Catholics: A Novel by Brian Moore, Post #1

This is the first in a series of posts on the Brian Moore novel, Catholics: A Novel. 

Brian Moore was an Irish born novelist and movie script writer, but after serving in WWII as a young man emigrated to Canada where he established himself as a novelist.  Later he moved to the United States where he wrote for film as well.  He tends to be thought of as a Ca
nadian writer.  He was short listed for the British Booker Prize three times, so he is a writer of some reputation.  Catholics: A Novel was not one short listed.  As you will see, especially in my later posts on this novel, I do not think highly of this work, and of course I don’t recommend it.  I don’t know what his good novels are like, but this novel makes me skeptical about the value of the others.  However, his three short listed novels came after Catholics.

Catholics:A Novel was published in 1972, well beyond his developmental years.  What is important to know about Moore’s biography is that he grew up Catholic in Northern Ireland, and by the time he was an adult he had pretty much lost his faith and considered himself an atheist.  Still, a good deal of the subject matter of his life’s work dealt with Catholicism, as does this novel of course.  This novel was written shortly after the Vatican II Church Council, and it takes the changes of the Council to an absurd level.  The premise is that after a “Vatican IV” Council, almost all the traditions of the Church have been obliterated and those rules are enforced by a militarized church.  So Moore is writing a dystopia set in the future.  One of the changes to the traditions is to the Mass, the Latin Mass now forbidden, and the novel hinges on the changes to the Mass, as well as the loss of the belief that the true Presence of Christ is in the Eucharist. 

We read this novel for the Goodreads Catholic Book club, and it was coincidental (or perhaps providential) that as soon as we completed the read, Pope Francis issued is moto propio, Traditionis Custodes, severely limiting the use of the old Latin Mass.  It was amazing how contemporaneous to real life activity this read became.  And if I may editorialize, Pope Francis’ moto propio was just as dictatorial in tone as the militarized future church in Moore’s dystopia.  Our discussion did not take the moto propio into account because that was published one week after we had moved on from the book. 

###

Summary:

Part One

The novel is set in the future after Vatican IV has removed all mysteries associated with the faith, all rituals now to be regarded as symbols.  Father James Kinsella is sent by Rome to Muck Abbey, a monastery off the west coast of Ireland where a religious order (the fictional Albanesian Order) still practice the Latin Mass as it has been done for centuries. 

The weather has made it impossible for any sea craft to get to the island, so Fr. Kinsella stays on the mainland encountering the people who attend the old Latin Mass and traditional private confessions.  He learns that the Abbot of Muck, which dates back to 1216, is a sixty-nine year old Tomás O’Malley and the Abbey contains thirty monks who live off their fishing and growing of kelp.  No one on the mainland identifies Fr. Kinsella as a Catholic priest because in the new mode, priestly dress is à la secular. 

###

This captures the devotion of the locals who attend the traditional Mass.

 

The pilgrims rose early on Sunday, went in buses and cars to the foot of Mount Coom, five miles from the village. There, they ascended the mountain, on foot, to kneel on muddied grassy slopes, or on shelves of rock, often in the unyielding Irish rain. Most could see the Mass rock and the priest only from a distance, but all heard the Latin, thundering from loudspeakers rigged up by the townsfolk. Latin. The communion bell. Monks as altar boys saying the Latin responses. Incense. The old way.

And this exchange with the hotelkeeper shows the emotional reaction of learning the locals are not following Rome’s directives.  Fr. Kinsella first asks about confessions:

“But why do the confessions take so long?”

 

“We still have private confessions. One person at a time in the box.”

 

Private confessions. This was not known in Rome. “What about public confessions?”

 

“Public confessions, Father?”

 

“Where the whole congregation stands before Mass and says an act of contrition?”

 

“Ah, that never took here.”

 

Anger, sudden and cold, made Kinsella say: “It took everywhere else!” Ashamed, he saw the hotelkeeper bob his head, obedient, rebuked, but unconvinced.

Fr. Kinsella is angry over this.  “It took everywhere else.”  Why hasn’t it taken here in this remote part of Ireland?

It may have taken everywhere else, but perhaps parishoners were forced to, or did it out of obedience.  Kinsella then recalls a conversation he had with his friend who had done some sort of study on this.

