Posted on 05/13/2012 10:36:40 PM PDT by Steelfish
Hilary Mantel: Catholic Church Is Not For Respectable People The Catholic Church “is not an institution for respectable people”, according to Hilary Mantel, the Booker Prize-winning author.
Hilary Mantel, the Booker Prize-winning author Photo: Martin Pope By Anita Singh 13 May 2012
Mantel was raised a Roman Catholic and educated at convent school. However, the 59-year-old writer said child abuse scandals involving Roman Catholic priests demonstrated the “cruelty” and “hypocrisy” of the church.
Asked if she would call for a priest on her deathbed, Mantel replied: “No. I might very well call for a Church of England vicar, but I would not call for a Catholic priest.
“I’m one of nature’s Protestants. I should never have been brought up as a Catholic. I think that nowadays the Catholic Church is not an institution for respectable people.”
She said of the paedophilia scandals: “The fact that it could happen, the extent of the denial, the cover-up, the hypocrisy, the cruelty... When I was a child I wondered why priests and nuns were not nicer people. I thought that they were amongst the worst people I knew.
“But in a cold-blooded way, as a writer I’ve had full value from Catholicism - I can say that.
“It’s a great training in doubleness - this looks like bread but it is actually a man’s body, this looks like wine but it’s actually blood. And that’s very much a writer’s way of thinking - she comes in and says good morning, but she means damn you to hell.”
Mantel’s latest historical novel, Bring Up The Bodies, is published this month. It is a sequel to Wolf Hall, an account of the early life of Thomas Cromwell which won the Man Booker Prize in 2009.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
GUILTY
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that a Piscataway Princess had trouble with this book. OK it was kinda psychotic in that you never really know who is talking or narrating about what or whom.
Try it again, but use firewater bought from an unscrupulous Indian Agent before each chapter. Her anti-Catholic diatribe notwithstanding, she was really nice to Cardinal Wolsey in the book.
OK, I loved this book, OK?
The best dental care that socialized medicine can provide.
Unlike Pocahantas Warren, I thoroughly checked my ancestry and have found out that I’m pure Lanipe - my family was dredged out of the mud in nearby Manalapan, New Jersey. So please stop refering to me as one of those tacky Piscataways!
Now, on to our literary history with “Wolf Hall.” The fact that there are only pronouns used to define characters defeated me by the 3rd chapter. Why I ever consented to buy this book is beyond me. But then I fell for Pat Barker’s prize-winning trilogy on WWI, too. But they look very nice on my bookshelves - it gives the impression I’m intelligent.
Now about the book. It does require a modicum of ethanol energy to get with the weird use of indefinitely connected pronouns. But that's very hip nowadays, such as reading a news story of a shooting in which one is hard pressed to discover who got shot, who shot, where, when, why, or how.
Never heard of Hilary Mantel before this. I will say, (as a swag-seeking Passamaquoddy Sachem) she ain't no Phillipa Gregory (nor Scarlett Johansen, neither)
We Lanipes spell our names in different ways - and it’s not for outsiders to correct our grammar, thank you. Several bloody wars were fought in the 16th century to settle the spelling of my tribe’s name. 7 out of 11 came to the conclusion that it should be “Lanipe.” Those brave 7/11s went on to build the first grocery store in New Jersey. The whining Lenapes went on to found the first “Wa-Wa.”
Are you suggesting the orthodontally-challenged Ms. Mantel is a Native-American? Fie!
Well nuts! I just down loaded her latest book on my iPad after getting the first as a gift...
I hate helping these lib jerks...
Excellent post. Thanks.
The Catholic Church is for sinners, the poor, the lost, the downtrodden and all those who are not “respectable.”
But you have to be smart to be a Catholic. Even some Catholic FReepers say so.
It is the English who invented the TOOTHbrush. Had it been invented anywhere else it would be a TEETHbrush.
Wobbly chompers aside, I did not mean to imply that young Hilary the Writer was one of us. It's just that after reading her book, my pronouns don't exactly seem to want to go with anyone, anything, or anytime in particular.
And, Lanipe it is. I am withdrawing all my milk and egg business from those WaWa savages immediately.
The Catholic Church is blessed by it’s enemies. Exposing the hidden sexual abuse has lessened it’s power to operate within the church. Evil flourishes in secret and fortunately for children of the church, it is no longer flourishing in the church.
The secularists who expose and condemn the church, hide the sexual molestation in their own institutions in order to stand on that high moral ground over the church. And so their own abuse is flourishing in secret and will eventually bring down their own institutions.
I agree to some extent. Exposing sexual abuse, removing the predators, and changing policies to make it clear that perverts will not be protected are all good things. The down side is pretending that it's pervasive in the Church.
If it makes the church stand up stronger against evil in all it’s suggestions and actions, that can only be good from God’s point of view. People who say the church is purely evil, would say that even if the church was perfection. This has always been the case. They named Jesus evil when he was perfection.
While secularists led by homo activists needle and condemn the church, sexual grooming and molestation is flouring in their atheist temples of public education. At some point, Christians will go after that hidden evil.
Her fictionalized books about Cromwell had positive reviews, and if that’s your thing, you oughta read them (not mine.) However, her accidental arrival at the hard truth about the Catholic Church (because, yes indeed, it is not for the respectable!) only illustrates what one writer said recently in an interview I’ve read: “As a rule, the artist is stupider than his work.”
AMEN!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.