Catholics: A Novel by Brian Moore, Post #4

This is the fourth and final in a series of posts on the Brian Moore novel, Catholics: A Novel.  The first post can be found here.   

The second post here.   

The third post here. 

 

 

My Comment:

This is in Part 2 but I'll post it here since it's relevant to this discussion. When the Abbot and Kinsella are discussing the dangers of the TV documentary, this exchange ensued:

 

”A program in the wrong hands, about this subject, could be made to look like the first stirrings of a Catholic counterrevolution.”

 

“Ah, now begging your pardon, Father Kinsella, I find that very far-fetched.”

 

“Far-fetched? To the enemies of the church, won’t it seem that you have acted in direct contradiction to the counsels of Vatican IV?”

Notice Kinsella fears the “Catholic counterrevolution” and characterizes those that would seize on the issue as “enemies of the church.” So the enemies of the church are the counterrevolutionaries, which are people inside the church! And the monks, such as Fr. Manus and Matthew and the Irish on the mainland, could easily be the formation of the counterrevolution. Then how despicable is the Abbot’s mollifying of the monks at the end where he undermines any coalescence of a counterrevolution? Of course, I’m using the word “despicable” because it’s from my point of view, but frankly I have no idea where Brian Moore falls on this because he’s made such amess of the inherent logic of the novel.

By the way, it shows the counterrevolution is the natural opposition to a dystopian situation. It's just that Moore never follows through on it.

Irene Replied:

Manny wrote: "This is in Part 2 but I'll post it here since it's relevant to this discussion. When the Abbot and Kinsella are discussing the dangers of the TV documentary, this exchange ensued:

A program in the..."
I read that exchange a bit differently. I saw the "enemies of the Church" as outside the Church structure. They are those who would only learn of the tension between the traditional rituals and the revised rituals by a secular TV show. They would seize on that and use it against the Church. Presumably, those in Church leadership would not need a TV show in the secular world to learn of this debate. In fact, they already know that is why Fr. Kinsella is there. The abbot rejects that perception. He does not accept the claim that what is happening would be seized on as counter revolutionary by the "enemies of the Church" My reading is that he does not see the actions of the monastery as counter revolutionary. Are the monks mounting a counter revolution or are they simply ministering to the people who come to the monastery seeking spirituality? Are they trying to reform the Church or are they responding to the immediate ministerial needs before them? Yes, they are keeping the Latin Mass and oricular confession alive. But I did not see any evidence that they are trying to reverse Vatican IV on a more grand scale. Certainly, the monks' safe guarding of the tradition could have a revolutionary impact over time. By keeping something alive, they may be planting the seeds of a revolution. But, I don't see any indication that the abbot or the monks are intentionally mounting a revolution to roll back the changes of Vatican IV in the universal Church.

My Reply to Irene:

Irene wrote: "I read that exchange a bit differently. I saw the "enemies of the Church" as outside the Church structure. "

That's possible, but the antecedent of "enemies of the church" seems like it's referring back to "counterrevolutionaries." Perhaps in casual conversation it might be construed as that, but any counterrevolutionary would certainly qualify as an enemy of the church, especially in this militaristic context of this new church. On balance I think you're right. There are no current counterrevolutionaries.

But who are these enemies of the church? They could easily be within the church as without. Everything the forces that Kinsella has been working against seems like he's addressing issues within the church.

 

Irene Replied:

Who are the "enemies of the Church"? They are not specifically named. But they could be any force that wants to see its demise. Of course, one could argue that the very changes that the institution is implementing to make the Church more palitable, less offensive, less prone to attack by "enemies" are the very forces that is destroying it. But, as I read that exchange, I thought that Moore was alluding to Church schism and the way secular and outside voices exploited any sign of disunity in the church to discredit the entire Church. Certainly in the early 70s, there was a great deal of public division among Catholics as the liturgical changes of Vatican II were implemented. And the secular prognostigators were forecasting a schism that would end the Catholic Church in a way that the Protestant Reformation did not do. Of course, those predictions were not true. Outsiders could not understand that descent has always existed in the Church as it does in any passionate family. But like any family, we also don't want our family fights to become the next headline either. I don't see any specific group or action being named as "counter revolutionary" in that exchange. Rather I see the fear that "enemies of the Church" will regard the perceived tension as an act of counter revolution.I don't see Kinsella calling the monks "counter revolutionaries" but cautioning that the enemies may perceive their celebration of the Latin mass as counter revolutionary. Schism has been a major cause of concern from the 1st Letter to the Corinthians to the present. The unity of the Body of Christ has always been a primary goal. Maybe this is part of the tension that Moore wants the reader to consider, sins against the unity of the Body of Christ vs sins against orthodoxy.

 

My Reply to Irene:

Irene wrote: "Who are the "enemies of the Church"? They are not specifically named. But they could be any force that wants to see its demise. Of course, one could argue that the very changes that the institution is implementing to make the Church more palitable, less offensive, less prone to attack by "enemies" are the very forces that is destroying it. But, as I read that exchange, I thought that Moore was alluding to Church schism and the way secular and outside voices exploited any sign of disunity in the church to discredit the entire Church."

I guess it's vague enough for "the enemies" to be either or both, within and without. Everything is so vague in this novel that one can create any line of thought he wishes.

Yes, Irene, his Lourdes experience is at the heart of his "null." Like everything else in this novel, and including your observation of Hartman, it is woefully underdeveloped. Moore spends pages and pages on the helicopter ride, the boat ride that never happened, the blackberry jam, and a whole lot of meaningless details and he doesn't develop what should be key elements to the novel.

For instance, is Hartman part of the forces of the dystopia or the resistance? And don't say neither, because then it won't fit.

 

Irene Replied to My Comment:

I don't read this as a dystopian battle between the evil institutional Church and the good traditionalist monks. So, I can't answer that question because it does not fit into the way I read this story. Too bad Moore is dead and we can't hear his intent.

 

My Reply to Irene:

Irene wrote: "I don't read this as a dystopian battle between the evil institutional Church and the good traditionalist monks. So, I can't answer that question because it does not fit into the way I read this st..."

