December 28, 1999
Dangerous to honor 
John Julian Vecchione
A ceremony took place this past year in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine 
which was notable more for what was absent than what was present. On Oct. 24, 
the needs of politics overtook the beauty of art when a ceremony placing Ezra 
Pound in the Cathedral's Poet's Corner was aborted. The magnificent Cathedral 
is justly famed for its beauty, its commitment to liberal theology, and its 
belief that the arts contribute to the worship of the divinity. This is the 
basis of the Cathedral's angelic musical tradition. It is also reflected in 
the Poet's Corner. In that niche of the Episcopal sanctuary are honored 
Americans who have contributed the most to literature.
     Luminaries such as Hart Crane, E.E. Cummings, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt 
Whitman, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Ernest Hemingway and a 
host of others are honored in the Cathedral's Arts Bay with stones bearing 
their names. The long connection of Anglican Divines with art and literature 
is continued in Morningside Heights' magnificent sanctuary.
     A writer is not inducted into this august company by ecclesiastical 
whim. The Academy of American Poets, which includes Robert Pinsky, poet 
laureate of the United States, John Updike, and Rita Dove, National Book 
Award winner for poetry, must place their imprimatur on which truly great men 
and women of letters will be honored.
     This year two new inductees were to be admitted: F. Scott Fitzgerald and 
Ezra Pound. At the last minute, a letter was sent by the Very Rev. Harry S. 
Pritchett Jr. to the Academy stating that Pound would not be inducted. 
Members of the congregation had threatened a demonstration if such a ceremony 
were to go forward. The bishop acceded to the pressure. Pound's son, 
daughter, and Pound scholars planning to attend were informed of the 
cancellation. Daniel Hoffman, poet in residence at St. John's, sent the news 
that the congregation had protested the induction of Pound and that he would 
not be honored in the Cathedral. Fitzgerald's induction proceeded as planned.
     The incident sheds a harsh light on the thrall political correctness has 
on the broad-minded in New York. The uproar occurred because Ezra Pound, not 
to put too fine a point on it, was an anti-Semite and a traitor in the 
service of fascism. Although a seminal figure of modern poetry, Pound created 
a scandal that resonates today by broadcasting for the Italian Fascists 
during World War II and for the anti-Semitism he espoused. After the war 
Pound was tried as a traitor but spent 12 years in St. Elizabeth's after 
being found insane. Eventually, an international outcry by intellectuals and 
poets lead to his release.
     Traitor, anti-Semite, fascist and madman, Ezra Pound is a poster boy for 
bad behavior. The Episcopalians are perfectly within their rights to refuse 
to honor him in their own Cathedral. The initial acceptance however, up to 
even creating the stone for the Pound niche, followed by sudden reversal, 
smacks of politics rather than religious belief. Notably, there is a curious 
silence from the arts community at this form of "censorship." At a time when 
all the cognoscenti of New York are outraged at Rudy Giuliani for cutting-off 
funds for anti-Catholic art in a public institution, not a peep of protest 
has been raised against "narrow-minded" Episcopalians. The defense of Andrew 
Serrano and his "Piss Christ," or the more recent denigration of the Virgin 
Mary with elephant dung, rest on the assertion that good art must challenge 
our beliefs and assumptions. Any resistance to these "challenges" is rebuked 
as babbitry.
     How odd then, that the liberal, transgressive world of high-minded 
artistic endeavor is not up-in-arms over St. John the Divine's decision. 
Pound is, by common consent, one of the greatest poets of the age. Measured 
by influence alone, he ranks in the top five poets of the century. He 
encouraged or improved the work of T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and James Joyce. 
The work for which he is honored is, in the main, neither fascistic nor 
anti-Semitic. It is Pound's political associations that are too challenging 
for those who normally lecture the devout to lighten-up when artists attack 
all that they love.
     Marsha Ra, warden of the Cathedral's congregation and leader of the 
protest is quoted as saying Pound is "not representative of Christian 
values." She continued with what is normally regarded as blasphemy in the 
rarefied world of New York intellectuals: "The belief in art for art's sake 
is neither Christian nor Jewish. We are not a temple to the Muses." This is a 
perfectly reasonable position to take. Tellingly however, when 
traditionalists make such points against left-wing artistic expression is the 
fact that they face the combined animosity of The New York Times, the wealthy 
art aristocracy, and the cultural elites. It is tempting to compare Pound to 
the others the progressive congregation honors in the Poet's Corner.
     Mark Twain's writings were virulently anti-Catholic, and he was a foe of 
organized religion in general. Hemingway died by his own hand; a mortal sin in
 Christian theology. Poe was a booster of Southern slavery. Fitzgerald used 
anti-Semitic slurs frequently in his correspondence. T.S. Eliot held to the 
fashionable, upper-crust anti-Semitism of his day. Others made sport of 
opposing Christian moral teachings regarding sexuality.
     Yet only Pound is denied a place in the Episcopal pantheon. Pound even 
has an excuse for his most odious actions: An American court of law found him 
mad. For 12 years he languished in an insane asylum. Time and again Episcopal 
Bishops have attempted to intercede on behalf of accused criminals because 
they were mentally unfit to stand trial. Evidently this mercy is only granted 
murderers.
     When Pound was released he seemed to disavow his anti-Semitism to fellow 
poet Alan Ginsberg. Forgiveness upon repentance has an impressive Christian 
pedigree. The most interesting aspect of the whole Pound adventure is what it 
reveals concerning that which truly offends those making artistic choices in 
New York. Had Pound denounced the Catholic Church in Vietnam and justified 
the communist atrocities in that country, does anyone doubt that he would be 
in the Poet's Corner today? Pablo Neruda, a great poet and unrepentant 
Stalinist is the subject of fawning adulation. 
     Mediocrities like Maya Angelou are lauded precisely because of their 
left-wing views. Year after year literary prizes go to anti-Catholic 
crusaders. Yet the banishment of Pound goes almost unremarked. Where is The 
New York Times? The directors of artistic enterprises throughout New York? 
Had the Baptists excluded a writer of the first rank from their celebrations 
because of his politics the outrage in New York would not yet have subsided. 
Frank Rich call your office.
     Here we come to the crux of the matter. The world-view preached in 
Morningside Heights is so indistinguishable from the prejudices of New York's 
secular cultural arbiters that it is immune to the cries of censorship that 
greet any other display of moral opprobrium towards art by the religious 
leaders of New York. The politicization of the art world is now so advanced 
that an undisputed literary heavyweight is denied a place beside his fellows 
because of political views which barely manifested in his art.
     The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is an indisputable, though 
religious, part of this world. Still, Pound is likely to get the final world 
because, as he wrote, "The history of art is the history of masterwork, not 
of failures, or mediocrity."
John Julian Vecchione is an attorney with Ross & Hardies and a graduate of 
Hamilton College, which is also Ezra Pound’s alma mater.