Catholic Thought discussion
Catholics: A Novel
>
Part One
date
newest »
newest »
It sounded to me like the priests wear something akin to a military uniform. I'm thinking the new Knights of Columbus gear.
Mod
Yes, para military? Or something like that. Why would that be? I don't get that. But it's early. Maybe it will be explained.
Mod
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.
Mod
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 mirrors the liturgical changes that came in the wake of Vatican II, the folk mass, emotionalist pop music, et. al. We're still suffering from Novus Ordo Masses that could use a major lift in reverence. Much of that was simply bullied into our parishes. And like Kinsella, those who supported the "spirit of Vatican II" get really angry when a person dares to point out some of the serious short comings.
Kinsella, even though he is a priest, doesn't really show us any pastoral qualities. He resembles more an enforcer, and his soldier-like "clerics" mimic that. Just like nuns in regular clothes, his "clerics" are barely distinguishable from the clothes of everyday people. This is why Padraig won't give him a lift in his boat. The island is off limits unless you have legitimate business there, and Kinsella can't verify his legitimacy by the clothes he is wearing.
If you wear a certain uniform, be it secular or religious, that sets you apart. It tells everyone who you are. In the case of religious habits and clerics, they also serve as a vehicle of passive evangelization. It tells everyone that you take your faith so seriously you devote your life to it. By not willing to stand out anymore, to visibly lead people to Christ as he demanded, Kinsella and the Church of Vatican IV have abdicated their missionary mandate to baptize all nations.
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.
Mod
There is this famous legend of St. Patrick that he banned all snakes from Ireland as a way of explaining why Ireland doesn't have any snakes. With Padraig refusing to take Kinsella on his boat, was he protecting the island from a snake?
Mod
There is this famous legend of St. Patrick that he banned all snakes from Ireland as a way of explaining why Ireland doesn't have..."
Ha! Maybe! But I love that analogy. :)
Mod
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.
I have to admit, this was a hard book to read from the perspective of the state of the Catholic Church as described in the first few pages. When the author writes of the pilgrims and tourists who are coming to Mass and to pray the rosary, describing the mood as nostalgic, that really bothered me. 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. 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. It's interesting that Kinsella's friend Visher says "people don't want truth or social justice...they want certainties." To me that was another clue the author was a lapsed Catholic because being Catholic means believing in the truth as presented by Jesus Christ passed down to the Church. Jesus is the Truth.
In trying to understand why Fr Kinsella became a priest, I think the answer is found in the paragraph where he describes Hartmann's idea that the Church exists solely for social revolution. There was nothing described about Father that I could find that gave insights to his spirituality or charism. Thinking of Fr Kinsella's garb, as described it reminded me of the Communist Chinese attire of Mao.
I know we're discussing part one but I did finish the book and will say it inspired me to go spend more time in meditation with God. If I could I would have scooted off to Confession. I realized just how deep my love for the Church is and that it could turn into what the author describes is frightening. Overall, it impacted me viscerally more than it did intellectually.
Kerstin wrote: Kinsella, even though he is a priest, doesn't really show us any pastoral qualities. He resembles more an enforcer, and his soldier-like "clerics" mimic that. Just like nuns in regular clothes, his "clerics" are barely distinguishable from the clothes of everyday people. This is why Padraig won't give him a lift in his boat. The island is off limits unless you have legitimate business there, and Kinsella can't verify his legitimacy by the clothes he is wearing."Kerstin, I agree with you. There was nothing about Kinsella, whether it was his clothes or his attitude that indicated he was a priest or that he had any pastoral tendencies. I wish the author had gone into greater detail regarding Kinsella's formation as a priest or even what it means to be a priest in this 'new' church.
Catherine, I see this story as a form of cautionary tale. I didn’t see it as Brian Moore’s hope for the future of the Church but as a warning to us.
Mod
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.
Mod
I think you misread that. Kinsella is not the author's point of view. I believe the author is agreeing with Visher.
Mod
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.
Mod
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.
Mod
https://burrowshirepodcast.com/moving...
