In nomine Dei…
Classmates since first year high, David Tracy and I were ordained in Rome in December 1963 and, after having earned our Licentiates in Sacred Theology, came home in 1964. The following fall I was a curate in Yonkers and David at St. Mary’s in Stamford, CT. This was the parish of William F. Buckley, whom David named as one of the first readers as the very initial liturgical reforms began in Advent 1964. David was in the parish for only one year, before going back to Rome for a doctorate, so this must have happened in the spring or summer of 1965. One evening I received a call from him saying that Buckley had called him and asked him for help on a headline he wanted for an article in National Review, namely, how to say in Latin, “What in the name of God is going on in the Catholic Church?” David and I put our heads together and came up with something like: In nomine Dei, quid agitur in Ecclesia Catholica? But I’m not sure if it was ever used.
I believe that Buckley wrote a piece for Commonweal back in 1967 about what he saw as the degeneration of liturgy in the years after the Council. It is very funny.
R.I.P.
That falsetto voice always got to me. Replete with words that I had to look up. He was a fixture on the national scene for so many years. He certainly was never boring even tho he dealt with subjects that could be tedious. He put people down, if we can talk thus, in the most hilarious way. A rather pleasant ad hominem.
When it was not fashionable to criticize bishops, Buckley, in his television show, laced into Fulton Sheen on Sheen’s opposition to the Vietnam war. (The first bishop to do so as far as I know.) Maybe Spellman cued William F.
So that I will speak well of the dead, let me relate a story. Kate O’Beirne, a writer for the National Review put up a website about Bill Clinton which I thought was bordering on the pornographic, as it was a continuous rant with graphics about Clinton’s sexual escapades. I wrote to Buckley noting that I was surprised that he would allow such a website which was vulgar not to mention in extremely poor taste. A few days later it was not there anymore.
He was involved and was probably more consistent than most.
I respected Buckley because he criticized with gleeful humor. Though he sometimes had harsh words for positions and movements, callling his opponents names was not his modus operandi..
Many moons ago, must be 50 years, some of us would gather at Hunter College to hear Bill Buckley, master of the polysyllabic, debate with jimmy Wechsler of the then quite liberal New york Post. We’d then retire to a neighborhood oasis for a few brewskis to solve the problems of the world. There were lots of laughs, much passionate discussion but no rancor.
How different today.
As noted, Bill buckley was a civil man of culture who exercised great influence.
As Juan Williams noted on NPR, he was a father of intellectualizion ga conservative movement that emphasized among other things, “individualism.”
How differen today and that imndividualism continues to butress the partisanship and sometimes hateful discourse we see.
As a Catholic, Buckley helped promote a though tmode that undermined a sense of the common good for many.
Sad, but still, may he rest in peace.
I’ve gathered a few anecdotes about Buckley from the tributes published yesterday and today.
1.
I got to know Buckley a little in the 1990s, debating him on his show, Firing Line. The show, the longest running with a single host in TV history, was civil, substantive and high minded; in short, the opposite of everything political talk shows have since become.
Off camera he was witty and articulate and also gracious and warm. A couple of years after the show went off the air I was running for Governor of Connecticut and bumped into him. He put his hand gently on my arm and said, softly, “I will vote against you with the deepest affection.”
Buckley evolved over time from one who insisted the constitution forbade us from ending segregation, to one who supported civil rights laws and a national holiday for Martin Luther King. …
He saw Viet Nam as a mistake and parted company with Bush over Iraq. He sailed to international waters to try marijuana before calling for legalization. His lovely book Nearer My God reveals a real spirituality, as opposed to the hateful, hypocritical swill peddled as religion by his party. Sam Tanenhaus, author of a much anticipated biography, says Buckley couldn’t bear Ann Coulter.
I first met Buckley a decade before our Firing Line encounters at a reception for an ailing Mike Harrington, socialist and author of ‘The Other America.’ Harrington truly regarded Buckley as a friend. So did John Kenneth Galbraith. So did most liberals Buckley knew.
Bill Curry, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-curry/bill-buckley_b_88847.html
2.
As Buckley headed into his final years, he became vehemently opposed to the crusading, neoconservative stance that the younger generation at National Review adopted in championing the Iraq War. Indeed, both Buckleys, William F. and his brilliantly talented son Christopher, became acidulous critics of President Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney. The elder Buckley declared that if Bush were serving in a parliamentary democracy, he would have to resign, if not [be] impeached
Jacob Heilbrunn, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-heilbrunn/bill-buckleys-conservati_b_88940.html
3.
The key to serving fresh seafood on his boat was simple–he pulled up somebody’s lobster trap, removed several lobsters, put way too many dollar bills in a bottle to pay for them and placed the corked bottle in the trap. Shopping made simple.
John Leo, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-leo/barely-relevant-notes-on-_b_89067.html