{"id":111684,"date":"2013-10-03T11:52:15","date_gmt":"2013-10-03T15:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/?p=111684"},"modified":"2013-10-03T11:54:16","modified_gmt":"2013-10-03T15:54:16","slug":"tom-clancy-that-baltimore-catholic-and-his-generic-beliefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/10\/tom-clancy-that-baltimore-catholic-and-his-generic-beliefs\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Clancy: That Baltimore Catholic and his generic beliefs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

As I have mentioned many times, Baltimore culture is both historically Catholic and very liberal and the state of Maryland is used to having political leaders who are openly Catholic, yet clash frequently with the church hierarchy on issues of moral theology. Meanwhile, the newspaper that lands in my front yard just off the south edge of the Baltimore Beltway is, if anything, to the political and cultural left of the Maryland mainstream.<\/p>\n

Thus, it is safe to say that The Baltimore Sun<\/em> is not the place readers will want to look today if they are seeking insights into the moral (some kind of pro-life Catholic) and political (solidly Republican) beliefs of the late Tom Clancy, the Baltimore native who died Tuesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital at the age of 66.<\/p>\n

For years, I have listened to liberal and conservative Catholics argue about the degree to which Clancy\u2019s novels \u2014 which certainly contained a worldview far from the Hollywood norm \u2014 reflected moral absolutes that were or were not rooted in his Catholic heritage and education. Are we talking \u201cjust war theory\u201d or \u201cjust war, baby\u201d? And what were readers to make of that Catholic super hero Jack Ryan and his remarks about Roe v. Wade<\/em>?<\/p>\n

OK, I was idealistic this morning. I thought that the long A1 obituary in the Sun<\/em><\/a> would at least address whether Clancy was or was not an active Catholic. Yes, he was a very private man and there was the matter of his divorce and remarriage. However, there were plenty of churches close to his luxury condo near Baltimore\u2019s Inner Harbor.<\/p>\n

This is all readers learned on the religion and worldview front:<\/p>\n

Thomas Leo Clancy Jr., the son of a mail carrier and an eye surgeon and insurance agency manager, grew up in Baltimore\u2019s middle-class Northwood neighborhood. \u201cI was a little nerdy but a completely normal kid. Mom and Dad loved each other. It was like \u2018Leave it to Beaver,'\u201d he told The Sun<\/em> in 1992.<\/p>\n

His education was Roman Catholic, beginning with St. Matthew\u2019s grade school. He went on to Loyola High in Towson, an all-boys school with an all-male faculty and a rigorous Jesuit curriculum. Students took four years of Latin, wore jackets and ties, and began each class with a prayer.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was kind of his own man. He was quiet and toward the shy side,\u201d Father Thomas McDonnell, a former Loyola faculty member who taught Mr. Clancy religion, Latin and history in his sophomore year, recalled in an interview with The Sun<\/em> some years ago.<\/p>\n

He described Mr. Clancy as a straight-A student from the standout class of 1965, but unremarkable as a leader or athlete. \u2026<\/p>\n

While some of Mr. Clancy\u2019s classmates went on to spend the late 1960s on campuses rife with antiwar activism, he moved to Loyola University Maryland, where the ruling Jesuits had little tolerance for demonstrations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

OK, but what if Clancy\u2019s moral\/religious worldview was reflected in some way in all of those bestselling novels? What if the content of the books actually had something to do with his fan base and his popularity?<\/p>\n

This is the rare case in which Charm City\u2019s newspaper didn\u2019t even pursue the political side of this matter.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Instead, the Sun<\/em> team pretty much ignored the content of the man\u2019s work and left things at the \u201cking of the techno-thriller\u201d level. While your GetReligionistas are, as a rule, opposed to journalists equating religious beliefs with political stances, I was amazed that this lengthy and otherwise well-researched piece on a prominent local celebrity never even explored the man\u2019s political beliefs.<\/p>\n

The word \u201cconservative,\u201d for example, never appears in the obit. Instead, there is this nod to a political tie that certainly boosted sales of \u201cThe Hunt for Red October\u201d and, thus, the hot start of Clancy\u2019s career:<\/p>\n

The book got a significant boost when President Ronald Reagan declared it a \u201cperfect yarn\u201d and other officials hinted playfully that it might contain classified information. One version of that story has a publicist working feverishly to get the book to the presidential bedside table, but Mr. Clancy insisted it was simply a reviewer with a friend with connections who passed it along. \u2026<\/p>\n

In 1985, Mr. Clancy told The Sun<\/em> that he wasn\u2019t trying to write the great American novel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not write King Lear. I am not Hemingway, Faulkner or Shakespeare, and I won\u2019t say Steinbeck, because I don\u2019t like him,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole point of writing is to get an idea out of your head and put it in somebody else\u2019s head,\u201d he told the newspaper in 2004.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s interesting. Now, what \u2014 to be precise \u2014 were some of those ideas that Clancy was trying to get out of his own head and into those of millions and millions of readers?<\/p>\n

Just curious.<\/p>\n

The story does end with this note: <\/p>\n

For all of his celebrity, Mr. Clancy kept a rather low profile in Baltimore, preferring to quietly dine at Aldo\u2019s in Little Italy or send a driver for takeout, said Sergio Vitale, the restaurant\u2019s proprietor.<\/p>\n

No information about services was available Wednesday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It will be interesting to see if there is a formal funeral Mass and, if so, where it will be held.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I have mentioned many times, Baltimore culture is both historically Catholic and very liberal and the state of Maryland is used to having political leaders who are openly Catholic, yet clash frequently with the church hierarchy on issues of moral theology. 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