Priests on the pyre

THERE is, undoubtedly, a case to be made for abolishing the celibacy rule for the Catholic clergy although it will need a calmer advocate than the priest who spread himself over the leader page of the Times last Saturday. The author of the article, according to the newspaper, wished to remain anonymous "for obvious reasons". After reading his outpourings I can thoroughly understand why.
No man—priest or professional entertainer — would care to be held responsible for his prose style. It was in too many instances Marie Cordi in a Roman collar. The priest, to be fair to him, was obviously conscious of the fact that his writing would probably be compared to Godfrey Winn contributing to Herder Correspondence because he attempted to disarm criticism by stating: "I care not if anyone who reads this calls it sentimental. mere sob stuff. 1 am this way. I cannot help it. If it is wrong, so is humanity."
But humanity surely has a right and a duty to protest against purple prose and overwriting, especially in the Times.
Here are a few gems from the finely-jewelled essay. (Father X's style is catching): "I will wither from within. I fear 1 will slowly grow cold, ice forming over a sullen lake: a life like an English autumn with its fitful moments of bright sunshine, occasional days that are dry, sunny and clear, a remembrance of a summer past. But all the time, the steady imperceptible increase of rain, cold and mist. With only a prospect of a winter of age.
And again : "Individuals must be sacrificed for the good of the Church, a part for the whole, a limb for the body. This sacrificial pyre has been burning steadily for many centuries now, and because priests are mere men. there alwaya has been, and always will be, fuel enough. But this 1 do know, that Christ never wanted this pyre, nor wishes it to burn."
What with autumnal discontents and flaming pyres life is obviously very, very cold inside. Marie Corelli would have been proud of his elegiac rodomontade. But what is really distressing about the whole business is the fact that Father X was making some extremely valid and poignant points about the sufferings entailed by the celibate life—and the injustice of putting young boys in seminaries.
Perhaps, of course, he deliberately descended to this bathetical, maudlin style to disguise his true identity. Perhaps he is a sensitive scholar and a supreme writer who drafted a piece for another journal and it was sent in error to The Times. And the poor priest cannot — as would have done almost as a reflex action — blame his wife for the appalling administrative slip. But when the pyres stop burning he will get his chance.