October 14: A literary touch

Some of us who like poking around in the footnotes may have been surprised with one particular reference Pope Francis used in the section on “selfishness and spiritual sloth.”

He writes: “A tomb psychology thus develops and slowly transforms Christians into mummies in a museum. Disillusioned with reality, with the Church and with themselves, they experience a constant temptation to cling to a faint melancholy, lacking in hope, which seizes the heart like ‘the most precious of the devil’s potions.’” The footnote (No. 64) directs us to the unusual source of that quote. Not Scripture, not the Church fathers, not a papal document, but a novel: The Diary of a Country Priest, by the French novelist Georges Bernanos.

Let us postpone for the moment any discussion of the Pope’s pastoral point. Is this the first instance of a Pope quoting literature or the secular classics in any official papal text?

A quick look shows us that, in this regard, Pope Francis is not the first. For instance, Benedict XVI, in “Deus Caritas Est,” quotes Nietzsche and recounts a witty exchange from the work of Descartes. And Paul VI references Bernanos himself in an extraordinary speech at a general audience. So Pope Francis is merely following in the footsteps of his erudite predecessors. That, too, is bracing.