Well, I guess I can read the Divine Comedy as some sort of Buddhist adventure story but I would be wrong. There is no way to read this novel where the future Catholic world envisions this:

- Priest’s collar and black shirt replaced by military style uniform.
- No praying of the rosary.
- No private confessions, but a group act of contrition.
- No Latin Mass but vernacular.
- Facing the congregation rather than God.
- No Pope but a “Father General”? Is that correct or is Father General head of the Albanisean Order?
- No Rome as center of the Church but Amsterdam being the place of the World Ecumen Council.
- The “interpenetration” between Christianity and Buddhism.
- No traditional church hierarchy but military ranks.
- No transubstantiation but symbolic act.
- Church service similar to a “bingo game.”
- No religious grace before meals but an ecumenical grace.
- No sign of the cross.
- Lourdes is no longer in operation. One would assume all miracle visitation sites are closed.
- No distinction between mortal and venial sins.
- No prayers.
- Christianity without God or faith.
- Clerical dress for priests is optional.
- The sacrifice of the Mass is not a miracle but merely a ritual.

and not see it as a dystopian world, especially given the military allusion that suggest a jackbooted attempt to enforcement if the Abbot chose the other way. That Christianity can only survive if it gets rid of God is clearly an Orwellian doublespeak.

The problem is not your reading, the problem is Moore. He set up incompatible lines of thought, completely under developed everything, and published it. Anyone can read all sorts of things in this. You are ignoring the parts of the book that doesn't fit your reading while grasping onto the parts that do.

 

Joseph Commented:

I have to side with Irene on this one. Dystopian novels have the society at large as the bad guy and its systems. What Moore gives us is kind of a microcosm of what we now call the Liturgy Wars and I think his aim is more to point out the condition of the Church in 1972. It so happens that many of those elements are still current, and thus this novel does present a parable about how we live the Faith when what we have known for centuries upon centuries changes. I find the final scene with the monks gathered in the chapel praying the Our Father to be indicative of how many responded to the changes of the early 70s and how many still have to respond when they cannot find a parish to their personal liking in terms of liturgy or preaching. The conflict is certainly between Faith and non-Faith and it reaches into the institutional Church, but that is a conflict which is fought every day in the hearts of millions of believers around the world and I think that's what the novel, in the end, is getting at.

 

My Reply to Joseph:

No, no, no.  On a dystopia there is absolutely no question.  Definition from Wikipedia:

 

A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopia or simply anti-utopia) is a fictional community or society that is undesirable or frightening…Dystopias are often characterized by rampant fear or distress, tyrannical governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society.

And further down:

 

Dystopias typically reflect contemporary sociopolitical realities and extrapolate worst-case scenarios as warnings for necessary social change or caution. Dystopian fictions invariably reflect the concerns and fears of their creators' contemporaneous culture.

The Catholic Church is acting as a dystopian society and Moore has extrapolated the worst fears that came out of the Vatican II changes. 

This has all the earmarks of a dystopia.  It is set in the future, Vatican IV.  If it’s not a dystopia, why does he set it in the future?  Why is all of Catholicism changed so dramatically already?  No debate, no transition.  And from every character outside the governing structure, we see no one who wants it.  But more importantly, why are all the changes so distasteful?  Every single one is put in a bad light.  Every beloved tradition is extirpated.  There is no moral equivalence.  All the sympathy in the novel are against the governing church.  Look at all the folk (akin to the hobbits of Lord of the Rings) who go to the traditional Mass offered by the monks.  Where is there one good word for the Church and for Kinsella and what he represents?  Show me.  Show me one good word, one positive detail for the governing church.  For crying out loud, Kinsella wears a military uniform instead of priestly garb.  Look at the treatment Kinsella gets by the good earthy folk in Ireland.  He’s made out into an elitist.  He’s contrasted with Padraig who treats him to this.

 

The boatman abruptly let go of the bollard and took up his oars. Kinsella, irritated, reached down and caught hold of the curragh’s stern.

 

“Let go of that.” “I tell you, I am Father Kinsella. The abbot is expecting me.”

 

Padraig, the boatman, let go of one oar, seized up a steel rowlock from beneath it and, swift as a biting dog, struck the knuckles that held the curragh’s stern. With a gasp of pain, Kinsella drew his hand back. The rowlock snapped into its hole, the oar in it, and, with two swift strokes, the boatman swung the curragh out of reach.

That rap on the knuckles is exactly the respect he is paid by the good general folk.  That rap represents the attitude you’re supposed to have toward Kinsella. 

There is no moral equivalence presented anywhere.  No such detail or characterization occurs to characterize the monks or the general Irish folk who go to the old Mass and want the traditions.  None that I find.  Whatever conclusion you want to draw about the Abbot or the ending, it has to be within the context of a dystopia.  On that there is no ambiguity.  On that it is clear.

I’ll say it again here because I don’t want it forgotten: Show me one good detail, one positive word for the governing church anywhere in the novel?  Show me.

 

Joseph Replied:

I don't think there is one. But, by the same token, I don't think there is one for the monks on Muck either. They're not presented as the heroic stalwarts of say, Fr. Percy from Lord of the World, more like a curiosity or a museum piece, and the people they serve are shown more as backwards yokels than principled resistors. The Abbot says it himself in Part 2, "We tried the new way, people didn't like it, so we went back." That's not really something done because they saw the shortcomings of the Vatican IV liturgy, although they did do that, but more like, "We need to find a way to reach these people who have left," and that's the solution they came up with. I find this to be more of a satire than a dystopia, really. Moore has kind of caricatured the two camps in the liturgy wars and presented us with the outlines of the continuing back and forth rather than with a solution. I think he's trying to point out the short comings of the demystification while at the same time noting that just because someone is traditional, it doesn't mean that they have deep faith behind that either.

 

My Reply to Joseph:

Joseph Said: I don't think there is one. But, by the same token, I don't think there is one for the monks on Muck either. They're not presented as the heroic stalwarts of say, Fr. Percy from Lord of the World, more like a curiosity or a museum piece

I would have to disagree.  I think Frs. Matthew and Manus are presented as heroic.  Brian Moore’s characterization is definitely two dimensional, but I don’t think he has the skill to pull off what Hugh Benson did with Lord of the World.  First, everything in Moore’s novel is woefully underdeveloped.  Just look at how much space Fr. Percy is given in Lord of the World.  And Benson was a better novelist.

Joseph Said:  and the people they serve are shown more as backwards yokels than principled resistors.

I can see how you might see that, but I think you’re missing how the Irish see their identity, especially in literature.  The Irish see the peasantry as deeply part of their identity.  Think of the John Wayne in his movie The Quiet Man.  Think of the appearance of Our Lady of Knock and the peasants she appeared to.  William Butler Yeats glorified the peasantry in his poetry.  Read over this article from Irish Studies, “Identity and the Literary Revival.”  I’ll quote two key paragraphs.

