Pagan Spain (II)

March 20, 2021 by Amy Welborn

So, to make it absolutely clear because so many people today seem to be idiots – if I say I enjoyed Pagan Spain and quote passages….that doesn’t mean I agree with Richard Wright’s take.

It simply means that I find his writing excellent, his observations of Spanish life and people fascinating, and I always – always – appreciate history, from any perspective, especially history that gives me a glimpse of Catholic life and practice, no matter who is observing and what they take away.

Wright sees the outside of Catholic practice in Spain. His perspective is limited because he’s not Catholic, he comes from a low-church background, he resents that background, imposes that resentment on any strong religious structure, and he also sees strong religious faith that seeks to shape a culture and guide (or control) behavior as a net negative, an imposition on human freedom and a bar to human flourishing.

Well, okay. But still…you have passages like this, early on, when Wright arrives in Barcelona:

I was tired and my thoughts drifted toward shelter for the night. Should I put up at a modern hotel frequented by tourists, or ought I seek some small place patronized mostly by Spaniards? I was inclined toward the latter. While strolling and glancing into bars and shops, I saw two shirt-sleeved youths chatting upon a street corner. In appearance they seemed lower middle class and had the air of students.
“Parlez-vous français?” I asked them.
“Oui, Monsieur. Je parle un peu de français,” the taller, thinner boy answered proudly.
Yes, they knew of a clean and cheap pension operated by a friend and they would be glad to take me there. I sized them up; maybe they were sharpies? About the neck of the shorter and younger boy hung a silver medallion of the Virgin and I decided to take a chance. I invited them into my car and they pointed the way with shy but elaborate gestures. Five minutes later they directed me to stop before a huge cathedral; they got out and I followed.
“It’s our cathedral,” the taller boy told me in French.
I nodded, smiled, but I was puzzled. Maybe they had not understood me?
“But where is the pension?”
“This way,” the taller boy said, taking firm hold of my arm.
They led me toward a vast, delicately wrought mass of Gothic splendor that lifted gracefully toward a hot blue sky. Where were they taking me?
“But the pension,” I insisted softly.
“Yes. Later. Later,” they spoke together.
Well, if they were crooks, they certainly would not be taking me into a church! I studied them; they seemed simple, honest, forthright….. We entered the shadowed interior and I breathed the faint fragrance of incense and caught wafted echoes of a singing choir. High overhead floated a vault wrought of fragile stonework encasing countless panes of stained glass through which soft beams of rose and blue light fell–diaphanous rays that melted into an ocean of dimness. But why had they brought me here? I walked forward between them and we came to a wall that held a jutting, hollowed-out lip of faded marble containing water. The taller boy dipped the fingers of his right hand into the basin, crossed himself, moving his lips soundlessly, then he touched his still wet fingers to the right hand of his friend who, in turn, crossed himself. Next he touched his damp fingers to my right hand. I stared, speechless. Both boys now crossed themselves anew and turned toward the interior of the church, kneeling and crossing themselves once again as they faced the Holy of Holies.
“You are not Catholic?” the taller boy asked me in a low tone of wonder.
“No,” I whispered in reply.
I was deeply moved and, at that moment, a little ashamed of not being Catholic. I felt that I had somehow hurt those two boys by declaring myself outside the pale, for I could tell from the expressions on their faces that they could not conceive of anyone ever being anything other than Catholic. I began to understand now why they had brought me to the church; I was a stranger and they were taking me into their Christian fellowship even before they knew my name, their solicitude cutting across class and racial lines. And there had been no hint of conscious propaganda in them. To these boys it was unthinkable that there was no God and that we were not all His sons.
Brooding, I trailed slowly after them down a shadowed aisle whose stillness evoked in me a mood of awe; I could feel that I was feeling it; in short, I was self-conscious. Beyond iron grilles of various shrines loomed statues of saints clad in velvet and brocade, golden haloes circling their heads. The trembling glow of many candles illuminated men, women, and children kneeling, praying, crossing themselves, their lips moving silently, their sense of worshipful surrender deep beyond doubting. One shrine was dedicated to plumbers, another to electricians, another to children, and yet another to expectant mothers–no section of the population being slighted. A barefoot girl in a ragged black dress knelt at the side of a fashionably-dressed woman whose lips were rouged, whose neck was roped with pearls, and whose fingers sparkled with diamonds.