Catholic Thought discussion
Catholics: A Novel
>
Parts Three & Four
date
newest »
newest »
Mod
(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?
Mod
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.
Mod
“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.
I saw this story as a parable, a warning about the creeping advance of secularism. “Catholics” make up that small, diverse group of people who, to one degree of commitment or another, take their stand against the world. On page after page I found myself challenged: what do you believe; how would you react; if everything was taken from you — even the consolations of faith — could you go on?When he was a young man, Abbot Tomas O’Malley dedicated himself to a faith in which he no longer believes. Because he is a man of principle, he remains duty bound to those whom he leads. And, ironically, in doing this, he has grown interiorly. Perhaps I am reading him all wrong; perhaps he is the fictional counterpart to the author, Brian Moore, a self-described lapsed Catholic. But I see him as someone else: not the intellectual company man (Kinsella), not the monks, sincere in their belief but needing the past to sustain them, but the one who, trusting that faith is a gift, stares into the void and prays, “Our Father. . .”
A question: did I miss something? Over the centuries, religions adapt. Clerical dress may change, the Latin Mass may devolve into the guitar Mass, where the priest stands at the altar, the form the sacrament of penance takes, etc., all may be modified and renewed. But not the Eucharist. Belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist sets the Catholic Church apart from every other faith. Was it what the monks were being asked to renounce, or was transubstantiation just lumped in with all the other issues? To my mind, it’s a very different story if that’s the case.
For me, the confrontation between Fr. Matthew and the abbot late that first night was a critical scene. 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. But, in doing so, he violated his vow of obedience. In the end, the vow of obedience won over Fr. Matthew's promise to keep this vigil. Why? What is Fr. Matthew saying in this decision? Is his act of obedience more an act of faith than the vigil? In surrendering, in that moment of humility, is there not something more spiritually profound than in the knees on the stone floor or the arms stretched out cruciform? And, in that scene, I wondered if the abbot could ask obedience of his monks in this single moment and not offer the same humble obedience to the church in the issue of the Latin rite? Would the greater act of faith have been to mount a fight against the institution, create a schism, or surrender in obedience? If one believes in the infallibility of the pope, what would it say to resist? I found it ironic that the abbot and the community end up on their knees in the chapel which is where the abbot had sent them from just a few hours earlier. And, yet the prayer felt different to me. At midnight, the praying monks seemed to be trying to secure a certain outcome, to persuade God to intervene on their behalf and allow for the continuation of the Latin Mass. At the end, the prayer does not seem to have a particular goal in mind. It seems to be the only refuge of those who have lost everything, even their certitude about where their lives might be going, of the meaning of what they have given their lives to. For me, the null was the dark, emptiness of where the abbot had once found God. Suddenly, what defined the lives of these men has been yanked away. True, the individual monks still believe in the Real Presence and the efficacy of the sacraments. But, the rites that was associated with that efficacy is now denied them. Sure, these monks still love the Church that they dedicated their lives to so many decades ago, but that Church has abandoned them. Sure, they still have their home, their way of life, but apart from the liturgy that shaped it, from the Church that anchored it, what meaning is left in this harsh way of life? 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. I am not sure why the title. I don't know if it is Moore's title or that of the publisher. I don't know if it refers to the denomination or is meant in the bigger sense of "universal".
Mod
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.
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 off at the pass. They can be ordered not to say Mass in Latin, but can they be ordered to believe something? Yes, there is a brief exchange where the abbot says that from now on it is symbol, but just as no one could force the abbot to believe, and no one seems to have realized that he lost his faith, how can anyone order anyone not to believe?
Mod
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?
Mod
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.
"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.”I think this is a key passage. Matthew is clearly presented here as "righteous" and "wronged." The abbot as someone afraid to face the deepest truths of the faith and ready to use obedience to Kinsella's order as rationalization for not defending the faith of the members of the order he is responsible for. I pondered over the "null" thing too--I see that as indicating that he is consciously turning his back on those who want to preserve and protect their faith and devotions, and looking into the void of unbelief.
I think that a reader's understanding of this novel hinges on how the reader understands that final scene. Manny, you are right; I am not giving the issue of the Real Presence the emphasis that you are giving because I don't think it is the primary issue here. The form of the liturgical rites gets much more time than any discussion of Real Presence. I wish Moore could be part of this conversation so we could hear what he had in mind. I wonder if Bishop Lefabre's resistance to the changes from Vatican II was as much an inspiration for Moore as the creeping secularization in some Church circles. I don't know. Should TV cameras come to the island and a TV production be done? That would take us down a road that is not quite the point of the book. I did not get the impression that the TV cameras were invited in by anyone in an attempt to evangelize the world, but was the secular news chasing a story to exploit divisiveness in the Church. For me, this novel brought back similar feelings from Silence. And, I still have not had a chance to re-read, so I still don't know why the missionary who became a seminary prof was included.
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.
Mod
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.