 

Both Yeats’s Cathleen Ni Houlihan and Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and The Stars open with domestic scenes which hint at both plays’ agenda.  Co-founder of the Gaelic League and president National Literary Society Douglas Hyde initiated the ‘stranger in the country kitchen’ motif with his play The Twisting of the Rope in 1901.[1]  This motif uses the “cottage on stage” as a “temple of Irish domesticity, the sacred origin, the mystery of mysteries – within it the Irish are themselves.”[2]  In contrast to the tradition of melodrama, Literary Revival plays sought to present the ‘real’ Irish as opposed to demeaning stereotypes.  They succeeded, however, only in constructing an undifferentiated peasantry.  Despite the diversity in portrayals, all these authors contributed to the process of “turning the peasants into a single figure of literary art…the ‘aestheticizing’ of the Irish country people.”[3]  One generalization has been replaced by another.

 

Yeats and Lady Gregory use the peasantry to define the true spirit of the nation.  When called by Cathleen, a thinly veiled representation of the nation, Ireland’s young men put aside selfish temporal interests to fight and die for her.  The volk are united by a spiritual connection which drives them to self-sacrifice.  This mythologizing of the peasantry reflected Yeats’s own struggle to develop a uniquely Irish literary style: “What distinguished Irish from English writers was a complex national identity, and in searching for that identity Irish writers turned, as if naturally, to the people they imagined to be most distinctively and authentically Irish: the peasants.”[4]  This Anglo-Irish Ascendancy depiction of the peasantry as a primitive, spiritual people blankets over social, economic, and religious differences.  It also expresses many of his individual beliefs.  The peasants counter urban bourgeois commercialism.  Yet Yeats was not alone in using the peasantry as a vehicle for his own ideology: “To speak about the peasant was always to speak about something beyond actual rural life.”[5]

 

In addition, Moore has the monks perform the Mass outdoors using a large rock as an altar.  That’s right out of Irish folklore where when the British tried to shut down Catholicism and the priests moved the Mass outdoors using boulders as altars for secret Masses.  In fact if I remember correctly there was a priest who was shot dead performing such an outdoor Mass and as I think legend goes was shot dead the very moment he held the host up to God.  And the passion for the Mass as dramatized in the novel echoes the Irish identity as the people who saved civilization in the Dark Ages through Catholicism.  In fact the name Padraig, is the Gaelic version of Patrick.  It’s where they get the diminutive “Paddy” from.  Paddy is not actually from Patrick.  Moore uses the most Irish version of the most Irish identity name.  Something else I just thought of, Kinsella is coming to Ireland to tell them how to worship much like the British came to Ireland to do the same. And he brings a similar threat of force.  Moore is wrapping the peasants in Irish motherhood, apple pie, and the national anthem.  No I don’t think you’re supposed to see them as yokels but as the good Irish devout who are going to save civilization again. 

Joseph Said: I find this to be more of a satire than a dystopia, really. Moore has kind of caricatured the two camps in the liturgy wars and presented us with the outlines of the continuing back and forth rather than with a solution. I think he's trying to point out the short comings of the demystification while at the same time noting that just because someone is traditional, it doesn't mean that they have deep faith behind that either.

Yes, but I think that speaks to his skill.  All the characters are two dimensional, the situation is underdeveloped, and the logic of the novel is ambiguous at best and incoherent at worst.

Let me take a crack at what I think Moore meant by this novel, and mind you that this is partially speculation because of the flaws I just mentioned.

That there is a dystopia that has imposed this heresy upon the Catholic world is unquestionable.  That there is a resistance in the Irish people I think is pretty certain as well.  Everything follows from those assumptions.  The questions that follow are (1) why does the Abbot capitulate, and (2) what does Moore wish to imply by the prayer ending?

Why does the Abbot capitulate?  (1) He has a personal interest in not rocking the boat.  He wants to be buried with the other Abbots and that will consummate his career in the history of the Abbey.  (2) He doesn’t really believe, so it doesn’t really matter to him, and so given the choice between fighting the Church or fighting his monks, he sees the monks as the ones he can mollify.  Plus he has authority over them.  He’s pusillanimous, and that’s his least resistance.  (3) He sees fighting the Church as a losing effort, and so doesn’t see its practicality.

What does Moore wish to imply by the prayer ending?  Here is where it gets speculative.  Here are three possibilities.

(1) If Moore is attempting to bring the theme of atheism to the fore, then he is ending with an appeasement to the “Christianity without God.”  The prayer becomes a kneeling before the “null” that the Abbot sees, and the monks become appeased and are mollified, and it’s all meaningless anyway because there is no God and it doesn’t really matter and the novel is so titled “Catholics” from an outsider perspective because this is all Catholic hooey anyway.  That would be the cynical possibility.

(2) Prayer will be the reinforcement that will either strengthen the monks to persevere in the face of what could be a long term persecution or a petition to God to change the state of the Church, much like after the destruction of the first temple and through faith and prayer the second temple was eventually built, and so will Catholicism.  It could be seen as the start of re-civilizing the world again, and in this case re-civilizing the Church herself.  That would be the idealistic possibility.

(3) It could be a way to purely mollify the monks and get over the hump.  That would be the utilitarian possibility.

There are other possibilities too, none of which are satisfactory.  You can read whatever you so wish into the ending, and that’s a pretty crappy way to end a novel.  This indeterminate ending stems directly from the novel’s moral ambiguity. 

 

My Goodreads Review:  

This novel is junk. It's sensationalism. It has more holes than a sieve. It was put together because its original premise (a Catholic dystopia of a secularized and militarized church) titillates. Brian Moore puts forth two incompatible lines of thought: an immoral dystopia and a central figure who has no belief when he is presented as the center of the resistance, and then the author leaves the ending in a sort of undetermined state, probably because the author himself is an atheist. Once the author has established the dystopia, the story line cannot tolerate moral ambiguity, and yet we are left with moral ambiguity. In addition, the novel is woefully underdeveloped, the characters are not much more than cartoon figures, the author violates a basic story-telling craft, such as holding back the critical detail of the central character’s personality until two thirds of the novel, and the novel then ends in a whimper. Bottom line: Don’t bother.

Catholics: A Novel by Brian Moore, Post #3

This is the third in a series of posts on the Brian Moore novel, Catholics: A Novel.  The first post can be found here.    

The second post here.   

