We received news today that the noted Catholic intellectual Thomas Molnar has died:
His name may not mean much to the current generation. Yet, in the early 60’s he was ranked as one of the three or four key conservative Catholic thinkers in the US: along with Eric von Kuehnelt-Leddihn and John Lukacs (what a strange grouping!). Molnar has left us major works in philosophy, political science, literature and criticism of current events. Among his innumerable articles, his contributions to the early Traditionalist magazine Triumph and as a contributor of many years to National Review stand out for the Catholic Traditionalist. Those used to the products of conservative catholic thought today will be amazed by Molnar’s profundity of thought and his clarity of expression.
“A prophet is without honor in his own country” – assuming the US was Thomas Molnar’s country, truer words were never spoken. Here, his highest academic attainment was a professorship in French in the CUNY system. France, however, was a kind of spiritual homeland to Molnar; he was highly regarded by the diverse, usually warring communities of the French right. France, the home of Action Francaise, Bernanos and Msgr. Lefebvre, has a lively tradition of the intellectual discourse and of organized resistance to the authorities of modernity. Indeed, many of Thomas Molnar’s best works were in French and dealt with issues of French intellectual life. And after 1989, towards the end of his life, Molnar was finally welcomed home to his native Hungary. He was given a professorship at the University of Budapest, his works were translated into his native tongue and he received many awards and honors.
Given the scale of his achievement, I can only touch on one aspect of Molnar’s thought. He was a preeminent chronicler and analyst of the ideological trends and deceptions of the current age. In conducting his dissections, Thomas Molnar drew primarily on Thomism, on the thought of the French right and on his immense knowledge of European literature, philosophy and history. In The Two Faces of American Foreign Policy (1962) he described the dangers of the recurrent American temptation to ideology in foreign affairs forty years before the march into Iraq squarely raised this issue. In The Decline of the Intellectual (1961; perhaps his magnum opus), he analyzed “global ideology” decades before globalization became the mantra of every corporation and government on earth. In The Counter-Revolution (1969) we find an extremely perceptive (and harshly critical) analysis of Vatican II and the papacy of Paul VI. Molnar had reached the latter conclusion only after some hesitation: in Ecumenism or New Reformation?(1968) he had still recommended rallying to the papacy as the cure for the present disorders in the Church.
Later, Molnar spelled out the dangers of the Neuhaus/Novak/First Things ideology 25 years before the bankruptcy of the “neocon” movement’s political, economic and ecclesiastical policies. Need I say that he likewise clearly foresaw the ignominious end of the National Review crowd as a claque of the establishment they had once opposed? Indeed, Molnar, generally speaking, was a critic of the “American conservative movement” and considered it a failure.
In all this Thomas Molnar was by no means a vastly learned academic pedant, let alone an ideologue. Any private conversation with Thomas Molnar was a revelation. He had a novelist’s eye for detail. By pointing out a few seemingly unimportant features or by making an unexpected juxtaposition he could shine a whole new light on a speaker, a conference or an entire organization. His candid evaluations of figures like Cardinals Lustiger, O’Connor or Joseph Ratzinger (for each after one encounter!) were prophetic. He nourished this sense for the real and concrete through extensive travel throughout the world. Moreover, he was a great listener: he always sought out and evaluated the experiences of others: college students, young and not-so-young professionals – even taxi drivers.
For many of his conservative or Catholic colleagues he was a somewhat uncomfortable figure. He would be accused of “pessimism.” But is this not another word for willingness to tell the truth: that the Second Vatican Council had disastrously failed; that the policies of John Paul II were no answer to the crisis; and that no personality or movement offering a real solution was on the horizon? Others found fault with his “anti-Americanism.” But is Molnar’s critique of American cultural hegemony that different from the earlier observations of Graham Greene (whose work I happen to be rereading at the moment)? There is an amazing agreement on this topic between these two entirely different personalities united by a common European and Catholic perspective. Similar to Greene, Molnar hated Puritanism and its progeny: ideological thought and the reduction of life to formulas. He saw this puritanical legacy – along with democracy – as the Achilles heel of the United States. His views on the American educational system and its products are negative and forceful. I will not conceal that Molnar was not a little embittered against a Church that in France had turned its back on its cultural legacy and had become the obsequious courtier of the progressive establishment. The destruction of the traditional, Catholic society of Spain that Molnar experienced first hand over the years – and in which the Church collaborated – undoubtedly added to these feelings.
