Kakistocrat

Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory (1940) is set in a southern state of Mexico, where an anti-clerical purge has the last priest on the run. He is heading towards the northern border, across which his Bishop has already journeyed, as have those priests who have escaped with their lives. However, this last priest is in many ways morally inferior to the general literary depiction of priests during the first half of the 20th century, and the Vatican noticed.

The book was denounced and the Vatican initiated a censorial investigation. Peter Godman, granted access to the investigation archives (not normally available for consultation by outside scholars) informs us of the concerns raised by the two censors.

The first censor viewed the book as "sad," because instead of God’s power and glory being on display, as the title of the novel suggests, all that is evident is despair. Godman summarizes his views:

‘Immoral’ or married priests; the ambiguity with which the central figure refers to God and the doctrines of the faith; the conviction of the virtue attributed to Protestants and atheists— all this made it impossible for Greene’s first reader in the Holy Office to see why the book was regarded as excellent literature.

The book should have never been written, according to censor, but since it had, Greene should be admonished by his Bishop and ‘"exhorted to write other books in a different tone, attempting to correct the defects of this one."

The second censor agreed with the first and thought that Greene should be told that "literature of this kind does harm to the cause of true religion [and that] in the future he should behave more cautiously when he writes…"

At this time, the high ranking Cardinal Giovanni Batista Montini inserted himself into the debate. Cardinal Montini (who would later become Pope Paul VI) wrote to Cardinal Pizzardo who was the head of the Holy Office (and in charge of all censorial investigations). Montini writes:

I see that it is judged a sad book. I have no objection to make to the just observations in the [censure of] this work. But it seems to me that, in such a judgment, there is lacking a sense of the work’s substantial merits. They lie, fundamentally, in its high quality of vindication, by revealing the heroic fidelity to his own ministry within the innermost soul of a priest who is in many respects reprehensible; and the reader is led to esteem the priesthood even if it is exercised by abject representatives…

Cardinal Montini suggested that a Monsignor De Luca be consulted for a third opinion before any action was taken. De Luca’s response was rather unambiguous. Greene did Rome credit, he stated, and that he was a sucsessor to Chesterton and Belloc (both English Catholic authors), and that in a country dominated by Protestantism, Greene strived to influence superior intelligences towards favouring Catholicism.

To condemn or even to deplore them (here De Luca refers to Waugh as well) would  be looked at askance in England, and would deal a grievous blow to our prestige: it would demonstrate not only that we are behind the times but also that our judgment is lightweight…

In the case of Mr. Greene, his harsh and acerbic art touches the hearts of the least receptive people and reminds them, however gloomy they be, of the awe-inspiring presence of God and the poisonous bite of sin. He addresses those who are most distant and hostile—those whom we will never reach…

Msgr. De Luca’s advice was never taken, and Greene was reprimanded by his local Bishop and told to take on a more constructive tone in his Books with regard to the Catholic faith.

Greene took it relatively well. He sent off a letter to Cardinal Pizzardo, slyly apologizing for not writing back sooner, saying he couldn’t because he was in the Far East doing his utmost to chronicle the "difficulties faced by the heroic Catholics of Indochina [who are] confronted by the Communist menace." He states that the aim of his book had been to contrast "the power of the sacraments and the indestuctibility of the Church on the one hand with, on the ohter, the merely temporal power of an essentially Communist state." On the advice of his friend Archbishop David Matthew, Greene also wrote to Cardinal Montini making him aware of the situation, seemingly unaware that Montini had intervened the year previous.

While Greene had interesting relationships with each of the Pope’s from Pius XII to John Paul II (John Paul II being the only one he extremely disliked), Greene felt closest to Paul VI.

In a 1965 letter to his daughter Lucy (who actually has a ranch somewhere here in Alberta…), Greene excitedly describes a recent audience with the Pope.

At the beginning of the week I went up to Rome because the Pope had sent me a message saying that he would like to see me.

The Pope talked to me for twenty minutes about why he liked my novels! He had read The Power & the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, Brighton Rock,& Stamboul Train. He gave me a rosary and a nice little case for Vivien…

In ways of Escape, Greene provides a few more details from this meeting:

When I met Pope Paul VI, he mentioned that he had read the book [The Power and the Glory]. I told him that it had been condemned by the Holy Office.

‘Who condemned it?’  [Paul VI inquires]

‘Cardinal Pissardo.’

He [Paul VI] repeated the name with a wry smile and added, ‘Mr Greene, some parts of your books are certain to offend some Catholics, but you should pay no attention to that.

Years later, when aspects of the Church really did come under Greene’s fire, he could still look back without bitterness to this whole Holy Office censorial investigation ordeal.

I wonder whether any of the totalitarian states, whether of the right or the left, with which the Church of Rome is so often compared, would have treated me as gently when I refused to revise the book on the casuistical ground that the copyright was in the hands of my publishers. There was no public condemnation and the whole affair was allowed to drop into the peaceful oblivion which the Church wisely reserves for unimportant issues…

K.

