Folks, in a rather confused, angry, yet poignant declaration posted on her Facebook page two days ago on Wednesday, author Ann Rice renounced Christianity “but not Christ”:
For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to... this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten …years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I'm out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.
In the past, I had reviewed a number of Ms. Anne Rice’s works, particularly her Christ the Lord works, as well as Memnoch the Devil, and Servant of the Bones. One such review earned a place of honor on her website. I found those works genial and congenial, and evidence of a gentle, inner evolution of thought, heart and soul. If Ms. Rice’s declarations hold, her evolution has come to an end.
Ms. Rice is a gentle person. My very few exchanges with her have shown me that and the very few times I expressed my disagreements on her Facebook site I did it respectfully, without attacking her person, but questioning her stances from the viewpoint of the Catholic faith she said she had embraced, and natural law. In the end I saw the futility of it and not liking to be embroiled in long, protracted arguments, I left her to the mercy of God, to whom I cling every day for my own sins and shortcomings.
Ms. Rice is not an ignorant. To say that she’s well read would be an understatement. She’s a genius, she’s an artist. But whether she likes it or not, Christ left us a moral code, that is not anti-human nor anti-life, but well to the contrary and this teaching is proclaimed by the Church He left behind, unapologetically, in season and out of season.
We should take this opportunity for introspection. Did Ms. Rice leave because of her convictions or because we drove her away? Without absolving her of the personal responsibility of her choices, we should ask ourselves that question. We should ask ourselves how many from among us failed to be Christ for her and carefully, gently, try to show her why a number of her deeply held convictions were contrary to the Gospel she said she embraced. Did we also show her the breadth and the depth of the mercy of God to her? I think that many of us didn’t. Those who didn’t also share a measure of responsibility for her apostasy. Think about that one too.
I mourn Ms. Rice’s exit and pray that she comes to her senses. If not, I wish her well, and I want to let her know that the door remains open for her again, awaiting her return. For that we should all pray.
- Read also Returned to darkness?
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2 comments:
Beautiful, charitable piece. Thank you!
Please ignore previous submissions of this comment. I hadn't spell checked. This version is cleaned up.
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Very fair comment but someone needs to be blunt as well. The woman is a little off her rocker, and I do mean that in a kind way, but she is a kook. I've read all of her 18 supernatural novels, the two Christ novels, her so called epiphany, and the first of her Angel novels. I've endured her ramblings for 3 decades. I read her books primarily out of habit. To see where the characters were going but also to see what the latest direction her oddball spiritual journey had taken. It’s been somewhat of a difficult journey for me as a reader as her books are very tough slogs. She doesn't use an editor, which is another very eccentric quirk of hers. She could use one as she has a tendency to ramble and bog down the prose. Good authors take advantage of editors provided for them by publishers but not our Anne. She's got to do everything for herself and really this attitude is consistent with her inability to defer to Church teaching.
As you say in the blog, it appears Anne's journey has ended, and not surprisingly, its destination is very close to where it started. I will no longer be reading her books. I'm not even curious anymore. The journey is over and she’s still terribly lost.
Her lack of understanding of Catholicism is staggering for someone who has supposedly invested so much time in the Faith.
I do agree with your blog suggestion that we as a Catholic community may have let her down. She nominally returned to the church 10-12 years ago and now she's gone. Yes, someone should have spotted that her conversion was not genuine, that she never actually accepted Church teaching. Her "Called out of Darkness" book was littered with red flags. If someone had called her on it earlier, she might have seen the error of her ways or left the Church honestly and quietly minus the theatrics, but I think we are guilty of being so happy to have the famous atheist novelist return to the flock. I know I crowed about it, despite being very aware of the red flags.
Let this be a warning to all of us. We need to help strengthen each other's faith. When we spot the Anne Rice’s among us, we need to address the matter. We need direct them to a Priest so that they might truly understand what it means to be Catholic.
Again I choose to be blunt. Anne Rice is afflicted with the conceit that she knows better than Catholic teaching. She is indeed better outside the Church until she is truly willing to actually accept Church teaching.
Tim, Toronto.
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