But, if this is parable, then it does end with this ambiguity. We don't know what happens next. We can only believe that the miracle of prayer will happen as we believe that the miracle of the Mass happens. It does leave us with more questions than answers, but I suspect that Moore does want us to be left asking questions and grappling with our answers. Is the new form of the liturgy indeed invalid? If so, what makes a ritual valid or invalid? This was certainly a question in the Church in 1972 as many felt that the new liturgical rites were not valid. Some believed that St. Pope John XXIII had fallen into heracy and that his successor was not a valid pope. I think Moore is deliberately not wrapping up his novel with a neat bow, but leaving his reader to figure out where s/he goes next. I am not finding it a flawed novel, but a provocative novel.
Mod
We can respectfully agree to disagree about this novel.
Mod
Of course! I don't know what you see in it, but if you enjoyed it, that's more important than whether it's a work of literature.
Mod
Oh I missed that earlier. Thanks.
If Brian Moore wanted the reader to have to struggle to find the meaning of his novel, he got his wish! Irene and Manny, after reading your comments I concluded that you think the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was the true issue. Kinsella came to the island with only one mission: the Catholic Church is being dissolved. The Mass in Latin, the form of confession, etc. were just diversions: the Mass itself is ending. If that's the case, the novel does fall flat, because anyone who wishes to remain a Catholic has only one choice.If we take a different approach -- that it's the modernization of the Church's rituals, etc. which is involved, then the monks have every right to rebel. Papal authority applies only under certain, very serious conditions. In 1950 Pius XII declared the Assumption, and I may be mistaken, but I don't believe any pope has spoken Ex Cathedra since. When St. Catherine of Siena realized that the feuding in Italy would only end if Gregory XI returned to Rome from Avignon, she wasn't shy about saying so, and she changed the history of the papacy. (The monks at the Abbey of Muck needed a Catherine among them.)
For the reasons stated above, this is why I prefer to see the novel as a parable, focusing on the creeping dangers of secularism.
Mod
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.
Is a man staring into the abyss, knowing that others look to him as their leader, keeping to himself the private pain of his loss of faith and saying aloud Catholicism’s most cherished prayer, “Our Father,” cowardly and timid? I don’t see him that way. I see him as reserved and deferential and devoted to those in his charge. (Go easy on me, Manny. I’m pusillanimous.)
Mod
Mod
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.
Francis, I don't see the Real Presence as the primary issue in this book. I think the real issue is the challenge to look into the void, to surrender to God's mysterious ways when everything you hold dear is stripped away. I see the final scene as a profound step into the void in courage and trust in a God that the abbot can't even perceive. I think this might be a parable. But I think that it is as much about the creeping secularism as the white nuckled clinging to a particular way of worship. I never can see prayer as cowardly or in adequate, especially not in a community dedicated to prayer. I think prayer, if sincere, is the most courageous and daring act we can engage in.
Kerstin, I am with you on your analysis. Cradle Catholic that I am, it has only been in this past decade that I have really felt the need to be more aware that God is present, especially in the Eucharist, but also in our daily lives as well. We need to be more aware that the Holy Spirit has infinite ways of trying to get our attention, but we must be open to that consolation and grace. And I had not looked for hope in the monks, but that is an important point. Irene, yes, prayer is a courageous and daring act--especially when prayerful people are being mocked and scorned by the voices of the world, when praying protesters are attacked at abortion clinics, churches are set on fire, congregations attracting mass shooters, we know that prayer is viewed as a powerful threat for the enemy, And yes, I do see that the monks already are the remnant, and we may emerge as that remnant in our time. The Abbot won't last forever, but as empty as his heart has been, his call to prayer is definitely his best shot, a gift of the Spirit, whether he has or will have realized it.
Mod
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.
Mod
“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?
Mod
- 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.
Mod
We are right after Vatican II but mostly before many of the liturgical abuses, etc. happened. Moore points out how bad things could get if things progress down the secular road.
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.
Mod
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.
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.
Irene, in regard to your message 25, I think you and I basically agree. I consider this novel a form of parable. Like a parable, it is concise. Like a parable, its main characters face a moral dilemma, and like a parable, there isn’t an expressed resolution to the narrative.We hear so much about the decline of religion in the West. But in other parts of the world, there are Christians who suffer for their faith. In Hong Kong, Catholic pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 14 months in prison for taking part in pro-democracy protests. His is just one example of the strong Christian presence in Hong Kong. “Christians’ affinity for activism is natural. ‘You are ready to suffer in this life, and you seek a much more meaningful afterlife,’ one explains. ‘That contrasts with the attitude of Communist China: Keep your head low. Concentrate on making money, don’t bother with other things.’”
(WSJ article, “The Christian Heart of Hong Kong Activism,” 7/09/21)
I’m mentioning this because of the conversation between the abbot and James Kinsella in Catholics. The abbot asks Kinsella if he has read a book called An Unbeliever’s Faith, pointing out the book’s idea that “a Christianity that keeps God can no longer stand up to Marxism.”