We’ve spoken of Graham Greene’s A Burnt-Out Case before. (Rather, as no one chose to comment on my recommended reading for the summer, I have spoken of A Burnt-Out Case before).

To summarize as I did before:

The central character of ‘A Burnt-Out Case’ is Querry, rather, the Querry, a world famous architech, who has lost the ability to see meaning in his work, or experience pleasure in his life. Querry, a burnt-out case, arrives anonymously at a Leper colony in the Congo where Doctor Colin, an atheist physician administers medical care, and a cast of priests and religious brothers oversee all else.

Few few people read Querry rightly. Many believe he is a man of deep faith, even though he goes to great lengths to demonstrate his indifference. In a discussion with the Superior of the Leper Colony, Querry mentions that he does not like to look into his past life, to which the Superior notes that "remorse is a kind of belief."

Querry responds:

Oh no, it isn’t. You try to draw everything into the net of your faith, father, but you can’t steal all the virtues. Gentleness isn’t Christian, self-sacrifice isn’t Christian, charity isn’t, remorse isn’t. I expect the caveman wept to see another’s tears. Haven’t you even seen a dog weep? In the last cooling of the world, when the emptiness of your belief is finally exposed, there’ll always be some bemused fool who’ll cover another’s body with his own to give it warmth for an hour more of life.

The Superior’s response comes in the form of a homily at the next Sunday Mass, and Querry is fortunate enough to hear it, as he and Dr. Colin sit on the steps of the hospital right across from the unenclosed Church. Nuns and lepers make up the majority of the audience.

Querry and Dr. Colin have the Superior’s voice reach them as they hear

And I tell you the truth I was ashamed when this man he said to me, "You Klistians are all big thieves—you steal this, you steal that, you steal all the time. Oh, I know you don’t steal money. You don’t creep into Thomas Olo’s hut and take his new radio-set, but you are thieves all the same. Worse thieves than that. You see a man who lives with one wife and doesn’t beat her and looks after her when she gets a pain from medicines at the hospital, and you say that’s Klistian love. You go to the courthouse and you hear a good judge, who can say to the piccin that stole sugar from the white man’s cupboard, ‘You’re a very sorry piccin. I not punish you, and you will not come her again. No more sugar palaver,’ and you say that’s Klistian mercy. But you are a mighty big thief when you say that—for you steal this man’s love and that man’s mercy. Why do you not say when you see a man with a knife in his back bleeding and dying, ‘There’s Klistian anger?’ Why not say when Henry Okapa got a new bicycle and someone came and tore his break, ‘There’s Klistian envy.’ You are like a man who steals only the good fruit and leaves the bad fruit rotting on the tree."

All right. You tell me I’m number one thief, but I say you make a big mistake. Any man may defend himself before his judge. All of you in this church, you are my judge now and this is my defence.

You pray to Yezu. But Yezu is not just a holy man. Yezu is God and Yezu made the world. When you make a song you are in the song, when you bake bread you are in the bread, when you make a baby you are in the baby, and because Yezu made you, he is in you. When you love it is Yezu who loves, when you are merciful it is Yezu who is merciful. But when you hate or envy it is not Yezu, for everything Yezu made is good. Bad things are not there—they are nothing. Hate means no love. Envy means no justice.They are just empty spaces, where Yezu ought to be.

Now I tell you that when a man loves, he must be a Klistian. When a man is merciful he must be a Klistian. In this village do you think you are the only Klistians—you who come to church? There is a doctor who lives near the well beyond Marie Akimbu’s house and he prays to Nzambe and he makes bad medicine. He worships a false God, but once when a piccin was ill and his father and mother were in the hospital he took no money; he gave a bad medicine but he took no money: he made a big God palaver with Nzambe but took no money. I tell you then he was a Klistian, a better Klistian than the man that broke Henry Okapa’s bicycle. He not believe in Yezu, but he a Klistian. I am not a thief, who steal away charity and give it to Yezu. I give back to Yezu only what Yezu has made. Yezu made love, he made mercy. Everybody in the world has something that Yezu made. Everybody in the world is that much a Klistian. So how can I be a thief? There is no man so wicked never once in his life show in his heart something that God made.

I do not tell you to do good things for the love of God. That is very hard. Too hard for most of us. It is much easier to show mercy because a child weeps or to love because a girl or a young man pleases your eye. That’s not wrong, that’s good. Only remember that the love you feel and the mercy you show were made in you by God.You must go on using them and perhaps if you pray Klistian prayers it makes it easier for you to show mercy a second time, and a third time…

Greene’s novels produce some excellent sermons, but I wonder how this particular message sits with this audience. Are you comfortable saying that when a person loves that is Jesus loving, because Jesus created love? Similarly by loving, or by showing mercy, or by demonstrating any other virtuous trait, does someone become a Christian? Even if they worship another God? To the Superior, the medicine man who shows mercy (and who worships a ‘false God,’ according to the Superior) is a far better Christian, than the Christian who breaks Henry Okapa’s bicycle. Your thoughts?

