A Canticle for Leibowitz Memory and the Past Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

"We know, too, of your labors at the abbey. For the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, we have always felt a most fervent affection. Without your work, the world's amnesia might well be total. As the Church, Mysticum Christi Corpus, is a Body, so has your Order served as an organ of memory in that Body." (11.33)

Where the mind goes the body must follow, right? But if the mind can't remember where it's supposed to be going, then…?

Quote #5

"There! You have it. And during the time of the anti-popes, how many schismatic Orders were fabricating their own versions of things, and passing off their versions as the work of earlier men? You can't know, you can't really know." (12.84)

Thon Taddeo tugs at the root of this theme's problem right here. He knows the Church's view of history is a faulty one. He's actually got his head screwed on straight about the past. Boy, are we glad to have him around.

Quote #6

Perhaps he thinks of our cloister as a place of durance vile, thought the abbot. There would be bitter memories, half-memories, and maybe a few imagined memories. (13.20)

Or is he? Dom Paulo suggests Taddeo's view of the Church might be based less on his beliefs about truth and reality, and more on the horrible (and imagined?) happenings of his childhood. Like our relationship statuses, it's complicated. Really.