Customer Reviews

The Red Hat

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found the Red Hat to be a page turner about the alleged current struggle in the Catholic Church to define what Vatican II was really all about. The reason I say 'alleged' is that the average Catholic has no idea that the struggle is going on, what the issues are about, or who the players are. It's really a conflict that's being waged by intellectuals, pundits, and professionals. Still, the book is smart and a lot of fun. There's some over-the-top bad guys and many humorous observations that keep the story moving swiftly. On a serious note, there's some moving scenes of individuals trying to work out their personal conflicts with faith.

By the way, did I miss something in real life? When did Notre Dame become a bastion of orthodoxy? Or is this, as a previous reviewer has noted, just Ralph McInerny having some fanciful fun?

As someone who would never think of opening a copy of "America" or the National Catholic Reporter, I found this book oppresively dark. The portrait of the hierarchy -- barely Catholic, no trace of the Roman -- that the author starts with is just incredible. As a result, it's hard to take the plot -- which builds on these assumptions about the bishops -- seriously. Not to mention, the image Notre Dame as a haven of ultramontanism seemed just as fanciful in the other direction.

The book also had a bit too much going on. The politics of appointing an ambassador to the Vatican, the mental turmoils of a youngish priest, the machinations of an Archbishop, a conclave showdown between Martini and the Orthodox, numerous flashbacks, a past affair and its results, a plot to expose the archbishop, several 1960s liberals who seem thrown in for color, a new apparition by Our Lady, to name just a few. Too much.

Still, the book has a lot of color. Everything from doctrinal conflict to an allusion to Cardinal Bernardin's selling a Church school to condominium developers rather than Opus Dei (OK, maybe McInerny's view of the hierarchy has some basis in fact; but I still think the majority are not weak and worldly) that one wishes were more thoroughly developed.

A good read. But you can't help but feel a better book was trying to come out.

Ralph McInerny, Edward Sheehan and Michael O'Brien are the three best Catholic fiction writers working today. This is one of McInerny's best novels, comparable to his first, "The Priest," in that it's a stand-alone story rather than part of a series, like the Father Dowling Mysteries. Much more complex than that too, but with the same sly, almost deadpan humor throughout. He takes an extremely serious subject -- the election of an anti-pope and schism within the Catholic Church -- and makes us see the absurdity of the whole thing as well as the seriousness. Just a really great novel. (The digs at Father Greeley alone are worth the cover price!)

Yes, I do read things other than paranormal romance and urban fantasy :: Laughs at self:: I'm a huge fan of Ralph McInerny's fiction: I remember the short-lived TV series inspired by his Father Dowling mysteries, which got me interested in them when I was old enough to handle them. It's good to see a Catholic writer who is unafraid to look, square in the eye, some of the problems from within that the Church is facing in the 21st century, and he does just that without comprimising or waffling on authentic Catholic teaching. And some of those things include, but are not limited to: an American Archbishop whose amibition to be made Cardinal nearly derails his ability to really serve his flock, an accusation of a cleric fathering an illegitimate child, a dispute over a papal election that may have been shorted several votes due to a technicality (I couldn't help mentally referring to the cleric responsible for this dispute, as "Al Gore in a cassock" and I'm sure Mr. McInerny would have loved that reference!), a possible anti-pope... and a sweet September romance between an American ambassador to the Vatican and the widow of an Irish ambassador. McInerny's ortodoxy shines through on every page, but he is unafraid to write the thoughts -- errors, malice and all -- of the less than sympathetic characters, which is refreshing to see. I've read Catholic novels from the 1950s which seemed afraid to follow Francois Mauriac's directive on writing authentic religious fiction: "A literature of edification falsifies life: to depict man in all his misery is unmask the abyss opened, in the modern world, by God's absence."

I do have a bit of a carp about how he handles the references to homosexuality: though it's only in passing and it's usually a minor issue, he seems to regard the matter askance and tends to treat the persons involved as types and not as characters. Speaking as a practising Catholic who is also bisexually-oriented, I think he needs to quietly sit in on a few Courage support group meetings and learn what same-sex attracted people are really like. It's not enough to pull me out of the book or detract from it for me, but it was a bit of an irritant. Nowhere as irritating as, say, Dan Brown's horrible mangling of what authentic Catholicism is really like. It's more erring through ignorance rather than malice.