Three Cheers for the Paraclete: A Novel

by Thomas Keneally

A young Catholic priest, Father Maitland raises eyebrows among the brothers of St. Peter’s the moment his young cousin and new bride spend the night in his room. But even when he’s trying to do the right thing, Father Maitland continuously finds himself at odds with his superiors and the strictures of the Church—a conflict that threatens to unravel his faith and his life.
 
A fastidious and darkly satirical novel, with moments of warm humor, Three Cheers for the Paraclete won Thomas Keneally his second Miles Franklin Award.
 

Genres: Fiction, Australia, Novels, 20th Century, Christian, Religion, Historical

264 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982, which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. The book would later be adapted to Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Often published under the name Tom Keneally in Australia.

Life and Career:

Born in Sydney, Keneally was educated at St Patrick's College, Strathfield, where a writing prize was named after him. He entered St Patrick's Seminary, Manly to train as a Catholic priest but left before his ordination. He worked as a Sydney schoolteacher before his success as a novelist, and he was a lecturer at the University of New England (1968–70). He has also written screenplays, memoirs and non-fiction books.

Keneally was known as "Mick" until 1964 but began using the name Thomas when he started publishing, after advice from his publisher to use what was really his first name. He is most famous for his Schindler's Ark (1982) (later republished as Schindler's List), which won the Booker Prize and is the basis of the film Schindler's List (1993). Many of his novels are reworkings of historical material, although modern in their psychology and style.

Keneally has also acted in a handful of films. He had a small role in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (based on his novel) and played Father Marshall in the Fred Schepisi movie, The Devil's Playground (1976) (not to be confused with a similarly-titled documentary by Lucy Walker about the Amish rite of passage called rumspringa).

In 1983, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). He is an Australian Living Treasure.

He is a strong advocate of the Australian republic, meaning the severing of all ties with the British monarchy, and published a book on the subject in Our Republic (1993). Several of his Republican essays appear on the web site of the Australian Republican Movement.

Keneally is a keen supporter of rugby league football, in particular the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles club of the NRL. He made an appearance in the rugby league drama film The Final Winter (2007).

In March 2009, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, gave an autographed copy of Keneally's Lincoln biography to President Barack Obama as a state gift.

Most recently Thomas Keneally featured as a writer in the critically acclaimed Australian drama, Our Sunburnt Country.

Thomas Keneally's nephew Ben is married to the former NSW Premier, Kristina Keneally.

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ideology of the Word

Structured as a tragically satirical farce, the theme here are anything but farcical: the intellectual desert of Catholic orthodoxy, the overt and pervasive misogyny of males in the Church, clerical arrogance and ambition, the imperatives of ecclesiastical economics, and the consequences of institutional conformism. Originally published a half century ago, the book remains acutely relevant as an explanation for more recent events like the conviction and incarceration of Cardinal Pell, the head of the Catholic Church in Australia.

For most of the last two decades I have lived and worked in the Catholic colleges of the University of Oxford. As undoubtedly would have been the case with any other similar institutions, my experiences have been mixed. I have encountered as much venality, rudeness, and spite as I have altruism, personal kindness and charity. And just about in the same proportions as in the non-religious institutions with which I have been associated.

But there is something peculiarly intense about both the virtues and vices in a Catholic clerical community. It is probably inevitable that in a community devoted to words and the form of words, everything becomes symbolic. Nothing is insignificant. And nothing said or done has a half-life. Resentments, perceived slights, mistakes (intentional or otherwise) may be forgiven but they’re rarely forgotten. Such communities thrive on ‘mutual formation’ which means that the memory of events is essential to communal life.

At an institutional level this facility for memory is called ‘tradition’, a very powerful term in Catholic circles. Tradition is the final arbiter of any controversy - what others have said, the opinions of those whom we respect, and the words in which those opinions are expressed. Despite any superficial changes in the Catholic Church over recent years, it is tradition which abides as the generative principle of the institution, its sociology and the psychology of its members, particularly its clerical members, who are by definition male.

Consequently, in the Catholic Church, language itself has become an instrument of male domination - among its male members as well as by its male members over the females. This is itself an important component of tradition, arguably the keystone of the entire Church edifice. To allow this principle of language or its control by a male clerisy to be questioned would be institutionally disastrous and so hasn’t changed at all since Three Cheers for the Paraclete was published. And so it remains the intransigent source of the continuing issues within the Catholic Church.

