Yesterday, 29 April, happens to mark the anniversary of the death at die age of thirty-three, of Catherine of Siena, in Rome in 1380. And for that day we find her listed in the Church of England’s Alternative Service Book under the heading of ‘Lesser Festivals and Commemorations’ as a mystic — a designation she shares with Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila. In the Roman Catholic tradition she also shares with the latter the dignity of having in 1970 been accorded the title of Doctor of the Church. I note in passing that no women in the Church of England’s list are yet deemed to have been Teachers of the Faith!

By comparison with Teresa, Anglicans at least seem to have neglected Catherine and what she may represent for us — with the notable exception of that remarkable nineteenth century reformer, Josephine Butler, whose own day of commemoration falls on December 30. With these preliminary points in mind, therefore, I would like to take the opportunity provided by this occasion to make a small contribution to the consideration of Catherine.

Catherine’s book, her Dialogue, a biography and other memoirs of her, were among the earliest books in print, her Dialogue indeed in an English version by 1519. The book, the biography and the memoirs, copies of her letters and prayers, — all would be needed by those who wanted to advance her claim to sanctity, declared as it happened some eighty years after her death. And all these writings are now available to us in new translations and editions to provoke us to ask in our time what we might now make of her.

Art inevitably reflects the virtues and vices of the culture that produces it. This article treats of the American cultural crisis as reflected in American art and then discusses the moral and religious implications of this crisis.

Martha Bayles, in her Atlantic Monthly article ‘The Shock Art Fallacy’ (Feb., 1994, p. 20), affirms that “Obscenity as art is everywhere. ... Never before in the history of culture has obscenity been so pervasive.” She calls attention to a Spin magazine jeans advertisement in which a young man brandishes a handgun over the caption “Teaching kids to KILL helps them to deal directly with reality.” In the Whitney Museum Bayles finds a photographic display of penises in one room and a row of video monitors showing “transgressive” sexual practices in another. The compulsion to shock dominates popular music, movies, television, publishing, talk-shows, stand-up comedy, and video games. Whatever the cultural bomb-throwers seem to think, Bayles avers that this does not mean we cannot be shocked. Obscenity, she affirms, is shocking. The Supreme Court defined obscenity as the depiction of “sexual conduct” in a “patently offensive way” lacking “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” This definition, because it focuses exclusively on sex while exempting material possessing “serious artistic value,” is irrelevant to our present situation.

Watch any of the world’s great sporting events and you are likely to see carefully placed placards with the simple message ‘John 3.16’, drawing our attention to the heart of God’s good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. That God’s own Son became a human being, died a human death on the cross and was raised from the dead ‘for us and for our salvation’ is the core of any truly Christian faith. But what does it mean to be ‘saved’, and how was — and is — that salvation achieved?

‘Save’ and ‘salvation’ are increasingly common words. A goalkeeper who makes ‘great saves’ is seen as the ‘salvation’ of a soccer club facing relegation. There are even governments of ‘National Salvation’. We are persistently urged to save the whale, our planet — and our money! It is not too difficult to grasp this use of the words, but it is often another matter altogether when it comes to salvation in its deepest, richest and ultimate sense.

In theological circles ‘salvation’ is but one of many different words for what God is offering humanity, each with its own nuance of meaning. Some prefer ‘redemption’, ‘justification’, ‘liberation’, ‘divinisation’ or another. But for ordinary English-speaking Christians, ‘save’ and ‘salvation’ are still the usual words for expressing something which we recognise lies at the very heart of our faith.

Scepticism has frequently been associated with authoritarianism both in politics and in religion. Those who have emphasised the limitations and fragility of human reason have needed to look elsewhere for a basis for certitude—some solid foundation to support a viable political or religious system. Few sceptics have been prepared to accept the view that knowledge and certitude are impossible; there is indeed something paradoxical about the very assertion. Although I shall refer to Lamennais as a sceptic, he firmly rejected pyrrhonism—for he believed that certitude is possible at least in some matters. Nor did he say that reason, or empirical knowledge (arrived at through sense experience) is useless, though he did emphasise the limits of these human faculties, stressing their dependence upon faith and authority.

Lamennais’s life and writings raise questions of perennial importance both for theology and for political philosophy. What is the nature of authority? How are claims to authority legitimated? Are there any independent criteria by which to judge the decisions of political or religious authorities, if so how are they constituted? If custom and tradition are ultimate, does this imply ethical relativism? Can one ethnic group or religious party which happens to wield power (for example the British in nineteenth-century India, or Calvinists in sixteenth-century Geneva) justifiably impose its ideas of right and wrong on those of a different tradition.