Elmer Gantry and the Cult of Personality, by Joseph Susanka, Through a Lens Darkly, July 15, 2011

Elmer Gantry and the Cult of Personality

By Joseph Susanka
Through a Lens Darkly
July 15, 2011

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Elmer-Gantry-and-the-Cult-of-Personality-Joseph-Susanka-07-15-2011.html

"I have passed the test. I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel."

We Americans are obsessed with celebrity. We expend vast amounts of time, energy and money in the obsessive study of our heroes; we live vicariously through the paparazzi-plagued existences of those more "fortunate" than ourselves.

So it comes as no surprise that the Catholic Church in America has given rise to its own peculiar brand of media star: the Celebrity Priest.

Sadly, our knowledge of human nature should preclude our surprise when one of these "stars" of the church flames out. From "Life on the Rock's" Father Francis Mary Stone to Father Thomas Euteneuer of Human Life International to Father Alberto Cutie, a rising televangelical star "gone rogue," we find ourselves in a seemingly endless storm of bad news about the broken promises of our priests.

John Corapi's sudden and precipitous fall from grace last month was perhaps the most sensational and damaging of all, unleashing a maelstrom of allegations reactions that have unsettled many of us who had cherished his stern and uncompromising stances. His videos were key components in a series of retreats I attended during my formative college years, so last month's upheaval was personally very painful.

In this troubling context, my recent return to Elmer Gantry and its account of a preacher's meteoric rise and fall was both agonizing and timely, helping to address some of the questions stirred up by the unexpected appearance of Corapi's "Black Sheepdog" why is it that we find ourselves in these predicaments so regularly?

Based on a controversial Sinclair Lewis novel, Elmer Gantry follows a traveling salesman of dubious morals and unlikely hair through a Christmas Eve of riotous carousing and a Christmas Morn of floozies and vicious hangovers. A brief phone conversation with his tearful mother reveals Gantry (Burt Lancaster) to be both charming and casually cruel—a man habituated to pursuing his desires above all else. Extricating himself from his mother (and his floozy), he spends the remainder of Christmas on a freight train, sleeping off the effects. Upon disembarking, he finds himself drawn to a small country church, where he spends a peaceful evening belting out spirituals with its parishioners.

The next day, he happens across an attractive young woman summoning the townsfolk to a revival meeting that very night with promises of a grace-filled evening of prayer and repentance under the guidance of Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons). His curiosity piqued as much by the promise as the attractive girl making the invitation, Gantry attends, only to find himself instantly smitten with the lovely young preacher.

Sadly, our knowledge of human nature should preclude our surprise when one of these "stars" of the church flames out. From "Life on the Rock's" Father Francis Mary Stone to Father Thomas Euteneuer of Human Life International to Father Alberto Cutie, a rising televangelical star "gone rogue," we find ourselves in a seemingly endless storm of bad news about the broken promises of our priests.

John Corapi's sudden and precipitous fall from grace last month was perhaps the most sensational and damaging of all, unleashing a maelstrom of allegations reactions that have unsettled many of us who had cherished his stern and uncompromising stances. His videos were key components in a series of retreats I attended during my formative college years, so last month's upheaval was personally very painful.

In this troubling context, my recent return to Elmer Gantry and its account of a preacher's meteoric rise and fall was both agonizing and timely, helping to address some of the questions stirred up by the unexpected appearance of Corapi's "Black Sheepdog" why is it that we find ourselves in these predicaments so regularly?

Based on a controversial Sinclair Lewis novel, Elmer Gantry follows a traveling salesman of dubious morals and unlikely hair through a Christmas Eve of riotous carousing and a Christmas Morn of floozies and vicious hangovers. A brief phone conversation with his tearful mother reveals Gantry (Burt Lancaster) to be both charming and casually cruel—a man habituated to pursuing his desires above all else. Extricating himself from his mother (and his floozy), he spends the remainder of Christmas on a freight train, sleeping off the effects. Upon disembarking, he finds himself drawn to a small country church, where he spends a peaceful evening belting out spirituals with its parishioners.

The next day, he happens across an attractive young woman summoning the townsfolk to a revival meeting that very night with promises of a grace-filled evening of prayer and repentance under the guidance of Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons). His curiosity piqued as much by the promise as the attractive girl making the invitation, Gantry attends, only to find himself instantly smitten with the lovely young preacher.

Is it possible that John Corapi—like the fictional Sister Falconer—has lost the ability to recognize his own un-essentialness, confusing his undeniable gifts and their noteworthy results with the true Cause of his success? Pride is a devastating taskmaster, and one who lurks behind many good and noble intentions.

Let us be supremely cautious in the assumptions we make, for the sake of justice as well as that of charity. Even as the facts in Corapi's case come to light, his motives will remain known to no one but himself and God. Labeling him a sinner is more accurate than many of us might have wished it to be, possibly because it makes him more "ordinary" than many of us care to admit.

To label him a fraud and an impostor is more dangerous territory. Even if the worst of his story's details should prove true, who is to say that he has not struggled mightily against his demons all the while? Can we say with confidence that his difficulty in doing what he preaches means he does not believe what he preaches? God willing, that belief and that drive to overcome which stood him in such good stead in his early years will help him return to the Source of his former strength.

All too often, God must employ drastic measures to free us from its clutches. Maybe these recent failures, catastrophic though they seem to Corapi's faithful followers, are actually the ultimate opportunity and a sign of God's unending efforts on behalf of a single lost sheep. Corapi, whose fame as a Celebrity Priest was unmatched, is being offered the chance to fade once again "into the West;" to become nothing more than an "ordinary" human being, struggling to find salvation.

I believe that these failures are a vital reminder to America's Catholics, that we must stop confusing God with his messengers. Perhaps they are also are a painful opportunity for those same messengers to stop confusing themselves with God.