Summary

Part Three

Fr. Kinsella wakes up the following morning and is met with Fr. Manus instead of the Abbot, is asked if he would like to celebrate Mass, which he declines, and then is brought to breakfast.  The Abbot finally meets him after breakfast and is told Kinsella will be leaving shortly with the helicopter.  Kinsella finally asks the Abbot what his decision will be, continue to rebel against the Vatican authority or comply with the new ecumenical rules.  The Abbot tells him he will comply and deflect the TV news.  At the helicopter landing, monks have congregated to swarm Kinsella over what they see as heresy, but the Abbot mollifies them enough for Kinsella to get on board and take off.

Part Four

The Abbot knows he will now have to face his monks.  They press him for what came out of the discussions with Kinsella, and he reveals the monastery will now comply with the new rules.  The monks are now angered, especially Fr. Matthew.  The Abbot enjoins them to pray, and kneels and starts the Our Father.  The monks kneel behind him and the novel ends with all of them reciting the Our Father.

###

Some major questions here. 

(1) Why does Moore avoid the coming together of the two sides of the conflict?  Why does he have the monk’s advocacy of the traditional rules not engage the Kinsella, the advocacy of the new rules, come to a head?  He has avoided this the entire novel and here in Part Three the two sides are perfectly aligned for a conflict, and he makes sure it gets avoided.  Why?

(2) Is the Abbot sincere in his praying at the end?  Here he is in a tight spot where his leadership is at stake, and he then resorts to what could be an appeasing move.  When he was alone in Part Two in the church, he decidedly didn’t pray.  Here when it serves his interest, he does.  Is he sincere?

(3) Why does Brian Moore call the novel “Catholics?”  The perspective is from one who is not a Catholic.  It’s as if I were to write a novel about Islam and call it “Muslims.”  The perspective is from the outside and not the inside.  What is he trying to say?  Is he condemning the whole religion? 

###

If there is any theme to be drawn from this novel, it lies in these passage from Part IV.  First, Fr. Matthew accosting the Abbot.

“And I will not be put off like that,” Father Matthew shouted. “I will not be ordered to believe something that I do not believe.”

 

“No one can order belief,” the abbot said. “It is a gift from God.” But even as he said this, said the only truth left to him, he saw in these faces that he was failing, that he was losing them, that he must do something he had never done, give something he had never given in these, his years as their abbot. What had kept him in fear since Lourdes, must now be faced. What he feared most to do must be done. And if, in doing it, I enter null and never return, amen. My time has come.

“No one can order belief,” that is a true enough statement.  But what is he getting at?  Is the true presence a matter of belief or a true reality?  I seem to take that as a statement of relativism.  What is this entering into the “null?”  I think Moore is suggesting that the Abbot is facing the nothing of the supernatural, its non-existence.  Of course, coming this doesn’t mean Moore doesn’t believe in the supernatural, just that the Abbot is facing his non-belief.  Then we come to this.

 

Stood, holding the door for them, as they moved past him, his eyes on their faces, these faces he knew better than his own, seeing every shade of wavering, from confusion, to doubt, to anger at him, to fear, to Father Donald’s dangerous tears and Brother Kevin’s hysterics, tight on snaffle, a horse ready to bolt. He entered behind them and shut the door. Moved past them in the aisle, going up into the great vault of the nave, moving in that silence, in the gray light of this place where he had spent the longest years of his life, this place where his body would lie, this place he feared most. He entered the chancel. He faced the altar.

 

“A miracle,” he told them, “is when God is there in the tabernacle.”

 

“But you said the opposite, you said that the sacrifice of the Mass is just ritual, that bread and wine remain bread and wine, that there are no miracles!”

So the Abbot moves to the place he fears most, the place where his body will be eventually interred.  What specifically is his fear here?  His fear here could be either facing God’s judgement or facing the nothing that is from an atheist’s perspective.  So when he says he is entering the “null” above, is he saying he is facing God’s judgement or the nothing of death from an atheist’s perspective?

And then we get the final part of the scene.

 

Matthew, thundering: righteous, wronged. The abbot, his back to all of them, heard their stiff intake of breath, the fear of their lives at these words, said in this place. He stared at the golden door of the tabernacle. His fear came. “Prayer is the only miracle,” he said. “We pray. If our words become prayer, God will come.”

 

Slowly, with the painful stiffness of age, he went down heavily on one knee, then on both. Knelt in the center of the aisle, facing the altar, the soles of his heavy farm boots showing from the hem of his robe. He trembled. He shut his eyes. “Let us pray.”

 

He bent his head. “Our Father, who art in heaven,” he said. His trembling increased. He entered null. He would never come back. In null.

“His fear came?”  Which fear is this, because I think it’s not clear, the fear of God in the tabernacle or the fear of losing the leadership of the monks?  One can’t help thinking that his words at that moment is Brian Moore’s central theme: “Prayer is the only miracle,” he said. “We pray. If our words become prayer, God will come.” 

So if that is the case, Moore is a relativist, and the Mass is just a ritual.  That I think is the central theme of the novel.  That would explain why he names the novel “Catholics,” because his perspective is not within Catholicism but outside of it. 

Frankly, this novel is such a mess I can’t draw any conclusion with any certainty.  In the end, Kinsella and the dystopian forces are right?  You got me.

### 

This is in Part 2 but I'll post it here since it's relevant to this discussion.  When the Abbot and Kinsella are discussing the dangers of the TV documentary, this exchange ensued:

 

A program in the wrong hands, about this subject, could be made to look like the first stirrings of a Catholic counterrevolution.”

 

“Ah, now begging your pardon, Father Kinsella, I find that very far-fetched.”

 

“Far-fetched? To the enemies of the church, won’t it seem that you have acted in direct contradiction to the counsels of Vatican IV?”

Notice Kinsella fears the “Catholic counterrevolution” and characterizes those that would seize on the issue as “enemies of the church.”  So the enemies of the church are the counterrevolutionaries, which are people inside the church!  And the monks, such as Fr. Manus and Matthew and the Irish on the mainland, could easily be the formation of the counterrevolution.  Then how despicable is the Abbot’s mollifying of the monks at the end where he undermines any coalescence of a counterrevolution?  Of course, I’m using the word “despicable” because it’s from my point of view, but frankly I have no idea where Brian Moore falls on this because he’s made such amess of the inherent logic of the novel.

By the way, it shows the counterrevolution is the natural opposition to a dystopian situation.  It's just that Moore never follows through on it.

###

I have to say I giggled out loud when I read this.  That is Kinsella speaking first in dialogue with the Abbot.

“Are you asking me what do I believe?”

 

“Yes, if you wish. There is a book by a Frenchman called Francis Jeanson, have ever you heard of it? An Unbeliever’s Faith, it is called.”

