Anne Rice has clarified her renunciation of Christianity, explaining, ”I didn’t anticipate in the beginning that US Catholic Bishops were going to come out against same-sex marriage. That they were actually going to donate money to defeat the civil rights of homosexuals in the secular society. This is not something I ever foresaw.” Ms. Rice supports marriage between individuals of the same sex, provided, of course, that their blood types match.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010, 11:07 AM
August 3rd, 2010 | 11:17 am
I still don’t understand the conflation of Catholicism and Christianity going on here. So you don’t like what the bishops do — as many have already suggested, become an Episcopalian! I know to many Catholics, there is no consistent and logical option other than the Catholic Church, but it seems a mistake to attribute that perspective to Ms. Rice’s obviously a la carte version of religion — so why is it not an option for her? Why must she reject all of Christ’s self-identified people because she doesn’t like the stances of a particular segment of those people? Why not just become Episcopalian, or UCC, or some other group where you get to include yourself in Christianity while leaving out all the self-defined icky parts?
August 3rd, 2010 | 11:32 am
Could this woman fade away without dragging the rest of us into this? This is a private matter between Rice and her God. She should show some decency and depart the Church quietly; unless of course she’s just interested in publicity.
August 3rd, 2010 | 11:47 am
“I didn’t anticipate in the beginning that US Catholic Bishops were going to come out against same-sex marriage.”
Ok, who was Rice’s RCIA instructor? It’s time for his/her early retirement.
August 3rd, 2010 | 12:13 pm
Doesn’t anyone here have a sense of humor? Do I have to make all the vampire jokes?
August 3rd, 2010 | 12:24 pm
”I didn’t anticipate in the beginning that US Catholic Bishops were going to come out against same-sex marriage. That they were actually going to donate money to defeat the civil rights of homosexuals in the secular society. This is not something I ever foresaw.”
The Catechism, published several years before Rice’s reversion, is pretty clear on this. If she had been conversant with that text, this would have given her grounds for anticipating what the Catholic bishops were going to do. This is not rocket science or even horror novel writing.
Her complaint is disappointedly superficial, for does she not understand that in a regime of same-sex marriage the “civil rights” of those who believe such unions to be metaphysically impossible (that is, the Christians who the bishops’ shepherd) will be trampled upon? (See my First Things piece, here: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2008/12/same-sex-marriage-and-the-fail )
Does she not see that a Church that is called in Scripture “the Bride of Christ” cannot remake the nature of humanity and its relationship to the divine?
August 3rd, 2010 | 12:30 pm
The Bride of Dracula
August 3rd, 2010 | 12:50 pm
The delicious irony here is not only does Rice’s clarification perfectly demonstrate that not only did she not *get* Catholicism she never *got* Father Neuhaus. Or First Things.
FT was just part of Father’s seamless garment – the seamless garment that Judeo-Christian values have a place in the public square.
Now for the vampire joke:
Anne Rice, all snark, no bite.
August 3rd, 2010 | 1:07 pm
“Another Quaalude, she’ll love me again.”–Scarface
Another health-crisis (not that I’m wishing it), Anne Rice will return.
August 3rd, 2010 | 2:48 pm
A Catholic friend surmises that Ms. Rice had no theological objection to the Eucharist. But she was disappointed by the taste.
August 3rd, 2010 | 3:00 pm
“Doesn’t anyone here have a sense of humor? Do I have to make all the vampire jokes?”
I’m content to sit at the feet of a master and learn.
;o)
August 3rd, 2010 | 3:05 pm
Well, I guess I can sympathize with Ms. Rice. After all, when the American bishops spoke out against abortion and nuclear war, I was completely blindsided. What possible Church teaching would lead them to oppose the destruction of the unborn and/or the destruction of everyone? I just don’t get it.
August 3rd, 2010 | 3:17 pm
”I didn’t anticipate in the beginning that US Catholic Bishops were going to come out against same-sex marriage. That they were actually going to donate money to defeat the civil rights of homosexuals in the secular society. This is not something I ever foresaw.”
I believe the appropriate response to such statements nowadays is “Duh!”
August 3rd, 2010 | 3:22 pm
What’s Anne Rice’s favorite hymn?
“Uh, bite with me.”
August 3rd, 2010 | 3:23 pm
”I didn’t anticipate in the beginning that US Catholic Bishops were going to come out against same-sex marriage. That they were actually going to donate money to defeat the civil rights of homosexuals in the secular society. This is not something I ever foresaw.”
