Cuneo. Smoke of Satan

Cuneo, Michael W. The Smoke of Satan: Conservative & Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism. Oxford UP. 1998

By an associate professor of sociology at Fordham University. Although a sociologist, the professor does not present his investigations as a sociological study. The movements which he sets out to describe have much in common with similar movements in the centuries old history of the Church. Matters religious, no matter how expressed, are the central core of our lives. Of this he seems to be unaware; as he is unaware of his own academically enclosed parti-pris.
The professor is of the snicker-snicker school of thought. He uses aesthetic adjectives to describe those whose efforts he is investigating: meretricious, claustrophobic, scraggly, huffing & puffing, sweetly pious and eminently forgettable. He refers to Henri Bourbon-Parme as claiming descent from Louis XIV and Philip VI. Whether true or not, the matter can be quickly checked in the Gotha Almanac, a standard reference book; and of particular value in the field of sociology. So also could the professor have done some reading in the history of the Church in America. The accusations of sexual misbehavior and satanic liturgies which were made against a group in Canada sound like excerpts from Maria Monk. The enemies of these groups seem to have even less imagination. Interesting is the professor's avoidance of such groups as Opus Dei.
The professor cites (p.28) someone else citing Thomas Sheehan that "it would be difficult to find a single scholar willing to stand behind traditional doctrine concerning, for example, the Resurrection, immortal life, or the Trinity". If the citation be accurate, Mr. Sheehan seems not to have looked. Perhaps the professor, as a start, would introduce Mr. Sheehan to his colleague at Fordham, Fr. Avery Dulles.
There is little thinking going on in this book; and no sympathy. It is a collection of the frightened current intellectual cliches about the movements, written in an abominable prose: "insightful". Ouch! The professor's students may find the book useful to finesse a term paper or an exam. (Decades ago, we called this ability the Finagle Co-efficient. It requires the same intellectual muscles used to fill-in the blanks of a cross-word puzzle). For some understanding of the movements of the soul which lead to such groups, and of their long history, far better is Ronald Knox's Enthusiasm. It is also written in clear prose.