 

His friend Visher, a behaviorist, had made a study of current Catholic attitudes toward their clergy. “People are sheep,” Visher said. “They haven’t changed. They want those old parish priests and those old family doctors. Sheep need authoritarian sheepdogs nipping at their heels from birth to funeral. People don’t want truth or social justice, they don’t want this ecumenical tolerance. They want certainties. The old parish priest promised that. You can’t, Jim.”

This novel was first published in 1972.  It certainly speaks to us today.  We have been going through changes since Vatican II, and they are still current today.  I’m not against ecumenical tolerance or social justice, but when it becomes the primary focus of the faith there is something wrong.

###

Joseph Commented:

It is certainly fascinating that a 49 year old novel is still current events. I offered Mass for our local Latin Mass Community yesterday and celebrating both forms of the Roman Rite pretty much back to back makes the issues they're talking about even more poignant. I wouldn't say that I noticed a difference in attitude on the part of the people, but the ritual patterns of worship and having to switch between them makes me appreciate more just how jarring things must've been when the Novus Ordo was first promulgated and why there are people who will literally drive hours to find a TLM.

My Reply to Joseph:

That’s pretty cool Joseph. I’ve only been to one Latin Mass in my life, and I have to admit it wasn’t the spiritual experience some claim it to be. I found the language did not resonate with me. Even when I knew the Latin referred to a known segment of the Mass, say the Agnus Dei, my mind transliterated the words in block rather than knowing each word as one would in their vernacular. I think the vernacular makes the words more intimate. I feel I absorb the “spiritual nutrients” better from the vernacular than from the Latin. Of course if I went to Latin Mass routinely that might change. But it occurred to me now, since I’ve been writing on Dante the last few days, that Dante consciously chose the vernacular for his great religious poem and rejected writing in Latin. Now I understand the theological value of having the Mass in a universal language—it’s small “c” catholic!—the very opposite of the Tower of Babel, but yet there is a lot of value with the language of prayer being intimate with the parishioner.

 

As to facing ad orientem, I can’t make up my mind. It’s not as warm as facing the congregation, but I think it is proper and the Church should experiment with using it with the vernacular. Perhaps there is an optimum mix of when during the Liturgy of the Eucharist the priest should face Christ and when he should face the congregation. Perhaps East during the Eucharistic prayer and the congregation when we re-kneel for the presentation of the Lamb of God? After all it is an exchange of our man-made gifts for His flesh and blood.

My Reply to Catherine:

Catherine wrote: " Imagine describing a form of liturgy or prayer as nostalgic! These are worship and prayer that go back to Jesus. Maybe not the rosary directly but the prayers and the mysteries are Scriptural based."

The Latin Mass used to be universal. It's now nostalgic.

Catherine wrote: His description of confession was equally horrifying. An act of contrition before the congregation and that's it??? I have to wonder if this was the author's hope for where the Church was going. "

When I got married back in 1991 and I went to confession, the priest just had me think my sins to myself without saying them to him. Then when I was done he gave me absolution. Some really funky things were happening back post Vatican II. [Actually I kind of prefer confession like that, but it's not real confession.]

Good insight on his outfit resembling Maoist.

My Comment:

This is the second novel we've recently read where the author presents the collapse of Catholicism from the de-sacralization of the rites over the emphasis to social justice. Lord of the World had a similar argument.

Joseph Commented on the Latin Mass:

Manny I think your experience with the Latin Mass points to what I was getting at, and I think what Moore is getting at as well. It's something so alien to our everyday experience that if you just drop someone into it they're completely lost. I had the same experience my first time going, and that was after 6 years of studying Latin. The tension that Moore is pointing out between these two understandings of liturgy is very much present and the debates about how to do whatever thing best haven't ended either.

My Reply to Joseph:

Joseph and others, why do you think Pope Francis is anti Latin Mass? I'm struck by his outright hostility toward it. As I said above, the Latin Mass is not something that moves me spiritually, but I know it does many Catholics, and I see no harm in keeping it as an alternative for those who prefer it. But Pope Francis has spoken against it and there are rumors he may actually put a stop to its use. I can't understand why. I think that discussion is worthy here. I would like to do it without bringing up Church politics, but it does dovetail with the central dystopia being presented in the novel.

