Greene a ‘Catholic agnostic’, landmark biography claims

The most acclaimed Catholic novelist of the 20th century refused either to go to confession or to receive Communion for at least 30 years. Christina Farrell reports on the findings of Norman Sherry GRAHAM GREENE is acclaimed as one of England’s greatest Catholic authors but revelations in a book published this month detail how his lifestyle was very much at odds with the teaching of the Church.
The third volume of Norman Sherry’s biography of Greene – The Life of Graham Greene, Volume Three: 1955-1991 – reveals that he was a serial adulterer who refused to go to confession or to take Communion for 30 years.
The man who defined hell on earth in novels such as Brighton Rock also gave up belief in hell, sin, angels and Satan.
Mr Sherry identifies Greene as a “Catholic agnostic” and details the final chapter of the author’s extraordinary life: his constant questioning of Catholicism, his dalliance with prostitutes and his death aged 86 years, in Switzerland with a priest at his bedside.
He portrays Greene as a voracious “sexual raider” who once listed the 47 prostitutes he had had sex with under various pseudonyms, such as Channel Islands girl, Bond St French and Girl Who Tried To Keep Me.
When one of his mistresses had a “pregnancy scare” he pretended to be pleased but secretly made a pact with God that he would go on retreat to Stonyhurst if the pregnancy did not materialise. There was no baby and he then puzzled over how to meet his obligations to God.
Greene was full of contradictions. He was deeply moved by the stigmatic Capuchin friar Padre Pio now St Pio – whom he met in Italy in 1950. Greene was convinced he had been in the presence of a living saint and in his 80s still carried a pic ture of St Pio in his wallet, although he had declined a private meeting with Padre Pio because of his ongoing affair with Catherine Walston – an affair he did not wish to give up.
Greene converted to Catholicism when he married his Catholic wife Vivien, who suffered the indignity of his repeated infidelities, notably his infamous affair with Catherine, the woman described by Mr Sherry as “the love of his life”.
Friends and colleagues have testified that although Greene was not a typical Catholic he “was Catholic” nevertheless.
In writing the book Norman Sherry was given exclusive access to the author’s letters, journals and his controversial dreamdiaries. Greene once recorded that he dreamed of committing “treason” with the Queen. But he too concludes that although Greene constantly questioned his faith, he never completely abandoned Catholicism.
He writes: “Old Graham Greene, unquestionably a Catholic, cannot live a pure Catholic life, and is deeply troubled. But he remains a Catholic, and though in his middle years he almost completely lost his sense of belief (and faith), with his spirits barometrically measured, swept up and down the scale: his vacillations must have terrified him. But by the time he came nearer to death he returned to his own personal sense of sin, especially of sexual sin.” Mr Sherry says the priest who ministered to Greene in the final years of his life, Fr Leopoldo Durán, was convinced that Graham had died a Catholic. Fr Durán reported that Greene prayed every day and with “great intensi ty” and that the constant purpose of his prayers was to ask God that he might “truly believe” and that his faith would be increased.
“My faith tells me he is now with God or on the way to Him,” the priest said.
“Graham was administered all the sacraments, including Extreme Unction and the Apostolic Benediction ... I do beseech you to be convinced that Graham Greene was a real Catholic believer.” Others were less convinced. The late Cardinal Basil Hume, Archbishop of Westminster, reportedly once said he would refuse to officiate at any memorial Mass for Greene because he did not consider him to be Catholic.
Graham Greene was born 100 years ago tomorrow.