Keneally’s book is about James, a priest who challenges the male worship of words in the Catholic Church. Set in mid-century, it could as easily be a story of 1919 or 2019. The stifling clerical culture is constant and Keneally captures its detail with great skill. But he also puts his finger exactly on the central tenet of the existence of Catholic clergy: “... the priest isn’t an individual. He’s a corporate being.” This is the existential reality of the Catholic priesthood. The priest is a product and a prisoner of protected words. But if he escapes from this ideology of words, or even if he merely neglects them, his existence, as perceived by himself, is threatened. “I call myself an institutional being,” James laments.

The import of this astute observation can’t be overstated. Most of us work for corporate entities, and our lives are dominated by corporate activities. But few of us consider ourselves as created by these corporations. Not so the Catholic priest who is taught that his very existence is a result of his ordination “as a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech” (note the cooptation of Jewish tradition). He is made so by words; his priestly life is minutely regulated by words that remind him of his total dependence on the institution which controls the words; and his priestly duties consist largely of repeating prescribed words on a daily basis.

One of James’s seminary students captures the set of mind required for a priest: “Everything codified and as organized as a trawler master’s manual. Only God is a little more intangible than a diesel engine.” The party line is unassailable truth. One obeys; and one is expected to be obeyed in turn. As a priest “You can’t overdo conformity,” he continues. Rudeness, obfuscation, the suffering of others are all justified by the need for orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is about words not actions. And since faith is always a thing of words, the right words are everything.

So I can’t say that the men I’ve met and worked with over the last two decades are individually better or worse than others. But it is clear to me that the institution to which they have devoted their lives exploits them mercilessly in precisely the ways that Keneally describes. It is an institution which would sacrifice them without a second thought if they were to prioritise people over words but would protect those who were loyal to the words regardless of their behaviour. This is an example of an organisation in which the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

[Terence M [on a brief semi-hiatus] · Rating 4 out of 5]

4-Stars - "I Really Liked It!"
Three Cheers for the Paraclete (ebook) - by Thomas Keneally

It is interesting to note that this book has received 130 ratings as of 12 Oct 2021, but only 14 reviews - mine, when I write it will be the 15th. Actually, I think I understand - for me, this book was quite easy to rate, but I am pondering on what to write for my review🤔.
"Poignant and satirical" come to mind, but Three Cheers for the Paraclete deserves more, and better ... so bear with me.

[Francisca · Rating 4 out of 5]

i don't know how to sell (i.e., recommend) this book. if i told someone it's about religion and dogma and doctrine and the relationship between man and church and god, you'd say boring and move on. i would have moved on, too. the only reason i had this book in the first place was because the cover was shinny and it was cheap. i'm a simple person as you can see.

but, although now that i have read it and i can confirm all those subjects from before all remain, i sort of enjoyed it? yet, truth be told, i can't say why. because all those subjects are true, this book is about religion and doctrine and someone's relationship with their church and yet--and yet, the writing comes across in such a comfortable manner that i just sped through it. and i cannot fathom how all those dry subjects dealt with did not translate into a dry writing. or a dry story.

because, in the end, this book was both a peculiar satire and a critical take on the catholic church. a good one. but also one that could not properly translate equally to everyone's experiences with religion. i'm an atheist but i grew up catholic and went to a catholic school; i do not believe in god but it is still part of my vernacular. fair to say, my relationship with the church is a strange one and i think this book will appeal best to those who share this strange form of continuous presence with catholicism. perhaps it might appeal to other people but i cannot say for sure.

[Alan Marr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books i have been meaning to read for decades. Last week I picked it up for $6 and decided to read it immediately. James Maitland is a great priest - an honest doubter whose integrity gets him into trouble despite his commitment to the institutional church. I loved it from start to finish.

[Old Man JP · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great satire of the Catholic Church. A young priest, Father Maitland questions the established orthodoxy and dogma that the church maintains regardless of how ridiculous it is. His convictions lead him into confrontation with his superiors which increasingly becomes more and more problematic. A great read from Thomas Keneally.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three Cheers for the Paraclete is the latest in my quest to read and review all the Miles Franklin winners; it was Thomas Keneally’s second win, in 1968, and that win remains remarkable for being the only time the judges have awarded the prize to an author two years in succession. (Keneally had won it the previous year for Bring Larks and Heroes, see my review and the opening lines.)

But what makes Three Cheers for the Paraclete intrinsically remarkable is its theme. The blurb puts it better than I could do it myself:

Set in a Roman Catholic diocese today [i.e. the 1960s] Three Cheers for the Paraclete is about the dilemma of the rebel who knows that established authority is wrong but doesn’t know how to put it right because he is himself too much a part of it. It is also about a critical religious issue of today – the conflict between a new generation which sees religious truth as something that must change with the world, and an establishment which sees it fixed and immutable.