 

“I have not read it.” “It is interesting. He believes there can be a future for Christianity, provided it gets rid of God. Your friend, Father Hartmann, has mentioned Jeanson in his own writings. The idea is, a Christianity that keeps God can no longer stand up to Marxism. You have not heard of the book?”

Christianity can only survive if it gets rid of God…hahaha.  Was that meant to be funny?  Is Moore satirizing here or is he serious?

###

I skimmed through the book to make a list of all the “Vatican IV” changes to Catholicism.  It’s pretty interesting and funny.

• -       Priest’s collar and black shirt replaced by military style uniform.
• -       No praying of the rosary.
• -       No private confessions, but a group act of contrition.
• -       No Latin Mass but vernacular.
• -       Facing the congregation rather than God.
• -       No Pope but a “Father General”?  Is that correct or is Father General head of the Albanisean Order?
• -       No Rome as center of the Church but Amsterdam being the place of the World Ecumen Council.
• -       The “interpenetration” between Christianity and Buddhism.
• -       No traditional church hierarchy but military ranks.
• -       No transubstantiation but symbolic act.
• -       Church service similar to a “bingo game.”
• -       No religious grace before meals but an ecumenical grace.
• -       No sign of the cross.
• -       Lourdes is no longer in operation.  One would assume all miracle visitation sites are closed.
• -       No distinction between mortal and venial sins.
• -       No prayers.
• -       Christianity without God or faith.
• -       Clerical dress for priests is optional.
• -       The sacrifice of the Mass is not a miracle but merely a ritual.

I probably missed others.  It’s fun in a dystopian novel to see what the details of the dystopia amount to. 

###

Kerstin comment:

I expected more fireworks. I expected a more detailed discussion with a lot of back and forth regarding the merits of Tradition and the Latin Mass that goes back to Gregory the Great (if I remember correctly). I expected a deeper delving into the spiritual needs of the people and how the Latin Mass serves these needs on a deep level. Instead what we get is an Abbot who falls like a house built of straw at the slightest puff from Kinsella. Kinsella wasn't really needed to be there in person at all to bring about the desired change for the Vatican, a stern letter of 'cease and desist' would have sufficed.

This to me is what made this novel so dissatisfying. Why bother? In Lord of the World we have a group of priests whose faith is never in question, who are steadfast to the bitter end. Here the end feels like a whimper.

 

My Reply to Irene:

Irene wrote: "Fr. Matthew defied the abbot's orders and organized a vigil as part protest, part hope that God would somehow make things work out the way he and the other monks desired. "

I didn't read your whole comment, I'll do so later, but I did see that which I quoted. No, I don't think anyone has an obligation to obey clear heresy. See St. Athanasius and his struggles against 4th century heresy from his bishops. If the Pope tomorrow declared the Eucharist to be only a symbol, I would imagine you would defy it? I would hope. I would.

This is the problem with Moore's novel. He has clearly laid out a dystopian heresy of which there can be no compromise. Any intended compromise can only be seen as immoral. He did not lay out a grey position but a black and white one.

 

My Reply to Irene:

Irene wrote: "Is is possible to force someone to believe what they don't believe? These monks are not in public positions. They are not being asked to teach something heritical. The TV cameras are being headed o..."

Community shapes belief. Would my son believe if I didn’t? Of course the Mass is critical to community belief. And no, they should be bringing the faith to the media. That is the moral thing to do. It is akin to Martin Luther King bringing to the attention of society civil injustice. This heresy is even of greater moral concern to Catholics than civil rights. Denying the true presence in the Eucharist is even greater than the Arian heresy St. Athansius fought against in the very church. You seem to be down playing how big a deal this is. I’ll ask again, would you obey this?

I’ll ask the book club readers, would you be fighting against or going along with these “Vatican IV” heresies?

There is no question I would be fighting against, with my whole heart, soul, and life. If ever a case for martyrdom we’re called, this is it. In fact St Michael Pro and the Mexican martyrs gave their very lives over a similar issue, of which we’ll get to in the next novel

 

My Reply to Irene:

Irene wrote: "All that is left is to surrender all in prayer. And, if they can find God in that surrender, in that humility, in that prayer, that is MIRACLE. Faith is a gift, one that the abbot has not enjoyed for some time. But he must have had it once. So he enters that null because there is nothing else to do, because all that is left, when everything has been taken, is to kneel in surrender and humility and hope. And he does it out of love, love for these men that he has shepherded for all these years despite the emptiness in his own life. Beyond the social reforms, beyond the doctrinal certitude, beyond the arrogance of intellectualism, beyond exquisit liturgies, beyond it all is the surrender to what is beyond what we can know or persuade or define or control."

OK, now I've read your entire comment, and can agree with that. But isn't that proof that Brian Moore doesn't understand the material? What exactly is the point to come to the end and have it end in a prayer? As Kerstin said, this ends in a whimper. This is like ending a novel with someone detonating an atomic bomb on a timer and having the group kneel down and pray that it doesn't kill anyone when it goes off. Moore has set off what amounts to as an atomic bomb in Catholicism. He can't just end it like this. What will happen on the next day when the monks have to perform the non valid Mass? Are they simply going to go along and obey now? That would be incredible. Moore has invested no space in that kind of change in Frs. Matthew nor Manus. This novel is so flawed it's a joke.

 

My Reply to Irene:

Irene wrote: "O, and I did not answer your question. Would I obey an order to stop believing in the Real Presence? No. Would I obey an order to accept a new liturgical form? Yes."

Oh I missed that earlier. Thanks.

 

My Reply to Frances:

But Frances, the monks weren’t shy. They were ready to engage just as St. Catherine would have. And you’re right, she wasn’t shy about talking back to the Pope. The problem is not the monks. The problem is Brian Moore. He has them apparently capitulate when no precedence in the novel has been established for this to occur. It’s still another flaw in the novel.

As to being shy, the word that to me defines the Abbot is pusillanimous. He has been pusillanimous throughout the novel. In way it’s the only character consistency in this work. The abbot has been pusillanimous when originally his monks kept the Latin Mass against Rome, he was pusillanimous in his decision to fight Rome, and when he is forced to disagree with his monks, he is pusillanimous in standing up to them.

 

Kerstin Replied to My Comment:

Manny wrote: "I’ll ask the book club readers, would you be fighting against or going along with these “Vatican IV” heresies?"

I wouldn't go along. The heresy is too blatant. In Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict wrote the following:

The formula "the Church is the Body of Christ" thus states that the Eucharist, in which the Lord gives us his body and makes us one body, forever remains the place where the Church is generated, where the Lord himself never ceases to found her anew; in the Eucharist the Church is most compactly herself - in all places, yet one only, just as he is one only.

