Sir, - Recently my attention was drawn to a book review (by Donal Flanagan, of Don Cupitt's After God: The Future of Religion) which appeared in The Irish Times of Saturday, November 1st. Towards the end of the piece the reviewer referred to Nietzsche's "proven dislike of Catholicism", and cited an extract from a letter to Erwin Rohde as evidence of Nietzsche's taste in this regard. If I am not mistaken, the extract in question was reproduced from my recently published book (On not understanding God, The Columba Press, page 234).
The reason I am writing to you now is to attempt to rectify what I think may be a slightly unfair interpretation of Nietzsche's attitude to Catholicism that comes across in the review. His dislike of Catholicism, which the reviewer highlights, might appear somewhat gratuitous, if one doesn't pay attention to the context in which the passage cited occurs. In writing to Rohde, Nietzsche feared that one of his close friends in Basel was contemplating converting to the Catholic Church and becoming a Catholic priest. His distress at this prospect could appear irrational or even fuelled by crass bigotry, were one not to acknowledge that it was connected with the "Enlightenment side" of Nietzsche's temperament, if I can put it like that.
He would have considered Catholicism to be "unthinkable" because, in his view, it was incompatible with "free thought".
However, the supposed "gibe about Catholicism as `Platonism for the masses'," to which the reviewer refers (I presume, quoting Cupitt), is not, I think, to be found in Nietzsche's writings. What is found is the expression: "Christianity is Platonism for `the people' " (from the Preface to Beyond Good and Evil). And in a letter to Franz Overbeck of March 31st, 1885, he refers to the "vulgarised Platonism" of St Augustine's Confessions.
Catholicism, as such, I don't think was ever a live issue for Nietzsche. But his opposition to Christianity is undeniable, and a much more interesting feature of his thought. - Yours, etc.,
St Patrick's College, Maynooth, Co Kildare.