Half a century later, can we imagine any young Australian novelist daring to tackle the clash between dogmatic ideology and modernity within another major world religion? And can we imagine Miles Franklin judges having the courage to reward it? It’s a different world today…

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2015/09/19/th...

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three Cheers for the Paraclete is from 1968, one of two he wrote based on his time at St Patrick's Seminary in Manly. Of course this is where my friend John studied and he tells me that Keneally's novels were well reviewed at the time but considered exaggerated, one review in the Bulletin reading 'this is a metaphysical novel about a place that couldn't possibly exist', despite the fact that the characters were based on real people whom the seminarians could identify by name and the setting describes the seminary buildings and grounds in detail. I go from grinning to sadness as he explains the dark, confined, narrow and oppressive surroundings and the people, who can be portrayed by much the same words. Very much enjoyed the book and I think I appreciate it more now than I would have when it was written, due in part to John's horrendous tales of the place.
I love his dark humour: 'There were five of them in the sedan, returning from a death and happy as larks'. His expressive writing: To an errant nun the priest was 'male and harsh and mastering, gruff as a navvy's fart'. His insightfulness: 'Joe's "they" was that terrible pronoun of the working class, embracing the cabinet, the insurance companies, organised Christianity, the price-control board, the breweries'. Humour and pathos, both in spades.

[Abigail]

I don't remember where i read a good recommendation for this novel. But i found it tedious and gave up. Sorry Mr Keneally

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three Cheers for the Paraclete is the first Thomas Keneally book I have read. I enjoyed it and felt warmth for some of the characters particularly Fr Maitland And Fr Egan. Well worth reading

[Andrew Wardle · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. A darkly comedic novel about the troubles of a trainee Roman Catholic priest in 1960s Australia who realises he is losing his faith. Thomas Keneally himself trained for the priesthood but never took Holy Orders after a similar crisis of belief, and though I can't find this confirmed anywhere, one suspects that this novel is partly autobiographical.
Our hero, Dr James Maitland, is a priest in the making who has studied ecclesiastical history in Europe, and, it is hinted, may have been guilty of a little too much free thinking for the 1960s RC Church. We know (and the authorities possibly suspect) that he has written a book about religious belief called "The Meanings Of God" and published it under a pseudonym without the necessary permission (and censorship) from his bishop. The book is regarded as heretical by old-fashioned clergy and is causing a stir amongst the faithful. Maitland himself has returned to Australia and is serving what he regards as a period of "probation" in The House of Studies, a monastery-like institution for trainee priests which is portrayed as midway between a boarding school and a prison. He finds himself increasingly out of sympathy with his traditionalist superiors and starts to question his faith and more particularly the more fundamentalist aspects of Catholicism.

As usual with this author, the central characters are convincing and skilfully-drawn, and there is plenty of irony, sharp wit, and astute observation as our fish out of water creates genteel chaos in his seminary/prison camp. A few quotations which struck me:

Maitland quotes a cynical saying about priests: "Because they love no-one they imagine that they love God". This comes very early on and is our first intimation of the doubts he is starting to feel;
".......he was a popular preacher with a standard to maintain, and, like a surgeon or a bomber pilot, needed his sleep.";
"He, like X, had been to an elocution teacher, but it had done him more lasting harm.";
"'Temerarious', thought Maitland. It was an adjective worthy of conversation in a home for retired civil servants." Self-deprecation from an author who himself has a fondness for recondite words and phrases ? Maybe a hint that Maitland is indeed based on the young Keneally ?;
".......a man reciting a creed quickly as a substitute for belief.";
"Maitland was about to excuse himself and go to his friend's aid when the incident, too rugged a growth, faded into the synthetic bonhomie of converging officials." - an argument at a reception about ecclesiastical art threatens to become unseemly;
"She gave the impression of having been badly used, but by someone who had not misused her with impunity";
"He smiled leniently, the sort of male leniency that provokes feminists.";
".......who knew that the besetting sin of oratory was the sacrifice of the true for the glib.......";
"One of the functions of a bureaucracy is to prevent letters getting to the top man.";
{a pertinent question} ".......would make no mark on X's enamelled visions." A typical Thomas Keneally turn of phrase;
".......the sham jauntiness of the man just managing to conceal seasickness.";
"His instincts were that, having suffered, she had become inured to living off the stored fat of her agonies - was growing, like her sister, into a professional wronged-woman.";
"Celibacy is only a high form of sex-titillation. An attack on women from a more exalted level."

Without giving too much away, the author expresses lasting regard for the best traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, but is sharply critical of its equivocations, its smugness and self-justification, its refusal to adapt to changing times, and its expediency in waiving the large sins of the powerful (including its own elders) while coming down hard on the small indiscretions of the weak.

