Benjamin Ivry on the French Catholic polymath Blaise Pascal, born 400 years ago, whose sharp mind inspired a kinship with Pope Francis.
Anticipating the 400th anniversary this year of the birth of French mathematician and physicist, literary talent and Catholic philosopher Blaise Pascal, some observers inquired if Pope Francis might beatify him. After all, in a 2017 interview with the Italian daily La Repubblica and elsewhere, the Pope had mentioned Pascal as a candidate for beatification.
Some found the notion piquant, given that Pascal had, among his other works, published The Provincial Letters (Les Provinciales), a work highly critical of Jesuits of his time. Would the Jesuit Pope Francis turn the other cheek to the extent of beatifying this harsh critic?
As it turned out, Pascal was praised, rather than beatified, by the Pope in time for his birthday on 19 June in a finely honed apostolic letter, The Grandeur and Misery of Man (Sublimitas et Miseria Hominis).
In this, Pascal’s achievements took precedence over centuries-old Church squabbles. The Pope quoted from Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics III, by the Swiss theologian and Catholic priest Hans Urs von Balthasar, to underline that Pascal “trained himself in the precision” apt for science to attain a different exactitude suitable for the “realm of being and to the Christian realm”.
This meticulousness, as a form of descriptive fidelity, was part of the impact of Pascal’s prose. Even impious readers have been transfixed by the power of his writing. Describing the heavens, Pascal observed in his Thoughts (Penseés, 1660): “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.”
Even the sardonic Bloomsbury biographer Lytton Strachey had to admit, in Books and Characters (1922), that Pascal’s phrase is “overwhelming, obviously and immediately; it, so to speak, knocks one down”.
Generations of admirers have been bowled over by the succinctness of Pascal’s sharp pronouncements, from a mind which also contributed to geometry and probability theory, influencing the development of modern economics and social science.
Not just a theoretician, Pascal also arrived at practical applications in his study of fluids and concepts such as pressure and vacuum. And he devised the first bus line, in Paris, a pioneering public transportation system by coach.
So anyone passionate about literature and science might naturally be drawn to the alluring precedent of Pascal. As Pascal wrote in Pensées: “People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.”
Among those attracted was Pope Francis, who, it will be recalled, graduated with a degree in chemistry from the Industrial Technical School No. 12 of Argentina, a state-run secondary institution that has been likened to a US community college.
To further enhance the charm of Pascal’s precision, the Pope also taught literature at the Jesuit University of Christ the Saviour in Buenos Aires. One of his students there, Mario Paredes, would recall to Aleteia.org in 2019 that, decades earlier, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis, was an erudite, fascinating instructor, although he could appear “distant, formal and cold”.
Pascal himself displayed a wit in Les Provinciales more redolent of grimacing irony and sarcasm than jolly bonhomie. This Gallic mockery and scorn for an ideological opponent was unlike Fr Bergoglio’s sobriety in reciting from memory literary masterpieces to his enthralled pupils.
Somewhat downplaying the controversy, the Pope respectfully agrees to disagree with Pascal, suggesting that he should be credited with the “candour and sincerity of his intentions”. Only at the end of Sublimitas… are Pascal’s disputes with the Jesuits mentioned.
The main message is elsewhere. Beyond thinking of this world in his plans for a Paris coach system, Pascal was adamantly concerned with his impoverished compatriots. As might be expected from a pope who chose his papal name Francis in honour of St Francis of Assisi, this aspect of the French philosopher’s thought resonates especially strongly.
Rather than obsessing over Pascal’s comments on the Jesuits, the Pope writes, the former should be credited for having a “great desire to die in the company of the poor”, Openness is a key notion here, with the Pope describing Pascal as someone “marked by a fundamental attitude of awe and openness to all reality”.
The implication is that, as Matthew 23:24 put it, we should not mimic the “blind guides” who “strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel”. And the main point, as the Pope notes, is that Pascal’s “thought and his life” can “stimulate the Christians of our time and all men and women of good will in the search for true happiness”.
In his own lifetime, Pascal “never grew resigned” to the fact that some people fail to “take the Gospel seriously”, according to the Pope. Of course, since Pascal died at age 39, he scarcely had time to eventually become resigned. Yet one gathers that had Pascal been granted a longer lifespan, he would have retained his laser-focus on what is most vital.
Towards the end of those 39 years, Pascal reportedly stated that if he recovered from his latest serious illness, he was resolved to “serve the poor” as a full-time occupation for the remainder of his life.
Lest this accounting of Pascal’s message be seen as cherry-picking his appealing elements, the Pope reminds us that the point of the apostolic letter is to “recall those aspects of his life and thought that I deem helpful to encourage Christians in our day, and their contemporaries of good will, in the pursuit of authentic happiness”.
Accepting Pascal as a “travelling companion” for those seeking truth means accepting the companionship of a “prodigious intelligence who insisted that apart from the aspiration to love, no truth is worthwhile”.
For Pascal persistently engaged in dialogue with “those who did not share his faith”. He considered reasoning the sole approach possible while waiting for the hearts of others to be moved. This attitude Pope Francis deems a “completely respectful and patient form of evangelisation that our generation would do well to imitate”.
By holding that “reality is superior to ideas” and advocating that “faith liberates reason from presumption”, Pascal earned the praise of the Pope’s predecessor, Saint John Paul II, whose 1998 encyclical Fides et ratio is alluded to in Sublimitas….
Clearly, Pope Francis’s thinking about Pascal has solid continuity, as he also quotes from a book published this year by the French Catholic theologian Jean-Luc Marion, Metaphysics and After, to the effect that “thought does not become Christian unless it attains to that which Jesus Christ brought about, which is charity.”
Pascal’s ultimate message of the primordial importance of charity resonates throughout the apostolic letter, and validates the French thinker’s pertinence for our time.
Benjamin Ivry is a writer, broadcaster and translator.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.