Or, in the words of “My Cousin Vinny”: “You were serious about that?”
August 3rd, 2010 | 4:25 pm
The way this is heading she will soon explain how the Catholic Church is anti-science — it’s stance against in vitro denies homosexuals the right to be parents.
August 3rd, 2010 | 4:40 pm
By my count, this is at least the fourth thread on Anne Rice on the FT website in the past week. I’m not anti-humor, anti-parody, etc.–even when (as in most cases) the FT brand of humor is so idiosyncratic as to be virtually undetectible.
And I’m not being holier than thou. BUT–Even when the initial threads are relatively innocuous, some name-callers and (in a different thread) downright scary people have been piling on.
Couldn’t we just pray for the woman and leave her alone for a while?
August 3rd, 2010 | 4:45 pm
Oops, I forgot J. Bottum’s editorial. This is at least the FIFTH thread on Anne Rice.
August 3rd, 2010 | 5:25 pm
Favre retired, returned to the NFL and now he retired again. He didn’t anticipate in the beginning that defensive linemen were going to continue to hit quarterbacks.
As a coincidence, Rice was a wide receiver for the 49′ers so they hatched this in-out fly pattern long ago. Both Rice and Favre should be back by mid season.
What vampire book?
August 3rd, 2010 | 5:26 pm
Four Temperaments of philosophical lore: choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and
melancholic. I’d say sanguine. buh-bum-bum.
Katy Malone Prantner
August 3rd, 2010 | 5:33 pm
Actually, even if the reversion was pr to sell books, she needs our prayers. Heard an interview on the radio and she was quite impressive. Katymp
August 3rd, 2010 | 9:17 pm
“What’s so unusual about finding a tomb empty after three days?,” Anne Rice wants to know.
August 4th, 2010 | 10:51 am
They promised me flesh and blood, but all they gave was stale bread.
August 4th, 2010 | 2:14 pm
Mr. Goldman, you are not the only one making vampire jokes. Anne Rice’s notorious joke of a conversion played on us Catholics — who chose to be encouraged by it — is a joke that cannot be topped. I was a sucker for it.
Anne apparently was a sucker for the church’s aesthetic, the superficial dressing and none of the sacrifice. She drank deep of The Bride’s Gothic richness informed by 2,000 years, purchased with martyrs, a style so consonant with the world of her own literary creation. She was taken by the promise but rejected the pain. Enticed by the Crown but none of The Cross. So she didn’t read the fine print. So the holy doctrine that grew out of millennia did not bend to her political preferences over the couple years of her browsing.
Not only was she shocked by the church’s intransigence, she was sure to be publicly shocked and to name herself Her open enemy.
What was once an inspiring story of conversion is now simply scandal that others might believe it possible to work out one’s salvation through politics and feeling rather than fear and trembling. Whatever the trajectory of her salvation now is — a trajectory that only The Lord knows — in any world it would have been better to refrain from broadcasting her proud apostasy on Facebook and NPR.
Qui autem scandalizaverit unum de pusillis istis, qui in me credunt, expedit ei ut suspendatur mola asinaria in collo ejus, et demergatur in profundum maris. — Mt 18:6
Heavy stuff. Anne could have written it herself in the mouth of one of her characters.
It is impossible to live without a metaphysic, we are all suckers for something. Like her play-pretend literary creatures, I too am intoxicated by blood, the Blood of the Divine Vintage, and for that Blood I will continue to be a sucker, even as famous authoresses return to the insipid sanguine diet of the fictions of their imagination, where Anne hopes to find temporary comfort, where she will be asked to give up none of her shiny trinkets so dear to her mortal heart. Until the truer Bloodlust returns, God willing, the immortal Bloodlust.
Dixit ergo eis Jesus : Amen, amen dico vobis : nisi … biberitis ejus sanguinem, non habebitis vitam in vobis. — Jn 6:53
It’s hard to parody the self-parodic, Mr. Goldman, and we appreciate your attempt.
August 4th, 2010 | 3:24 pm
As a compromise, Anne Rice is willing to pray to the Mummy of God.
August 4th, 2010 | 3:48 pm
Just checked the Evangel blog. Now there are six threads on Anne Rice. I’m sure when you hit seven or eight, that will help her change her mind and re-commit to the faith of compassion and mercy.
August 4th, 2010 | 4:05 pm
How does Anne Rice pray?
“Forgive us our transfusions.”
What does she call the prayer?
Pater Nosferatu.
August 4th, 2010 | 4:45 pm
hahahahahahahaha
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact