Attempting to explain the nuance in Pound's ranting letter to a clergyman
about the language of the Mass, I wrote:

> >To the extent that the clergy are given to theological book-learning and
> >doctrinal disputations, Pound would condemn them all as "half-educated".

Wei  replied:
> This would be a bit odd for someone as prone to disputation as Pound.

I would draw your attention to the epigraph from "Religio":
"To replace the marble goddess on her pedestal at Terracina is worth more
than any metaphysical argument." -- EP

The Angelic Doctor reached a similar conclusion.


Wei wrote:
> My point is that Pound supports that religious hierarchies as a matter of
> general principle.  He supports the Mass; he supports the ceremony of
> communion; he supports Latin as the language of communion.

For the umpteenth time, Pound says "ANY ABRACADABRA", not only Latin.  And
there is no mention of hierarchy in this quotation about mass-in-latin.
Elsewhere, but not here. You may feel that I am making a distinction without
a difference, but the quotation simply does not say what you want it to say.
Moreover, you haven't adduced any evidence that Pound is talking about "the
ceremony of communion".  Where is communion mentioned?  Many conservative
liturgists considered the emphasis on communion to be a newfangled idea; the
Mass, they would assert, is a ritual-drama about the act of self-sacrifice.
Where does Pound fall on this issue? (See reference to "the Corpus" below.)


Pound wrote:
>   I see out of my bedroom window a chapel built
>   on a sane economic system.  Namely, the peasants up
>   that side of the mountain had the stone underfoot and
>   they wanted a chapel, so they got the stone out of the
>   mountain and put up the chapel.  I suppose they believe
>   in something.  And it is quite certain that the FASCIST
>   regime approves of that sort of activity . . .
>     I see and approve the folks in Rapallo coming down
>   to the sea on Easter morning, not so many as used to.
> I see the peasant women bringing their silk worm cocoons
> into the church about Easter time to get 'em blessed, hiding
> them under their aprons.  All this shows respect for divinity.
> Nobody taxes 'em for doing it or for NOT doing it.
> They bring out their grass that has been sprouted up prematurely
> by puttin' the seed on the wet flannel and put little rows in front of
their
> altars.
> All that is very pretty.
>    It may or may not be part of a theory.
> I think it conduces to the amenities.
> ANYHOW, it is part of the good life, part of the art of living.
> ANY Chinese gentleman, on Wang Chin-Wei's side of the line at
> least, would respect it, and Japanese Samurai would respect it.
>        (Doob, 119).


Wei interprets this quotation:
> Pound has by 1940 abandoned the position that he held in "Axiomata" where
he
> opposed "the
> organization of religions" precisely because such organization was
effected
> "for some ulterior purpose,
> [such as] exploitation . . . "  In the passage just quoted, Pound
associates
> Catholic ritual and ceremony
> with "FASCISM."

Where  is there any evidence in this passage, about silk worms and sprouting
seeds, of so-called "Catholic ritual"?!!
Pound, I would assert, is not talking about "Catholic ritual" at all.   In
1939 Pound wrote:

"What we really believe is the pre-Christian element which Christianity has
not stamped out. The only Christian festivals having any vitality are welded
to sun festivals, the spring solstice, the Corpus and St. John's eve,
registering the turn of the sun, the crying of 'Ligo' in Lithuania, THE
PEOPLE RUSHING DOWN INTO THE SEA IN RAPALLO ON EASTER MORNING [my emphasis],
the gardens of Adonis carried to Church on the Thursday."

Tim Romano