In other words, if the Eucharist becomes only a symbol, the very life of Christ is no longer within the Church - all we have is a human construct. In the Latin Mass reverence for the Eucharist is especially pronounced, and this is why Kinsella makes the trip to crush it.

Despite all its faults, the novel does pose some hope, and I don't see it with the Abbot. The hope lies with the monks. They are the faithful remnant. Throughout salvation history God has worked with a faithful remnant, they are the key for the rebirth of the Church.

Catholics: A Novel by Brian Moore, Post #2

This is the second in a series of posts on the Brian Moore novel, Catholics: A Novel.  The first post can be found here.   

 

Part Two

Summary

Fr. Kinsella is finally able to fly onto the island of Muck by hired helicopter.  The Abbot and Br. Paul watch the helicopter fly in as they are jarring blackberries.  They are surprised as no one has ever flown onto the island before. 

Fr. Kinsella is taken up the winding staircase to the Abbot’s quarters.  Fr. Kinsella gives the Abbot a letter from the order’s father general, a letter of censure for the Abbey still performing the old Latin Mass.  Through conversation we learn just how popular the Latin Mass has become.  They discuss a certain missionary, Fr, Gustave Hartmann, who was tortured on mission in Brazil.  The Abbot has Fr. Kinsella change his plans and leave in the morning so he can spend the night at the Abbey. 

They leave the Abbot’s quarters and head toward the shore where Fr. Manus is fishing.  The Abbot has Fr. Manus catch some salmon for dinner.  Fr, Manus brazenly tells Fr. Kinsella he wants to talk to him about being stopped to celebrating the traditions.  The Abbot has them come inside, as it is starting to rain.

Once inside Fr. Manus goes through a long monologue as to the history and important of the Latin Mass.  Fr. Manus works himself up into a tiny rage where the Abbot has to step in between.  Fr. Manus finally apologizes to Kinsella. 

The Abbot gives Fr. Kinsella a tour of the Twelfth century Abbey.   He shows him the burial place of all the Abbot’s of Muck, and where he expects one day to be buried.  He then takes Fr. Kinsella to the guest house where he will spend the night.  He will get picked up for dinner.

Kinsella takes a bath, freshens up, and is called upon for dinner.  He is taken to the refectory where he meets all of the monks.  They pray and have dinner.  The community of monks all wanted to engage Kinsella over the Latin Mass but the Abbot side steps it all and brings Kinsella back to his quarters for tea.  They discuss Kinsella mission to the Abbey.  The Abbot tells him how they returned to the Latin Mass, and how the people came in droves to celebrate it.  Kinsella informs the Abbot that these liturgical and sacramental changes have been made for the sake of “Ecumen brotherhood.”  Fr. Kinsella informs the Abbot that American television is planning a documentary on the Abbey’s use of the Latin Mass, and it is critical with Rome that they stop before the filming.  And so the burden has been placed on the Abbot by much higher powers to stop performing as they have been doing.  Kinsella finally asks the Abbot where does he stand with the Mass, and the Abbot admits he is not a believer in its mysteries.  However, the Abbot is still unsure what he will do and will sleep on it overnight. 

Back at the guest house, Fr. Kinsella hears someone outside singing a traditional hymn.  He steps outside and cannot find anyone.

At midnight, the Abbot goes down to the church and finds a group of monks praying for the conversion of Fr. Kinsella.  It was they who were singing outside Kinsella’s door.  Fr. Matthew confronts the Abbot and asks what his decision on their future celebration of the Mass.  Fr. Matthew tells him that the new directive that the Mass is merely symbolic is heresy.  The Abbot rebukes Fr. Matthew for insubordination.  The Abbot, last in the church, leaves, not bothering to genuflect.

###

Presenting the detail of the Abbot’s personal lack of faith at the two-thirds mark of the novel set off red flags.  This is no minor detail.  The Abbot runs a religious community and that specific religious community is in the middle of a movement to return to the traditional rituals of the faith.  That’s a big deal.  My ebook listed the page when the reader is made known of this at sixty-five percent.  Such a critical detail held back that long is a violation of storytelling craft, which undoubtedly would affect the artistry of the novel, especially I might add in a novel of ideas.  If this were a mystery novel, so be it; surprises come but the tale is only a series of actions.  Readers might feel cheated but it doesn’t leave the reader in a state of ambiguity.  When it happens in a novel of ideas such as this, the central idea becomes undermined if the surprise detail relates to the themes.  This surprise detail prompted me to really look at the construction of this novel, and that surprise detail caused me to see several inherent flaws.  As an upfront summary, the main reasons why Brian Moore’s Catholics: A Novel is flawed is because it violates form and scale, of which I will try to explain.

First, the novel integrates two different forms, which are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but you have to be very careful in their integration.  One form is that of a dystopian novel.  The basic form of a dystopian novel is first the author establishes the dystopia, and then through a resisting character a conflict with the core of the dystopia is generated, and eventually the conflict comes to some sort of conclusion, either in the overturning of the dystopia or in many cases the crushing of the resistance, all of which support the idea which the author wishes to express.

Think of Orwell’s 1984, where the totalitarian state is established at the beginning, and then we are introduced to Winston, who is in conflict with the state.  Think of the novel we read last year, Robert Hugh Benson’s Lord of the World, where the Freemason takeover of world government has squashed all religions except Catholicism and is in the process of squashing that too with Fr. Percy Franklin in resistance.  Think of Star Wars, with the Evil Empire in control and the resistance propelled by Luke Skywalker and his friends.  One thing is absolutely required in a dystopian novel; there cannot be any moral ambiguity between the dystopian forces and the resisting elements.  The dystopian forces are the bad guys and the resistance are the good guys.  If there is a sense of moral ambiguity, then the dystopia collapses, and more importantly, the ideas of the storyline become qualified and lack clarity.

In this novel Brian Moore establishes the dystopia in Part One.  We are introduced up front to Fr. Kinsella, who represents the enforcing element of the dystopia. We follow him on the mainland of Ireland as we see the dichotomy of what the regular Catholic wants and what the Church now demands, and the power of the Church to enforce it.  In Part Two we see the resistance, or we think we see the resistance.  The monastery is at the heart of the resistance.  It is the priests from the monastery that are the driving initiative to return to the traditions and therefore are rebelling against the dystopian forces.  So when Kinsella arrives at the island he is paired with the Abbot, and so the intuitive assumption the reader makes is that the Abbot is the personification of the resistance.  The form itself leads to that assumption.  If the author doesn’t want that assumption to be drawn he needs to make that clear as soon as possible.