I read part 1 yesterday and am taken by Moore's writing. I already want to read more by him. I will be surprised if this turns into an argument for a particular form of liturgy. Moore is coming across as a much more nuanced thinker than that. Initially, it appears to me that neither ways of being "church" are coming across as necessarily positive. Fr. Kinsella seems to represent a version of church that is so accommodated to modern culture that it has lost its mystical identity. It may be serving the poor or working for justice, but it no longer knows itself as the Mystical Body of Christ. 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? Although Fr. Konsella's fatigues signal secularization, they do remain a uniform. If all the priests have shifted from black clericals to khaki fatigues, they would still be distinguishable as priests by anyone who was interested enough to know. But, neither the boat driver or the hotel person or anyone else in this town does realize that priests wear a new uniform. But I suspect that Moore is posing a deeper question, or at least a deeper question is posed to me. I don't wear my baptismal robe, yet everyone I encounter should know that I belong to Christ. The early Christians were recognizable by their mutual love, not by the color or style of their togas. I think the deeper question is not what Fr. Kinsella is wearing on the outside, but the love he does not seem to be clothed in on the inside. I also think the same issue is reflected in the boat driver. He can't see a priest because Fr. Kinsella is not dressed as he expects. But he also can't see another child of God, so he can strike him. I will have to read more to see if I am totally off base or not. But I am expecting a third way to emerge. These two ways of being church are at odds. They are creating a riff in the unity of the Body of Christ. Both sides believe that they are right and the other wrong. But God is so much greater than our human understanding. We face God both when we face the tabernacle and when we look into the face of our brothers and sisters. God is glorified in high Mass if it empells us to wash the dirtiest and least deserving feet and God is served if our work at the homeless shelter pulls us more deeply into the heart of Christ. So far, I am not seeing this in either version of church depicted in part 1.
Mod
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.
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.
Mod
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.
As I wrote in my first post, I don't know if this is where the story is going or not; it is too early. It is just my initial sense from this minimal introduction. We have not seen anything of the abbey yet, just that the pilgrims kneel at a distance to hear the Latin over a megaphone, that sometimes priests come to the mainland to hear confessions, nothing else. We see no other interaction other than the brief boat scene. We are invited to draw conclusions based on this brief encounter with both Fr. Konsilla and the very remote glimpse of the abbey. I suspect that the author will bring us inside that abbey with Fr. Konsilla and let us see more of what is happening. I am just making my initial guesses which may be proven wrong as I read further. But I am doubtful that this is a simple good vs evil tale, that the man in fatigues calling himself a priest is all evil and that the monks praying in Latin are automatically all good. I am suspecting something more subtle. But, this would not be the first time I drew a completely incorrect wrong first impression if it turns out to be the good traditional monks vs the evil progressive institution.
Mod
Mod
So what does Rome do? Instead of recognizing that each person is made in the imago Dei and thereby their spiritual needs are varied too, they send an enforcer to shut it down.
Mod
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2...
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.
Joseph wrote: "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 think that is true, and yet here in Texas we have a Latin rite parish that is brimming with young families who never grew up with it. I think they see its beauty, solemnity, reverence, and calming atmosphere as something they want their children to grow up with. My own children were born in the aftermath of Vatican II, and only one of them even studied Latin, mostly because she knew it could build her vocabulary and understand English grammar better. None of them are practicing Catholics today. I couldn't help contrasting my own early experiences of Latin Mass with that of our children, and what we see today in our Novus Ordu Masses--while my siblings and I sat still, and didn't dare disrupt what was going on, (except that maybe we were bribed gently with a treat afterwards), today those families who are at Mass together (although we have a nursery) often struggle with keeping the little ones from escaping the pew, scattering their baggie full of cheerios or tearing up the missalettes, or taking crying babies out during the homily. I also think the music of the Latin Mass had a calming effect, not so with much of the liturgical music today. Some of us are hoping our new pastor will attempt to offer an occasional Latin Mass in our parish--I have no doubt it will succeed as we are a very large church with people attending regularly from surrounding parishes.
Mod
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.
Mod
I was away for the past week, visiting my mother after 18 months. But, I did finish the book before I got on the plane. I was wrong in much of my guesses about where the novel might be going, but right that this is something much richer than bad institution vs good monks. This is very thought provoking, deeply spiritual. I do want to re-read it and to read more of this author.
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.