In our era, in exchange for autonomy, Pope Francis made an agreement with the Chinese Communist Party, that the Party could select the men who would one day become bishops. Will these bishops believe in the Real Presence? Or will, as many predict, the Church be reduced over time, layer by layer, to an outward shell whose inner life is the Communist state?
“No traditional church hierarchy but military ranks . . . Christianity without God or faith . . . The sacrifice of the Mass is not a miracle but merely a ritual.” Manny, I know you weren’t thinking of China when you compiled the list in message 29, but I think this is where China is heading. Like others in our group, I wish Brian Moore had given us more fully developed characters, too. I would have liked to learn more about the elusive Father Hartmann who has such an outsize presence in the novel in spite of not being one of the characters on the ground. But in the end, I am grateful for the wake-up call.
I read this a second time yesterday and picked up much more than I did the first time. I think I understand the place of Fr. Hartman in this novel. I am reading him as the counter point to Fr. Matthew in some way. He is just a passionate about a faith that is about social change as Fr. Matthew is about his understanding of the Catholic faith. Fr. Hartman is willing to be martyred for the sake of the cause he serves. I think he is here to prevent the reader from dismissing the secular side of the debate as self-serving or passionless or even faithless. The faith may not be in the Christian God as traditionally taught, or even in a personal God, they may be misguided, but they believe in love of neighbor with zealous passion, the zeal of the martyrs.
As for the abbot's lack of faith, Moore does give us a glimpse into its source. When he is sitting in the darkened chapel that first night, we are given some background on him. We learn of a trip to Lourdes that he took many years ago. There he saw all the suffering of the countless sick, all the rows of crutches and he was overwhelmed. He went back to his room and experienced a despair. It is where he also speaks of that in terms of facing the null. Apparently, in this place of miracles, where so many find God, he felt nothing, did not experience that hope, that faith, that compassion, whatever it is that people experience. It was not the first or the last time he would stare into this null, but it was the worse he experienced. After that, prayer became increasingly difficult as nothing about the spiritual life seemed real to him.
I can relate to this experience. I went for years finding prayer so empty that I could not pray except in a group. When I did engage in personal prayer, I could only pray the Office or something else that relied on the words of others. Prayer is still very difficult. I doubt my words ever become prayer as the abbot says at the end. I am too afraid that there will be no miracle, God won't come and I will find that my entire life is a lie. So, I do see that final prayer, with its implication that it is true prayer, a very courageous act and the greatest sign of hope.
Mod
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.
Mod
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.
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.
Mod
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.
Well, so much for agreeing to respectfully disagree. I guess I am just an ignoramus who can't read what is in front of my eyes. Either that or I am a faithless heretic. I love Good Reads for the respectful conversations we can have about books.
Mod
Feel free to explain why it isn't, but you didn't explain.
What are you sorry about? That I am too ignorant to understand what is clearly on the page or that I am too faithless to recognize the good guys from the bad guys? It certainly is not for telling me that I am categorically wrong. I have explained in multiple posts how I read this novel. It does have dystopian elements. But I don't believe Moore is setting up the institutional Church as the bad guy and the monks as the good guys. But, I respect that others may and can read this novel that way. I don't need to convince anyone to read it differently. That is not why I am in these book groups. If I have not adequately explained my understanding of the novel in my numerous posts, then I am not going to be more successful if I repeat myself here.
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.
Manny and Irene, I think the reason people seek out this group is that its members care so much about books. Isn’t that what we have here? When I read and reread your posts what I find are two readers who have thoroughly analyzed a complex novel and reached different conclusions. In doing so, you have enlarged the perspectives of all of us. Thank you both.Brian Moore’s books can have troubling themes. He’s been criticized for that, and for his inclination to leave his novels open-ended, without expressed conclusions. I attribute the disagreement between two of the most intelligent, caring members of our group to that characteristic of Moore’s.
Frances, I could not agree more! And we all appreciate this group so much, largely because there is intellectual space here for such awesome minds as Manny and Irene, and you, Frances, and we all grow from your different perspectives, grow in understanding, and in our own ability to accept the awesome ambiguity of great literature, and even learn more from the not-so-great. Let us keep the ideas flowing, and respect that we can all learn from great minds without having all the answers.I think there are enough flaws in the novel to make room for a number of observations and opinions. The narrator here is basically a camera, I think. We aren't given enough evidence in the author's characterization, nor in the responses between or among the various characters, to make absolute judgments about motives, intentions, or outcomes. I personally don't think this is a great novel, nor a dystopia along the lines of 1984 or Lord of the World, but a montage of possibilities that Moore, with his camera-lens perspective of a screenwriter, projected into our future, and like the ending of Lord of the World, we can ask and ponder: "Are we there yet"?
Mod
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.
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.
Mod
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]
https://irishstudies.sunygeneseoengli...
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 Mass the priests moved 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. 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.
Mod
Mod
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re3V9...
Catholic Thought
Books mentioned in this topic
Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today (other topics)Lord of the World (other topics)
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.