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Breaking the Chains of Mediocrity (Book 1/Collected Works)

by Carol Jackson Robinson

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•   Description
•   About the Author

• This is Book 1 of the Collected Works of Carol Jackson Robinson (1911–2002).   

  From the Introduction:

  "The articles in this little book, Breaking the Chains of Mediocrity, will discomfort the complacent Catholic. Though written seventy years ago, their urgent call has not lost any relevance: the Catholic life does not consist in a mechanical, mediocre practice of the Faith—one that simply meets the minimum requirements of being a Catholic in “good standing”—but in a fully-realized Catholicism that penetrates into every facet of one’s existence. Unabashedly Catholic, the ideas formulated in this work may well challenge the reader to confront his own spiritual mediocrity.  Robinson’s diagnoses and prescriptions were conditioned by her time and place, but they remain valid for us today, because human nature and our conditions are fundamentally similar. Indeed, when Robinson writes of “perfecting men and their talents rather than deadening the human thing in the interests of mechanical monsters,” can we not say today, having witnessed the brutalizing effects of systems that do not allow for this perfection, that her words were prescient?  This book touches upon only a fraction of the ideas Robinson explored throughout her nearly fifty years of writing, much of which has only been rediscovered recently. We hope that with this book, the first volume in our Collected Works series, Carol Robinson should be ranked among the most perceptive of 20th century American Catholic essayists. Her insights have remained in obscurity far too long." 

  Read Roger Buck's review here:  Breaking the Chains of Mediocrity by Carol Jackson Robinson (Review) (corjesusacratissimum.org) He is the author of Cor Jesu Sacratissimum, The Gentle Traditionalist, and The Gentle Traditionalist Returns all available from Angelico Press. 

• Carol Jackson Robinson (5 May 1911 – 23 August 2002) was an American Catholic writer, editor, and public speaker. She often published under the pseudonym Peter Michaels. She was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and grew up in West Redding, Connecticut. Her father had been general counsel to the American Gas Association. Carol Jackson attended Wellesley College, became an atheist, and interrupted her studies for a few years before graduating in 1937. After attending a lecture on Catholic Action by Paul McGuire in New York City, she converted to Roman Catholicism in 1941.

  She married Maurie Leigh Robinson, one-time writer for NBC, in 1956. She and her husband had no children of their own. Ten years later, she returned to school and received an MA in Theology in 1967 from St. John's University in Queens, NY. In 1975, she won the "Wanderer Award" for her work in promoting the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. Later in life, she attended services at a Society of St. Pius X chapel in Connecticut, beginning around 1990.

  Carol Jackson wrote for The Torch, where she met fellow author Ed Willock. Together, they founded Integrity magazine in October, 1946. Over the course of the next ten years, the magazine was a forum for young Catholic writers. Jackson worked for the magazine until 1952. Thomas Merton, later a widely-read Trappist monk, published several articles in Integrity. The Dominican friar James Mark Egan served as Integrity's theological consultant and vetted articles to insure their conformity to Catholic teaching. He was later appointed head of the theology department at St. Mary's, Notre Dame. A visitor to the Integrity offices described Jackson in detail: "Then I was asked to lunch with editors, staff, and visitors, the community. There was Carol Jackson, slim, young, immaculately groomed and well, "spiritual looking". [...] The conversation was serious but not dour. [...] Carol seemed to be the dominant personality at table.

  As a writer, she used the pseudonym Peter Michaels. After her death, some books were re-issued using her real name. In his review of This Perverse Generation, which was a critique of tepid Catholicism in American culture, J.F.T. Prince claimed the book was just as apt as a critique of British culture. The advertisement for the book in The Tablet claimed: "Peter Michaels' book will give you a shock." 

  From 1971 to 1987 she wrote over 60 articles for The Wanderer including a six-part critique of Karl Rahner.

  Jackson traveled widely to hold public speeches, often about Thomas Aquinas and his relevance for contemporary culture. She coined the term nunk, using it to criticize laypeople who thought that the only form of holiness was to imitate nuns and monks "for want of a clear idea of the lay role." (taken from her Wikipedia bio)

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