I last saw Thomas Molnar early this year. Although suffering from painful and debilitating afflictions, he was, as always, polite and, despite everything, serene – ever the European gentleman. I would advise every Catholic – and in particular every Traditionalist Catholic – to seek out and read the works of Molnar. You will find there a precious legacy of European Catholicism that will help you understand the issues of today. Our condolences and prayers are with his devoted wife Ildiko, his children and grandchildren.
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I know from personal experience that Thomas Molnar was a member of Una Voce in the US around 1970, when it was founded by Dr. McManemin with the patronage of Dietrich von Hildebrand.
I would be interested in knowing what Dr. Molnar's evaluation of Joseph Ratzinger was.
Philip Martin
I am bitterly sorry to learn this. How well I recall Dr. Molnar's courageous prose (not least on the subject of white Africa's embattled civilization) in National Review, during that magazine's long-departed glory days.
I've used Professor Molnar's writings in papers devoted to curriculum studies in the '90's. His insights were profound and stimulating.
Thank you for this fine obituary. His influence over me began with his article in the “New Oxford Review, circa 1977 or ’78,” titled “The New Inquisition” and aimed straight at Paul VI and much more importantly at his antecedents, after which I became his correspondent. He hit a nerve when he pointed to Thelema and Rabelais as ultimate sources for the Paulus Sixtus insanity. His seminal work which should be studied is “Utopia: The Perennial Heresy.”
I am too controversial a figure in Catholic circles to sign my name to this brief tribute (lest they play me rather than recall Dr. Molnar).
Requiscat in Pacem.
Sincere thanks for this notice on Thomas Molnar, and for the inspiring obituary. May he rest in the love of the Holy Family, and may his loved ones be consoled. Apart from finding and reading his Decline of the Intellectual in a Catholic library many years ago, I have barely heard a word of him since; but I have often had occasion to recall the Catholic sanity of his book. I shall now try to find other writings of his, since I sense that they may help me to understand many aspects of the post-fifties Catholic world that I find increasingly disturbing – aspects that are constantly broached by Traditional journals, but then, as it seems, are shied away from : almost in the sense of what Hamish Fraser called "a form of traditionalist humanism", whereby (if I understand him correctly) certain admirable undertakings come to nothing because they contain the diabolical seed (which afflicts us all, God help us) of self-regard.
Dr. Molnar dictated his memoirs during his last months of life. There are some remarks on Card. Ratzinger in the text. Molnar depicts Ratzinger as a European person, a philosopher with a keen intellect and a deep understanding of post-Communist Eastern Europe (where Dr. Molnar was to take up a teaching position at the time of his two meetings with the then cardinal, now pope Ratzinger). I remember Dr. Molnar mentions that the cardinal was not a very friendly person, although a genuine scholar.
Arcadi Nebolsine
Concerning Professor Thomas Molnar in memoriam:
I lament an old friend and a great religious philosopher and elegant author of many works. I always admired his brilliance and his humour. There was something 18th century about it since he was an effective foe of the French Revolution and other succeeding revolutions and its consequences in 20th century modernism and "Americanism" (not America!).
I will never forget though, the way he pronounced the word "democracy" in derogation, making a face, referring to the dominance of mass-man. He was what Berdiaev would call a "spiritual aristocrat" and one of the great Christian thinkers of the 20th century.
A strong proponent of Tradition, he condemned the Vatican II excesses and pseudo-seriousness and sheer sillines. He was the best of Mittel-Europa, very much continental and an inveterate foe of Communism. He lent distinction to William Buckley's National Review. His opposition to Modernism extended to the arts and architecture–for instance in the sadly failed attempts to save Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel.
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