The second form that Moore integrates into the novel is that of a character faced with a moral dilemma.  Here the central character is faced with a moral decision that is pulling him in two directions.  The two directions can have two forms, either a clear cut morally good versus morally bad decision or one in which there is ambiguity in the moral path.  The outcomes of these decisions lead to the author’s ideas he is trying to express.  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an example of the first.  Huck must choose between the slave owning society and his friendship with the escaped slave Jim.  Hamlet in Shakespeare’s Hamlet must choose between taking justice into his own hands or fulfilling his nobility’s obligation of being a vassal to the king, an obligation which comes from God.  Here there is an ambiguity for most of the action but ultimately there is clarity.  So too with Nick Caraway in The Great Gatsby.  He has the dilemma of choosing between the immorality of the Buchanans and the immorality of Gatsby.  While the ambiguity exists all the way through, the weight of morality leans with Gatsby.  While it may not be perfect, the innocence of Gatsby’s love for Daisy outweighs the selfish brutality of the Buchanans.  But in all three cases with developed clarity, the moral decision is affirmed.

Of a much more difficult novel to write is where the moral ambiguity is never resolved, where the dilemma is so powerfully weighted on both sides that no clarity is ever reached.  The one novel that comes to mind here is Anna Karenina.  Anna must choose between a loveless marriage—was it an arranged marriage, I can’t recall?—with a man a generation older and life with a man who will satisfy her youth and desire for love.  As we know tragedy ensues, but tragedy could have ensued no matter which choice she made.  It is a very complex novel, and it takes nearly a thousand pages to build the complexity and in the end we still can argue over whether it was better for Anna to have left her cold husband and merely lived without love.  That clarity doesn’t come.

So Brian Moore overlays the dystopia form over a moral dilemma form.  He has Abbot Tomàs (allusion to Doubting Thomas as someone pointed out) undecided as to whether he should follow Kinsella’s directives or resist.  He’s torn between his underling priests who want to resist and… and what?  Going along to get along?  Not rocking the boat?  What exactly is his moral dilemma?  Is it a case of lack of clarity?  No, Tomàs clearly understands the immorality of the destruction of the traditions.  Or does he?  Does he care?  If he has lost his faith, why should he care?  What exactly do we know about Tomàs?  Hardly anything.  How did he lose his faith?  When did he lose his faith?  Do the other priests realize how he lacks faith in even the essentials?

So here are the issues when it comes to the flaws of the novel.  On the one hand Moore creates a dystopia, which requires moral clarity.  There is the immoral imposition and enforcement of heresy.  On that there can be no ambiguity.  It is very clear from the very nature of the first form.  Then there is the central character who is caught in a dilemma.  The Abbot can be either Huck Finn or Hamlet or Nick Caraway where the moral choice is clear or will become clear in development or he can be Anna Karenina where there is ambiguity.  Well, clearly the Anna Karenina example is not the case because as I’ve said it is a dystopia.  There cannot be an ambiguity if it a dystopia.  So then the Abbot can only be having a dilemma not because of temporary lack of clarity but because of lack of will.

Having a lack of will could make for an interesting psychological novel but in this case it would violate the form of the dystopian novel. How can you have a dystopian novel if there is no agent of resistance?  Moore has all the agents of resistance in the minor, undeveloped characters.  The Abbot is the collective representation of the resistance, and therefore when Moore introduces the Abbot’s lack of faith two thirds into the novel the whole intellectual structure of the novel collapses.

Finally Moore violates what I’ll call a sense of scale.  How much of Part Two is actually meaningful to the novel?  Why is he wasting space and time with blackberry jam and catching salmon for dinner?  This is essentially a short novel.  It’s barely over eighty pages.  Yes, you can make the argument that this is showing life at the Abbey, but he’s got to get to the point.  This is not much more than a longish short story.  I kept waiting for the significance of all that to come together, and it never did.  If he were trying to build the characterization of the Abbot, I found it all meaningless.  And then he waits to two thirds of the way to spring the most important detail of the Abbot’s character?  Moore is drawing this out as if the scale were like Anna Karenina.   But the novel is not even one tenth the length of Tolstoy’s novel.  Frankly it’s baffling.  If he wanted the Abbot in a moral dilemma he needed to put him in that dilemma early on.  And where is the development of Fathers Manus and Matthew?  They are the energy behind the resistance.  And where is the background to Abbot Tomàs’ evolution from a believer to his loss of faith?  This novel is seriously flawed.

###

Kerstin Replied:

Thank you Manny for the detailed analysis!

 

For me two things didn't make sense: the abbot's lack of faith and the brevity of the novel. If you are going to introduce this complication, lack of faith, then you have to have the requisite number of pages to have it play out. Then I thought that such a short novel requires a much more controlled structure, you don't waste space on mundane detail - that's a mark of pulp fiction, or as we say in German "trivial literature".

 

I am glad you pointed out that a dystopian novel needs clarity in terms of good and evil, and the corresponding attributes of resistance and destruction. It seems obvious in hindsight, but I must admit I was stumped, thinking the whole thing is falling apart, blown away like a house of straw, if the Abbot cannot counter, but couldn't quite put a finger on it. 

My Reply to Kerstin:

You're welcome Kerstin.  As to the brevity of the novel, here are some thoughts.  By 1972 when this novel was published, Brian Moore had established himself as a screenwriter.  As I was reading the book it felt as if Moore had taken on some of the nuances of a movie/TV script in the narration.  In some cases I thought it worked and in some cases it really hurt the novel.  Let me identify some examples.

 

Notice how he cuts away from scene to scene.  Take the helicopter scene at the beginning of Part Two.  Notice how the eye of the author works in those first couple of paragraphs.  It sees the helicopter coming in and landing.  It lands and you see the pilot opening the door.  Kinsella runs toward the helicopter, ducking under the rotating propeller blades.  The pilot’s hand comes out and grabs Kinsella.  Kinsella buckles up.  The helicopter lifts off and the eye of the author is looking up, seeing it like a “dragonfly.”  It’s up to the sky.  Then the eye of the author has taken the view from the helicopter, seeing “three faces mooned up” below.  Then we focus inside the cockpit on the pilot and Kinsella. 

 

How many helicopter scenes from movies have you seen that are just like that?  That eye of the author is exactly how a movie camera follows helicopter scenes.  That helicopter scene is a trope from a hundred different helicopter scenes from movies.  Notice how Moore shifts around, almost as if he’s splicing different camera perspectives together.  In the sky you have this little paragraph:

 

“Have you even been on the island?” he shouted at the pilot.

