Fellows
PORTSMOUTH INSTITUTE
Fellows
Daniel Caplin
Jean Leclercq, O.S.B. Fellow for Benedictine Education
Daniel is a teacher, a lifetime resident of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, an avid reader, and a fan of showtunes. An alum of the school, Daniel met future wife Catherine Malkemus at freshman orientation. After graduating from Providence College, Daniel decided to come back to Portsmouth in the Fall of 2018. Daniel and his lovely wife live in Saint Mary’s with their sons Westley and Walker, their dog Fagan, and their cats Duck and Egg.
Daniel has given lectures at the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, as well as Northeastern University. His research focuses on the confluence between the republic of letters, the public sphere and the American church in the eighteenth century.
Daniel is currently researching the relationship between Anglican Bishop Samuel Seabury and the vestry of Trinity Church in Newport RI.
INTERVIEW WITH DANIEL CAPLIN
Danny, tell us about the fellowship, namely what you will be doing with Pietas.
My main responsibilities as the Leclercq Fellow range from marketing to event planning to curriculum design. To date, I’ve been working closely with Dr. DeMarzio to firm up our speakers list for Humanitas, as well as the top-to-bottom designing of the Pietas conference. I’m particularly fond of the work I’ve done towards that project, as we’ve decided to revert back to our previous Pietas model of exploring one author from the tradition in order to discover how that figure can invigorate the life of the Catholic educator. The figure we’ve chosen is J.R.R. Tolkien, and we’ll be reading selections from Tolkien’s Silmarillion.
Who is Jean Leclercq, O.S.B.?
Jean Leclercq O.S.B. (1911-1993) was a French Benedictine and a leading historian of monasticism whose work defined our modern understanding of monasticism through his erudition, spiritual depth, and influential scholarship. His seminal work, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, explored the monastic ideal for learning as a pathway to God, serving as a totemic text in the historiography of Christian education. His scholarship not only enlivened our understanding of monastic history, but served to influence and edify the Church on the future of monasticism.
Could you share how you understand Benedictine pedagogy?
Benedictine pedagogy is, merely, the second revealed emanation of liberal education, the first being the Socratic school. Whereas the Socratic school prepares man to understand the world through the unmitigated pursuit of truth, Benedictine education is that liberating continuation of the Socratic pursuit in light of Divine Revelation, empowering man to conceive of all truth anagogically, or, as an upward ascent. Justinian closed Plato’s Academy in 529 A.D. because the world no longer had a need for it, and not one year later did Saint Benedict further emphasize this truth by publishing his Rule, serving as the manual for his “School for the Lord’s service.” It was the monastic tradition that improved upon the philosophical tradition, and the Benedictines improved upon the monastic model further. The purpose of this education is twofold: to instantiate within the learner a detachment from the worldly and an intense desire for God. It is through this dramatic reorientation of the self towards God, towards this conversatio caelestis, that man is able to understand his reality and what it is for. This is accomplished through a rediscovery of old ideas, through contemplating them, and through reinterpreting them to uncover their pristine newness. One who is educated in the Benedictine tradition is one who, as Saint Paul might say, “[Tries] everything, [and] keep[s] what is good.”
You’re a convert to Catholicism, and much of your life has been spent on the grounds of this monastic community. Could you tell us a bit more about that?
My early faith journey can be summarized by the following truth: I didn’t always worship at the Cross, but I didn’t take kindly to those who mocked it. Both of my grandmothers were devout women of faith in their respective churches, and both had large funerals attended by swaths of nonbelievers who loved them for how they conducted themselves in this life. These women modelled the good life for me, and they demonstrated that the simple disposition of perpetually orienting oneself toward the Cross can galvanize entire townships towards collective adoration. To this day, people who knew either of them approach me to pay compliments about them, tearily remarking “She was special.” They were, and it was their faith in Christ and their adherence towards the Christian life that made them special. Knowing this, somewhere in the recesses of my mind, this dormant truth activated itself within me once I attended both Portsmouth Abbey School and Providence College. I spent a large part of my adult life seeking other means to satiate my desire for truth, and only the Catholic faith could satisfy me, which is why I converted six years ago.
How has the Abbey and the Institute shaped your mind and life?
Portsmouth Abbey ushered me to meet many great men who’ve shown me the beauty and splendor of a quiet life. Fr. Ambrose, my literature teacher as well as my piano teacher, taught me the value of peace, and that a quiet man can force an entire auditorium to lean in if he possesses a kind demeanor and an open heart. Fr. Paschal, my Theology teacher and a dear friend of mine during our time working together, taught me about the need for prayer; that the supernatural reality is the realest thing that there is, and that the rewards reaped from a prayerful life far exceed anything else we can possibly imagine. Finally, my Humanities teacher, Kale Zelden, taught me that devoting oneself to books serves as the express lane towards being fully human; he also convinced me that teaching Humanities might be a cool gig.
My work with the Institute has been my most rewarding during my time at the Abbey, as it’s given me an opportunity to collaborate with and edify like-minded individuals who also revere old things, enjoy an drawn-out discussion over a good book, and relish the numerous memories and friendships born out of a weekend guided by Benedictine hospitality. Humanitas, in particular, is now the one weekend I look forward to most every year, serving as my most cherished outlet in fulfilling what is now my life’s work: to share the many gifts I’ve received as result of my long career in Catholic education.
What books have shaped the way you think?
Augustine’s Confessions
Moreso than any other text, I think about Confessions daily. A philosophy teacher on Twitter recently said Confessions is the greatest philosophy text ever written, and I found myself struggling to dispute the claim. It is the one text that best empowers its readers to see the world as a gift, which we are called to do as children of God. I love teaching it to my teenage students, all of whom get something beautiful out of it, though they’d tell you otherwise.
I See Satan Fall Like Lightning by René Girard
Most who try to read Girard give up quickly: he’s very inaccessible to a flock that desperately needs him. Those who do comprehend him often misappropriate him, and it seems that few enjoy his work for its own sake. I See Satan Fall Like Lightning cuts through all of these concerns, and I’d argue it’s actually his best work. Whether you accept Satan as the Prince of Darkness, or as a socio-psychological phenomenon, Girard finds the distinction as pedantic, seeing Lucifer as an incontrovertible reality. Human beings are built to let him in, to let him off the hook, and to forget how he did it once after he’s left the community torn apart by scandal. One of the rare books that’ll immediately alter the way you address conflict once you’ve put it down.
Images of Faith by William F. Lynch S.J.
The last two books on this list address the metaphysics of faith. Whereas Girard sees the Crucifixion as the crux of the Christian myth, the only historical moment when mimetic violence was thwarted by the crowd’s ritualistic killing of a divinely spotless victim, Lynch emphasizes the Incarnation as the heart of the Christian imagination. It is the historical obscurity of the Incarnation that disabuses the believer of the notion that their circumstances are not, in fact, enchanting. I often quote Lynch’s opening line to my students, so they never forget that “Faith is the lens through which they see the world.” It should be no surprise that this text inspired Flannery O’Connor’s writing, as both she and Lynch grounded their faiths in this sacramental vision.
Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
The only reason why Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age isn’t on this list is because of his misunderstanding of Soren Kierkegaard. Taylor includes him amongst a long list of significant nineteenth-century Enlightenment philosophers, but Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, for me, serves as an antidote to the Enlightenment. Using the akedah scene as his subject, by far the most problematic of the Old Testament stories, Kierkegaard sees faith not as a theological virtue, but as a power of the soul that enables man to be great. Without faith, greatness is a fantasy. This book contains some of the most beautiful prose on the nature of faith ever written.