This article needs additional citations for verification .(February 2016) |
Author | Brian Moore |
---|---|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Publisher |
|
Publication date | 1972 |
Pages | 102 |
ISBN | 0-224-00767-X |
OCLC | 610037 |
Preceded by | The Revolution Script (1971) |
Followed by | The Great Victorian Collection (1975) |
Catholics is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore. It was first published in 1972, [1] and was republished in 2006 by Loyola Press with an introduction by Robert Ellsberg and a series of study questions.
Most of the action of the novel takes place on an island monastery off the southwest coast of Ireland. It is set in the future, near the end of the twentieth century after the Second Vatican Council. The story tells of a young priest sent by the authorities in Rome to fully implement Church reforms in an Irish monastery that still celebrates the Catholic liturgy according to older rites. The young priest, James Kinsella, is initially opposed by the Abbot of the monastery, who tries to preserve his and his monks' way of life. However, the Abbot eventually recognizes the need for—and inevitability of—change. The novel comes to a head when a confrontation between the Abbot and a senior monk, Matthew, nearly undermines the structure of the monastery. The Abbot is plagued by his own doubts in matters of faith. The novel ends on an ambiguous note as the Abbot prays for the first time in years, but in the face of the abandonment of their traditional way of life.
Critic Jo O'Donoghue describes Catholics as "in some ways a paradoxical novel". Like Moore, Kinsella is "a sceptic who respects the beliefs of others but also ... a traditionalist in his attitude to the aesthetic and mystery of belief ...[which] will all be lost under the new dispensation". Catholics, says O'Donoghue, "seems to envisage the ordinary Catholic, lay or clerical, merely exchanging a conservative hegemony for a liberal one. Both, ultimately, are equally tyrannical... In this novel, there is lacking that positive sense of the individual bearing witness to his faith... which emerges so strongly from Cold Heaven, from Black Robe and from The Colour of Blood". [1]
Moore also wrote the screenplay for the 1973 television film version, which stars Trevor Howard, Martin Sheen, and Cyril Cusack.
Moore adapted his novel for the stage. The play premiered in Seattle at the ACT Theatre in May 1980. [2] The University of Washington has a copy of the playscript. Gregory A. Falls directed [3] a cast that included David Frederick White (as "Tomas O'Mallery"), Tony Amendola (as "Brother Kevin"), and John Aylward (as "Father Walter").
The book has drawn criticism within Catholic circles for making the claim that it is possible for Catholic dogma to change, by portraying a fictional "Fourth Vatican Council" that has reversed the Catholic dogma of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This, being in conflict with the dogma of infallibility, has caused the book to be unofficially considered heretical.
In addition to this, several phrases within the book (and the later film) have been claimed to be comparable to rhetoric typical of a Sedevecantist sect, that is in schism with the Catholic Church.
Traditionalist Catholicism is a movement that emphasizes beliefs, practices, customs, traditions, liturgical forms, devotions and presentations of teaching associated with the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Traditionalist Catholics particularly emphasize the Tridentine Mass, the Roman Rite liturgy largely replaced in general use by the post-Second Vatican Council Mass of Paul VI.
Brendan of Clonfert is one of the early Irish monastic saints and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. He is also referred to as Brendan the Navigator, Brendan the Voyager, Brendan the Anchorite, and Brendan the Bold. The Irish translation of his name is Naomh Bréanainn or Naomh Breandán. He is mainly known for his legendary voyage to find the “Isle of the Blessed” which is sometimes referred to as “Saint Brendan’s Island”. The written narrative of his journey comes from the immram The Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis.
Brian Moore, was a novelist and screenwriter from Northern Ireland who emigrated to Canada and later lived in the United States. He was acclaimed for the descriptions in his novels of life in Northern Ireland during and after the Second World War, in particular his explorations of the inter-communal divisions of The Troubles, and has been described as "one of the few genuine masters of the contemporary novel". He was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1975 and the inaugural Sunday Express Book of the Year award in 1987, and he was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. Moore also wrote screenplays and several of his books were made into films.
The Catholic Church in Ireland or Irish Catholic Church, is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in communion with the Holy See. With 3.7 million members, it is the largest Christian church in Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland's 2016 census, 78% of the population identified as Catholic; this was 6% lower than the 2011 figure. By contrast, 41% of people in Northern Ireland identified as Catholic at the 2011 census; it is expected that this proportion will increase in the coming years. The Archbishop of Armagh, as the Primate of All Ireland, has ceremonial precedence in the church. The church is administered on an all-Ireland basis. The Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference is a consultative body for ordinaries in Ireland.
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Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope when he speaks ex cathedra is preserved from the possibility of error on doctrine "initially given to the apostolic Church and handed down in Scripture and tradition". It does not mean that the pope cannot sin or otherwise err in some capacity, though he is prevented by the assistance of the Holy Spirit from issuing heretical teaching even in his non-infallible Magisterium, as a corollary of indefectibility. This doctrine, defined dogmatically at the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870 in the document Pastor aeternus, is claimed to have existed in medieval theology and to have been the majority opinion at the time of the Counter-Reformation.
The Catholic Church has been criticised in fiction, such as literature, film and television. Polemics have also been written on the Church and its practices. Some examples are the anti-Catholic stereotypes that filled Gothic fiction of Anglican England, the films of Luis Buñuel who took issue with the Church in Spain, the humor of some US television pundits like Rosie O'Donnell, and the rhetoric of some fundamentalist preachers.
Illtyd Trethowan, born Kenneth Trethowan, was an English Benedictine monk, Roman Catholic priest, philosopher, theologian, and author.
The Emperor of Ice-Cream is a 1965 coming-of-age novel by writer Brian Moore. Set in Belfast during the Second World War, it tells the story of 17-year-old Gavin Burke who, admitting "war was freedom, freedom from futures", defies his nationalist and Catholic family by volunteering as an air raid warden with the largely Protestant ARP. The novel follows Gavin's journey as he realises that there are those on the other side of the city's bitter communal division whose friendships offer a wider horizon.
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