“No, but I’ve flown over it.”

 

Two lines, and then the eye shifts again, almost to another camera perspective.

 

Notice how you then get these short descriptive sentences at the beginning of paragraphs:  “Thunder.  Lightning sheeted the sky.”  Many times it’s not even a complete sentence, such as here, “Thunder.”  These are movie script setting descriptions or at times directions, where the screenwriter will be leaving it up to the director to create the scene from the fragments the screenwriter has used.  Notice the beginning of the next paragraph: “Now they were over the island, chopping along above a deserted strand…”  It’s as if the eye has panned ahead in time to the splice of film where the helicopter has reached the island.  And so on.  If you have time, read the first few pages of Part Two again, up to the point the helicopter lands.  And then all of a sudden the camera shifts to the blackberries and Brother Paul and the Abbot.

 

My point is that Moore is writing this novel and his movie script background has created this particular style.  In some cases it works nicely, in some not so nicely.  Here the helicopter scene feels more like a cliché than something fresh.  The way the scene shifts from the blackberry jarring to Kinsella being shown up the winding stairway to the Abbot’s quarters I thought worked beautifully:

 

 He heard steps, uncertain, coming up the winding stone staircase beneath his parlor, heard, predictably, Martin’s warning. “The ninth step is longer than the others, Father. The trip step, they called it in the old days. Be careful, so.”

 

“Thank you,” said the visitor in his American voice, the voice the abbot had heard on the telephone. Footsteps reached the top of the second flight. Good. It would not do to trip Rome up. “This way, Father,” the abbot called.

 

To Kinsella, turning and turning in that cold stone turret, to come out through the narrow door into the abbot’s parlor was dizzying, confusing, causing him, at first, to miss his host’s welcoming hand.

 

“How are you, Father.” The abbot’s voice was very soft.

 

 I do like the way that is portrayed, but again it has a movie scene feel to the shifting of where the “eye” is looking.  By the way, that “turning and turning” of a winding staircase is an allusion to the well-known William Butler Yeats poem, “The Second Coming.”  “Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold…”  

 

But then you have this awful clunker.  Here the Abbot and Kinsella are walking past the kitchen.

 

The abbot moved briskly, his hobnailed boots loud on the flags of the walk, turning up through a slype and into the refectory, a large bare room around the walls of which were rough refectory tables and benches. In the adjoining kitchen two old monks peeled potatoes from a huge pile. On the hearth hung an iron pot, big as a cartoon cannibal’s cook pot. The turf fire gave off a pleasant scent.

 

Giving off a “pleasant scent” is not really specific enough for a writer who writes as a novelist.  A novelist would be more specific and say a “wood burning scent” or a “tangy, herbal scent.”  Something specific.  A “pleasant scent” is a shortcut for a director to fill in.  But look at the horrid description of the iron pot, “big as a cartoon cannibal’s cook pot.”  He alludes to a cartoon, a movie image, a shortcut description that you would find in a movie script. 

 

This movie script style creates the brevity you allude to.  But where I think it really hurts the novel is in the characterization.  I’m already too long, so I’m not going to cite examples, but the characterization is filled with tropes, just like the helicopter scene.  All the characters, except maybe for the Abbot, are purely two dimensional.  Fr, Manus, Fr. Matthew, the brother who walks with a limp and brings the tea, in movie script terms, these are character actor types.  In a movie, the actors are on the screen and have makeup and display facial emotions.  The very nature of acting it out creates a three dimensionality, or helps it toward it.  In a narrative, that comes across as completely flat.  The characters are mere stick figures.

 

I’ve never read Brian Moore before.  I don’t know if this is his writing style or he got caught up in movie script mentality.  I do know that he published the novel in 1972 and he wrote the movie script for the 1973 movie.  Was he already writing the movie script before he finished the novel? 

My Reply to Frances:

Frances wrote: "I think that’s a brilliant insight, Manny. The helicopter scene is very memorable, it’s so extraordinarily telegenic. Probably, this is the slimmest of Brian Moore’s books and you make a compelling..."

Though I called it a cliché, I do think the helicopter scene was very well done. I'm glad you agree on some of the flaws of the novel. I want to make clear, it doesn't mean that the issue of the dystopia is not important. Let's assume that he is supporting the dystopia theme. We can now talk about the theme and its validity to today's church. I wonder what Archbishop Chaput would say about it.

By the way, that is a brilliant observation on the popularity of Buddhism and Thomas Merton in the 1960s. I bet that played a role in Moore coming up with what he did.

There is a sort of compatibility between Buddhism and other religions. That's because Buddhism I think is not strictly a religion but a way of looking at the world. So there can be overlap.

But to bring this to more contemporaneous times, I think I could see how the "Vatican IV Church" could form such an alliance with Islam. I shudder to think it, but Islam is an "Abrahamic" religion (which I personally feel is a forced assumption and not really in any meaningful way) and there is Jesus and Mary in Islam. Given the relativism and the ecumenical drive to get along at all costs and given the vast immigration of Muslims into Europe, I can see this happening.

My Reply to Kerstin:

Kerstin wrote: "Unless I missed something, here is another unanswered question I have: why does the unbelieving abbot continue to allow the Latin Mass to be celebrated? Given the backdrop to Vatican IV, this is an..."

Good question. The novel is just too under developed to get a satisfying answer. I imagine the Abbot is going along with the priests under him because he doesn't want to upset his Abbey. They would rebel against him. He might figure he lives in a remote part of Christendom and that no one may notice. Or he may have internal feelings - perhaps the Holy Spirit - that kept him connected to the faith. We just don't know. This is why the psychological part of the novel (what I called above the dilemma form) is so lacking. We need to know why he became a religious, and had faith enough to become an Abbot, and we need to know how he lost that faith. It's not there and anything would be speculation.

My Reply to Irene:

Irene wrote: "Manny, Doesn't all art, good art, require a dialogue between the creator and the one encountering that art? If a piece of poetry, a painting, a novel spells out everything, it is not exactly engaging. ."

Yes, of course, but you will find that a great work will have a core that is clear and logical, and from there nuances can be found that makes the work much richer than the surface.

So as i think I said above, let's get beyond the literary flaws of the novel and discuss what we think Moore was trying to get at. Tomorrow I'll post the closing section from which we can discuss the Abbot. I am fascinated by the ending. I don't know if I have understood it completely. I definitely want to hear your thoughts.

 

I found the trailer to the 1973 movie on YouTube.  Check it out.