Joseph’s Reply:

I don't think it's so much that he's against it as he's worried about a division within the Church along liturgical lines. I generally find that reporting about stuff that comes out of the Vatican is woefully inaccurate and misrepresents what's actually going on. That being said, I think that whatever updated Latin Mass guidelines come out are going to be emphasizing that it's currently considered the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite and that it shouldn't push the Ordinary Form to the side in any given parish.

Kerstin Replied:

The most recent episode of the Burrowshire Podcast delves into this issue and sheds light on the different versions of the Latin Mass, whether it is a Novus Ordo Mass said in Latin or the Extraordinary Form. I was very much surprised how many historical details there are I wasn't aware of at all.

My Reply to Kerstin:

I listened to that Kerstin. I thought it was excellent, though they seemed to get off topic toward the end. Actually what they said is what I support. If done reverently the Novus Ordo is a richer Mass, bringing in more rites than are in the Tridentine Mass. What people call the Latin Mass was established at the Counsel of Trent, and therefore a reaction to Protestants. It was not the original Mass. If it feels that there are more parts to the Novus Ordo, it's because there are more parts. The Church brought them back from prior to the Counsel of Trent. I maintain the Novus Ordo is a richer Mass if done properly.

My Reply to Irene:

Irene wrote: "The abbey seems to represent the opposite temptation. It has so withdrawn from the world that people only can hear the liturgy over a megaphone, kneeling at a distance. I think that Moore describes the mood of the worshipers as nostalgic because he wants the reader to understand that this is not a deep encounter with Christ, but a clinging to some external for its own sake. It may be engaged in lovely liturgical rituals, but, in the words of St. Basil, whose feet are they washing? ."

That is interesting Irene. I had not picked up on that. You seem to be reading this as a balanced tension between the past and the future, while I'm seeing this as a dystopia. At least the Introduction in my edition by Robert Ellsberg presents it as a dystopia. Even on the surface it strikes me as unbalanced between the two sides: little obscure, powerless monastery in the middle of nowhere versus the big, bad institution of the Church who exerts its will through power. I haven't finished but haven't been seeing it that way. Perhaps I have to look a little closer with this in mind, but the surface details do not paint Fr. Kinsella as having any positive attributes that would engender sympathy.

Irene Replied:

No, I am not reading this as a balanced tension between past and future. I am reading this as two temptations against what it means to be church. Both have existed in the past. Both can exist in the future. One builds walls to keep out the world; the other knocks down walls to let the world in. One finds certitude in clinging to a particular historical moment; one denies all certitude and with it all truth. But God can't be walled in or pinned to a historical moment. Nor can we claim to be Church just because we claim institutional titles or authority.

My Reply to Irene:

Two temptations still implies some sort of equal weight. Nonetheless, I don't see the Abbey as building walls. If anything they are reaching out to the mainland as far as their limited reach can go. In Part One at least there is nothing to suggest they are ignoring the social justice needs of the people around them at the expense of their liturgy. Who is being shown as deprived? If you're reading was accurate, there should be some sort of social deficiency dramatized or suggested.

My Comment:

There was a really good article in The Catholic World Report as a memorial to a nun who was influential in the author's (who happens to be a priest) life, "Requiem for a Holy Nun". The article's intent is to highlight the nun who was the author's teacher and who had predicted he would one day be a priest. The nun lived to 108, so he got to know her as an adult as well. It was quite touching and I would recommend that article for that alone. Here is the article:

 

But I post this in the context of this read and discussion. The author mentions how the nun refused to no longer wear her religious clothing after Vatican II, while apparently all the other sisters of her chapter followed the directive. Here is that paragraph:

 

We moved out of the city after fifth grade, but Sister and I kept in touch. She was thrilled when I entered the seminary in 1968, making me truly one of “her boys” (an affectionate term nuns often used for their students who became priests). That year – that annus horribilis – was also the year of her community’s general chapter when they doffed their habits, moved into apartments, and abandoned our schools in droves. Sister stayed the course. When she refused to take off her veil, she was sent for psychological counseling and was also told there was no position open for her in the community.

 

Can you imagine? Sent for psychological counseling because she refused to change to secular clothing? That is just so Marxist. So one can see where Brian Moore is coming from when he created this dystopia.

My Comment:

I should also make it clear, Brian Moore is not ridiculing the Novus Ordo. He is ridiculing the fictional "Mass" that came out of the fictional "Vatican IV."