’s Wedding". Its opening is a discourse on surely one of the priest’s more engaging hobbies, working out how many handshakes he is away from the likes of Abraham Lincoln or George Washington, Queen Elizabeth or Lewis Carroll:

Recently at the opera during an intermission of “Turandot,” I put several grateful people three handshakes from Puccini.  Alas, a manager of a sporting goods store near Grand Central Terminal was unmoved when I told him that he was now four handshakes from Felix Mendelssohn.

All great fun, but things soon develop. Fr. Rutler speculates on how many handshakes he is from the real life girl, Alice Liddell, who inspired Carroll’s fictional Alice. Then we move on to one of Carroll’s other creations, Humpty Dumpty, who states that when he uses a word it means exactly what he wants it to. From then on we are wrong-footed. What started out as a parlour game suddenly turns serious as the implications of words used in this way are then played out in the sphere of politics and lawmaking. The party atmosphere disappears as Fr. Rutler takes this abuse of language and brings it chillingly up to date in relation to the ongoing redefinition of marriage.  

At this point, our charming guest has begun to attract the attention and the curiosity of all gathered at the dinner party.

Continue reading on the CWR site.