Catholics (Loyola Classics) Paperback – January 1, 2006

...as to whether the available film version is complete I'll await the novel that frankly I didn't know existed until I'd visited Amazon, then I'll update this review accordingly.I'll say this much: With the Church in the headlines for arguably all the wrong reasons, I was surprised to recall my glimpse of the Stateside broadcast premiere in the early 70s of the ITV production. I believe this was a "CBS Special" that pre-empted the network's Thursday Night Movie, and since it had to fit a 90-minute timeslot the broadcast had to have been punctuated with commercials; hence the film's actual running time of only 70-plus minutes while the original theatrical or "Euro version" may run longer. You may also find it under the title "Catholics (The Visitor)" or "Conflict".And from what I recall of the content, that fit squarely into what I would call speculative fiction. (Another reviewer's screenshot displays a title card that reads, "Catholics: A Fable".) So, reading the source novel or later novelization some 45 years hence should help fill in the blanks of my recollection and help provide context for current events and developments. Again, I'll articulate those in an update to this review.For now I'll close with an approach that was itself recommended to me: If you want to know how monks live, talk to them, and if you want to know how at least Roman Catholic priests live daily, talk to one, or read at least one book written by Reverend John P. McNamee and THEN talk to one.(UPDATE: It's a short novel, in four parts. The Open Road Integrated Media edition runs fewer than a hundred pages and has a wonderfully clarifying introduction by Robert Ellsberg, who also contributes to Liturgical Press. It is very well written and very easy to visualize, providing an incentive for me to read more by Moore, whom I learned also wrote and adapted Black Robe for the cinema. It is also in places prescient, dated, insightful, and wrong. I don't fault Moore for the last point. Rather than hold it up to a mirror and hope it reflects "today's Church" consider instead when it was written, two-thirds or so through "the Pauline papacy" that closed and strove to implement Vatican II, and focus on the principal confrontation [if that] between the emissary sent to enforce "Vatican IV" and the Albanesian abbot of Muck, "at the back of beyond". You will be rewarded.)(P.S. I'm surprised to learn there truly is an Isle of Muck, among the four "Small Isles" off the west coast of Scotland.)

The abbot of a remote Irish monastery lost his faith some time ago. He perseveres, not letting his doubts be known, out of a sense of duty to his vows and sensitivity to the needs of the monks he leads. They remain unaware of his situation. In "Catholics" the abbot must now hold his band of monks together in faithful obedience to his Roman superior's orders that the monks abandon the old liturgical and theological ways, and hew to a new Catholic service more in keeping with the Church's official denial of core doctrines, such as the real presence in the Eucharist. These doctrinal adjustments have been made by the Church in the interest of ecumenism and as its succumbing to secular pressures demanding that the Church be "relevant." The abbot is is a well-developed and sympathetic character. Moore's excellence as a developer of characters facing the challenges of the dawning of a new age is most in evidence with him. The emissary from Rome, who seems to be a careerist, is not as well developed.Moore wrote "Catholics" in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. In thinking through the conflict at the heart of this short work the author seems to have taken the fears of the Church's "ultra-conservatives" at the Council's close as an astute prediction of things to come. Moore's interest here, and in other works (such as "Black Robe") lies in faith and challenges to maintaining it. He seems not to have sensed that the loss, at least in Europe and North America, of many Catholics' deference to the Church as a bulwark against moral and cultural decay in a rapidly changing world would result, not from changes in Catholic doctrine or liturgy, but from the continuing insistence of the hierarchy and the lay Catholic Right on "ecclesiolotry," ii.e., on idolatry of the Church itself. This enabled the moral rot so evident in the abuse scandals throughout the Church, including the country where "Catholics" occurs, to spread in obscurity for generations.Moore knew of corruption in the Church. In other works (e.g., "the Statement") he depicts some of its agents defending the indefensible, as it is well-documented that they did in the years following World War II. What is more, corruption for the sake of institutional power and credibility is evident in "Catholics." But that Moore didn't see the the potential for a scandal on the scale of the child abuse cover-ups coming means only that, despite his own critique of the Church he'd left, even he did not seem to grasp the scope of the hierarchy's actions on all continents to keep up outward appearances in the Church at all costs. The abbot's reverence for his vows and leadership responsibilities, despite having lost his own religious faith, would have been welcome in the many jurisdictions of the Church where the duties of leadership were so grotesquely misconstrued.

This short book imagines ecumenism taken to the extreme., Catholicism compromised to the point of meaninglessness, except on the Irish island of Muck. It's ultimately a confrontation between the abbot and God. The story is well written, thought provoking, and more than a little disturbing. Alas, we're left to discern the outcome for ourselves, much as we have to do in real life.

This fictional story takes place after the hypothetical Vatican IV on a dreary, desolate island, aptly named Muck, off the very Catholic western coast of Ireland. A young American priest, Father Kinsella, based in Rome is dispatched by the Pope, now called Father General, to meet with the Abbot of Muck and convey the Father General displeasure with the media attention being drawn by this group of thirty monks. The story is straight forward and fast; there is no need for any details here. The power of the story is in the revealing of the Abbot's beliefs, behavior, his commitment to his responsibilities and how he manages the conflict among them.The reading of this book was a part of an adult education class at the Center for Lifetime Learning titled "Belief and Doubt",otherwise it would not be on my usual reading list. The author Brian Moore weaves a simple, moving story with deep issues of faith, authority, conscious, spiritual fulfillment and the challenges of survival. As a self-disenfranchised Catholic since 1972 when the book was published, I found it a timely assessment of challenges facing the Church, not necessarily the specifics but the principles. It also gave me insight into my quandary with the Church.

Other faiths do not have the benefit of a writer like Brian Moore who dissects and debates its nature, its problems and its meanings. Maybe if they had we would all be awash with the urgency of religious thought, demonstration and contention, but we aren't. We have forgotten God, or many more of us have never remembered him in the first place. I hasten to say I have no religion myself and came to Moore after recognising his ability to often say in two or three sentences what another writer might need a hundred paragraphs to explain. His clear, very plain style has a sinew-stiffening humanity and addresses the kinds of subject one could easily dismiss from a less effortlessly honest writer. A priest is sent from Rome with instruction to the Abbot of Muck - on a barely habitable island off the Irish mainland - to cease forthwith saying Mass in Latin and obey the other demands of the Vatican IV Papal Bull, which was designed to drag the faith into the 21st century. The old ways of saying Mass practised on the island and on a hillside on the mainland have attracted media attention due to the tourists who flock in droves to join the faithful. It is no longer seemly to have Vatican IV disobeyed. There is very little discussion to take place. The Abbot's duty is to obey the Church of Rome. We are given insight into the thoughts of the Abbot, who is not, as he says, a holy man. In the end he must confront his own feelings and convictions. It is a measure of this very short book (102pp) that it brings to the secular reader a sense of how momentous this moment was, in both the practise of Catholicism and in the mind of the Abbot. Whatever one believes, it cannot be said to leave one cold.

Interesting novel, only purchased it because my father had asked for the DVD. Quality was fine, interesting plot which probably has a limited audience.

as expected would buy from seller again

good

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