Faults ? I deducted 1/2 a star for the increasingly implausible subplot about the authorship of the controversial book. And I found it hard to believe that RC clergymen really speak so frankly and indeed rudely to each other. Some of the conversations and bon mots and thinly-disguised insults struck me as what the French call "escaliers" - recounting what you would like to have said in an argument, but in fact only thought of on the staircase afterwards.

But this is a very good novel. Recommended.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neil Tennant's review of 'Blasphemous Rumours' by Depeche Mode could equally be applied to Keneally: 'a routine slab of gloom in which God is given a severe ticking off' (1981).

That may be a little unfair, as it is bad timing rather than a mediocre book. 'Paraclete' follows a series of sombre novels I have read during the winter and was perhaps one too many. In a busy week I ended up reading the first half in small gobbets so possibly lost momentum and interest. Even dislocated, Keneally's writing is outstanding: sharp, smooth, visual and psychological, with a vocabulary and reference points that cast far and wide. Keneally's quality is anything but 'routine'.

All that said, there is a by-numbers feel to the bratish Maitland and the cut-out po(pe)-faced priests Nolan and Costello. Egan and Hurst are Shakespearean fall-guys and we are expected to rage in the storm against the distant deity that permits their situations. The dramatic irony loaded onto a pseudonym-attributed book felt both too much in the coincidence and too little in the conclusion. It was therefore the story rather than the sentence-by-sentence telling that made 'Paraclete' dim in comparison to the luminescence of selected works that were to follow in the 1970s and 1980s.

The caveat is that I love Depeche Mode (including Blasphemous Rumours)... Perhaps I should give 'Paraclete' a go in another time and another place. Who knows if that might bring some great(er) reward?

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, well written novel about father James Maitland, a young twenty nine year old Catholic priest who is somewhat of a polite rebel, questioning the established authority of his seniors, priests Costello and Nolan.

Father Maitland anonymously writes a book about the history of the Catholic Church, without gaining permission from Father Costello. This issue comes back to embarrass Maitland later on.

The novel begins with Maitland harboring a young couple overnight in the convent grounds. Another story thread is when contrary to Father Costello’s advice, father Maitland tells father Hurst to seek psychiatric help, organizing for this to happen. Maitland is also involved in helping father Egan escort a young woman from Egan’s room. The young rich woman is in love with Egan.

A short novel with interesting characters and good plot momentum.

This book won the 1968 Miles Franklin Award. Thomason Keneally, an Australian author, is best known for his non-fiction novel ‘Schindler’s Ark’, which won the 1982 Booker Prize.

[JMD · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ironic story of a questioning priest in a House Of Learning and the trouble he has conforming to the dictates of the two inflexible men in charge who are totally without imagination or understanding of the world at large. I had some trouble visualizing the priests friend, a colleague; not a clear depiction compared with the clarity and empathy of the main priest. I also felt the frustration of that priest.

[Richard Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sign of a good writer is their success in the development of the characters destined to inhabit their stories. Like them or loathe them the reader is carried through the book on the backs of these fictional beings to the degree that the plot becomes less important than their fate. Keneally has succeeded in turning a mundane account of seminary politics into a page turning winner.

[Chris Waterford · Rating 1 out of 5]

This story may have been a good one but the writing and the language were so antiquated that it became frustrating and difficult to read. Difficult words and phrases and ideas persuaded me to let it go. DNF.
3/10

[Maureen E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Refreshing insight into a non-conforming priest who tries to make changes from within.
It’s an older book as relevant today as when written and as applicable to Catholicism as to other denominations.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young priest's battle between his inner morality and orthodoxy. Unexpectedly funny.

[Susan Ffoulkes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat amusing insight into the life of a priest but some outdated, no longer acceptable, terms used. I also did need to refer to the dictionary quite often, which is always good .

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The blurb on this book claims that it's funny. Funny-peculiar, yes. But funny-haha, no. I suppose you need to have some inside track on the culture of the Roman Catholic church to get whatever humour lies herein... It's just too bizarre that such a mish-mash of superstition and hypocrisy still exists and that the proponents of it are more concerned about etiquette than they are about dishonesty and injustice.

It's a book about priests in a theological college: a context of such immense irrelevance that it's not even worth laughing at. Never mind, I can happily consign this to the bin and make room on my book shelves for something better.

[Mark Glidden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know quite what to make of this... I enjoyed it once I got right into it, but that was only on a plane trip where I had no other reading material. Generally, it failed to hold my interest for long periods, which made it a real chore to finish.

[Carol Zellner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an older book, 1968, about a priest in Australia who comes in conflict with his Superiors and his Bishop. Food for thought even today about the individual choices one has to make while living within the confines of an institutional Church.