K.

Perhaps related to our recent discussions on human salvation, I may have received a ‘Guest Article’ for this blog, which, as its content, may have read, ‘Chantal Kreviasuk can go to hell,’ but if I did, I probably wouldn’t have posted it, partly because it’s mean-spirited, but particularly because I am not sure how many readers would have any idea who this particularly envious Winnipeg artist is. So instead, I will put forward some reading recommendations for the summer, and in light of the fact that reading tastes differ, I have chosen a variety of plot lines, though I have limited myself to the genre of fiction, and I have made good authorship a prerequisite to those books I will now recommend. Here goes:

1. The Power and the Glory (1940), by Graham Greene

In a southern state of Mexico, an anti-clerical purge (rather regular during the 1920’s and 30’s in Mexico) has the last priest on the run. He is heading towards the northern border, across which his Bishop has already journeyed, as have those priests who have escaped with their lives. However, this last priest is a ‘whisky priest’ and is in many ways morally inferior to the general literary depiction of priests during the first half of the 20th century. While the Church originally considered censuring the book, they did wisely retreat, for the book is itself a powerful testament to the sacraments of the Church, and suggests that the graces attached to such gifts are not, and cannot be, outweighed by the particular frailties and sinfulness of those who administer them.

Though fictional, the characters in this story have taken on lives of their own. The following letter was written to the genius author Greene in 1960, by a teacher in San Lorenzo, California:

One day I gave ‘The Power and the Glory’ to an even more specialized reader—a native of Mexico who had lived through the worst persecutions. She was so moved by your story that she volunteered to come into my classes with souvenirs of the period—photographs, communist propaganda, etc., to fill in the background of the story. She confessed that your descriptions were so vivid, your priest so real, that she found herself praying for him at Mass. I understand how she felt. Last year, on a trip to Mexico, I found myself peering into mud huts, through village streets, and across impassable mountain ranges, half believing that I would glimpse a dim figure stumbling in the rain on his way to the border. There is no greater tribute possible to your creation of this character—he lives.

2. A Burnt-Out Case (1960), by Graham Greene

The central character of ‘A Burnt-Out Case’ is Querry, rather, the Querry, a world famous architech, who has lost the ability to see meaning in his work, or experience pleasure in his life. Querry, a burnt-out case, arrives anonymously at a Leper colony in the Congo where Doctor Colin, an atheist physician administers medical care, and a cast of priests and religious brothers oversee all else.

3. The Heart of the Matter (1948), by Graham Greene

‘The Heart of the Matter,’ centers itself around the moral change in the character of Scobie, a colonial police officer in a West African town during World War II. I would recommend it, but am not sure what else to say, except to say that true to the genius Greene’s form, issues of faith and love are dealt with such complexity, that in matters of both, as Scobie find development, those who witness Scobie may instead see a behaviour that has degenerated.

4. The Honorary Consul (1973), by Graham Greene

‘The Honorary Consul,’ was one of the genius Greene’s favourites, and in fact, I find it a particularly good read when placed beside certain other books (about dreams or journeys of coming of age, for example) that are of questionable literary merit, but are still paraded around as the genius Greene’s books are.

The Honorary Consul is Charley Fortun, a divorced (though he quickly gets remarried, this time to his favourite prostitute from the nearby brother), self-pitying alcoholic, who misuses his figure-head position for his own gain, and is kidnapped as a result of his being mistaken for the ambassador.

The story is set in an unnamed town near the border of Paraguay, in northern Argentina, and features a very interesting crew of kidnappers, most particularly its leader, the rebel priest Father Leon Rivas.

5. Travels with my Aunt (1969), by Graham Greene

‘Travels with my Aunt,’ has the most peculiar cast of characters, even by the genius Greene’s standards. There is the 86 year old Aunt Augusta, who travels with her black lover Wordsworth (who calls her his ‘lil bebe gel);Curran, the founder of a Church for canines; O’Toole, a CIA agent obsessed with statistics (particularly those that monitor the length of time it takes to urinate); his hippie daugther Tooley; Mr. Visconti, who has been wanted by Interpol for twenty years; and the central character, Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager, who unexpectedly get caught up with each.

For those emotionally disappointed by the typical Greene ending (as I am almost every time), ‘Travels with my Aunt,’  is a relatively more pleasant experience, though the trade off is that the characters, however interesting, do not force us to invest something in them, as do characters like the whisky priest, Father Rivas, and especially Querry.

Plenty more could be said about each novel, and perhaps more will be in the comment section. Until then, I think this will suffice.

K.