CATHOLIC CHURCH · DOCTRINES
Herbert McCabe
Herbert McCabe was born in Middlesbrough in the North Riding of Yorkshire.He studied chemistry at Manchester University, but influenced by Dorothy Emmet switched to philosophy. He contributed a number of pieces to Humanitas, and became friends with Eric John among others. McCabe joined the Dominicans in 1949, where under Victor White he began his lifelong study of the works of Thomas Aquinas. Born John Ignatius McCabe, his novice master, Columba Ryan, gave McCabe the religious name Herbert, perhaps ironically, in honour of Saint Herbert of Derwentwater, a seventh-century Lakeland hermit. Ordained in 1955, was a pastor in Newcastle for three years before being assigned as chaplain to De La Salle College, where one of his pupils was Terry Eagleton. In 1965, he was sent to Cambridge as editor of the journal New Blackfriars in 1965 but was removed in 1967 following a now-famous editorial in that journal in which he criticised the theologian Charles Davis for having left the Catholic Church. Davis left publicly, denouncing the church as corrupt. McCabe countered that of course the Church was corrupt but that this was no reason to leave it. He was reinstated three years later, and began his editorial that month in characteristically combative style: "As I was saying, before I was so oddly interrupted...." He spent many years teaching at Blackfriars, Oxford University, writing four books, The New Creation, a study of the Sacraments, in 1964; Law, Love and Language, on the centrality of language in ethics, in 1968; The Teaching of the Catholic Church, a short catechism, in 1986; God Matters in 1987; and God Still Matters, a collection of his articles, in 2002. He was a member of the Slant group, and combined a commitment to the thought of Aquinas and Wittgenstein with a socialist political stance. McCabe's sermons were carefully prepared and delivered with great intelligence and wit. A major theme was a caution against making God a god, of reducing the Creator to an object within this world, and thus committing idolatry. In 1974 McCabe became an Irish citizen.
Thank you.
— from God matters
Most acclaimed
What is Ethics All About?
Father McCabe, a well known British writer and lecturer of the Dominican Order, aims at explaining, in the five essays that comprise this book, the different ways in which one may think of ethics, rather than at formulating a definition of ethics, or at applying Christian principles to moral problems. The first essay considers love as a basic model for ethics. The second discusses the idea that ethics is essentially a matter of observing the basic laws of human nature. The following three chapters are concerned with the relationship of ethics to communication -- with the fact that man makes use of conventional signs and symbols -- and with the significance of the fact that men communicate not only in such symbols, but also through Jesus who is ""the communication of the Father."" McCabe is a sufficiently good writer, and certainly a sufficiently articulate exponent of ""communication in Christ"", to attract a readership.
The good life
1998
"Honored with countless awards, including eight Grammys, and with more than ninety albums to his credit (more than thirty million sold for the Columbia label alone), no other recording artist has attained Bennett's stature - or garnered the half-century of memories shared in The Good Life. From Sinatra, Judy Garland and Ella Fitzgerald, to k.d. lang and Elvis Costello, Bennett shares his unique takes on the most fascinating talents of our time. Here is the story of his lifelong love affair with art, music, and performing - from his childhood in Depression-era Queens, where opera and Billie Holiday flowed freely; to his stint as a singing waiter; to soaking up the New York jazz scene in the 1940s. With crisp wit and firmly grounded emotion, Bennett captures the people and places that shaped his sublime performances. The dozens of hits he introduced to the great American songbook, including "Because of You," "Rags to Riches," "Cold, Cold Heart," and his signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," remain a legacy of truth and beauty for the classic art of intimate singing.". "In this self-portrait, we get to know Tony Bennett as he really is: an unpretentious and thoughtful human being. His key to success is consistency: His constant dedication in his pursuit of excellence has never wavered, despite the trials and tribulations one can encounter when placing integrity above all else. Through all of his personal and artistic challenges, he has remained, in his own words, "a humanist" whose Zen-like philosophy of life is an inspiration for all ages. Like the fascinating story he shares in The Good Life, Tony Bennett is one of a kind, an American treasure, an enduring artist seasoned with experience and self-knowledge, and a true class act."--BOOK JACKET.