Tea at Trianon: Mary Eberstadt at Seton Hall

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Mary Eberstadt at Seton Hall

I'll be sure never to send my daughter to Seton Hall, not with such a faculty. From The National Review:

In a twist on this year’s story of commencement speakers being disinvited or browbeaten into withdrawal, respected public intellectual Mary Eberstadt, received an honorary degree and delivered a commencement address at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., earlier today, despite opposition to both the honor and the invitation by some faculty. (Eberstadt is a colleague of mine at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.)

Known for creative forays into topics like the roots of secularization, the state of our culture, and the fallout of the sexual revolution, Eberstadt’s work is followed with interest by Catholics within the hierarchy and beyond. How curious, then, that a number of Seton Hall faculty members objected to her selection on the grounds that Eberstadt’s beliefs “are not in alignment with the values of Seton Hall as a Catholic University.” In particular, protesting faculty cited a single one of Eberstadt’s articles, “The Child Fat Problem,” for expressing views that single parents might find offensive. Yet in her book, Home Alone America: Why Today’s Kids Are Overmedicated, Overweight, And More Troubled Than Ever Before, Eberstadt explains repeatedly that she is pointing to broad social trends, rather than condemning any individual parent’s choices, all in an attempt to set a more humane social standard for the nurturing of children.

Eberstadt’s readers, who tend to think of her as an intrepid defender of traditional Christian thinking, both Catholic and otherwise, will be surprised, perhaps even shocked, to see an attempt to exclude her from a Catholic university on grounds that her beliefs are out of alignment with the Church’s values. Consider her books How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization, Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution, and The Loser Letters: A Comic Tale of Life, Death, and Atheism if you doubt the compatibility of her perspective with Catholic values.

According to the school paper, the Setonian, the move to condemn Eberstadt’s honor and invitation began with an e-mail sent out by the College of Arts and Sciences chairman pro tem and signed by six other faculty members. The Setonian indicates that the matter was to be taken up by the faculty senate. The results of any faculty votes have not been made public.

I asked Eberstadt for a copy of her commencement address. To my eyes, it makes a serious effort to articulate a Catholic perspective through the particular lens of the new Pope Francis, while also acknowledging and expressing respect for those with different beliefs. Gently, but firmly and effectively, Eberstadt sets forth a synthetic approach to the culture of life consistent with Church teaching (and for that matter, other ethical teaching). (Read more.)