I'm re-reading one of my favorite novels, The Masterful Monk by Owen Francis Dudley, a Catholic priest who converted from Anglicanism. He wrote a series of connected novels about human happiness. I've read them all. The Masterful Monk is the third in the series which is recommended in Fr. John Hardon's Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan.
The book is a sort of Beauty and the Beast story although the beast, Julian Verrers, really is a monster with a diabolical hatred of the Catholic faith. He lusts for the heroine whose nickname is Beauty and works to seduce her. Dudley uses Verres as the mouthpiece for liberalism, expressing the modern ideas of free love, materialism, birth control, euthanasia and assisted suicide, etc. The book was published in 1945. Margaret Sanger's ideas were at their height labeling the poor, blacks, Catholics, etc. "human weeds" and advocating for the elimination of sexual morality. Sanger practiced her licentious attitude in her own life taking lovers and living in an "open marriage." She often said she would do exactly what she pleased and she did. I wonder where she is now.
Dudley used the novel to expose the evil ideas raging through the culture of his time and to refute them. As an Englishman he would have been well aware of the establishment of the Voluntary Euthanasia Legalization Society in 1935 and of the Lambeth Conference of 1930 approving birth control for married couples in limited cases. I don't think Dudley, who died in 1952, would be at all surprised at today's abortion on demand and forced euthanasia. He saw exactly where moral corruption leads.
I thought about Dudley's villain this morning as I was re-reading a section of Archbishop Lefebvre's Open Letter to Confused Catholics. In the chapter on bad catechisms, he quotes some of the renegade priests preaching their novel ideas which oppose the faith. It immediately reminded me of the novel. As they say, truth is often stranger than fiction and the men Lefebvre quotes would make real "fictional" villains. I'll give just one example from the open letter:
In 1973, on the premises of the Archbishop's house at Paris, Fr. Bernard Feillet gave a course of lectures of a thoroughly official kind, under the banner of "Adult Christian Formation". In it he repeatedly affirmed, "Christ did not conquer death. He was put to death by death. On the level of life, Christ was conquered, and we shall all be conquered, the fact is that faith is not justified by anything; it must be a cry of protest against this universe which ends, as we said just now, in the perception of absurdity, in the consciousness of damnation, and in the reality of nothingness.
This attack on the faith goes on repeatedly today in the new synodal church. The difference from Dudley's book is that Lefebvre's examples are not fictional. Dudley was expressing modern ideas through his villain who gives a public lecture calling on the audience to destroy the Catholic Church, an enemy of "freedom." What he wrote as fiction happens regularly today in real time. Attacking the church was the same strategy that Bernard Nathanson and Lawrence Lader, two atheistic Jews, used to promote abortion. Make the Catholic Church the villain and count on anti-Catholic bigotry to win the day.
In the novel the appeal to absolute "freedom" (which is actually license to engage in corruption) thrills many who, like Margaret Sanger, want to do "exactly as I please" no matter the consequences.
In responding to the siren song of the villain which was greeted enthusiastically by his supporter, Brother Anselm, the masterful monk of the title. expresses Catholic truth. Interestingly, the long philosophical discussions, pro and con at the separate meetings in Queens Hall, do not hamper the novel's action. They offer a stark contrast that any Catholic could benefit from studying today because they are based on truth. The issues sound the warning now as they did in 1945, in fact even more so as the collapse of Western Civilization accelerates. God seems to be using the crisis to wake up the flock and sound the clarion call to battle.
The attack on the Catholic Church often succeeds as we've seen throughout history, but only for a time. God always wins and the Church always rises from what the enemy believes are her ashes. Our obligation in the crisis is to persevere, pray, love God above all, and never give into discouragement. Defeat is not an option even if we don't personally see the defeat of the enemy. Like the martyrs we know the King wins.
Jesus, Lord of the Universe, have mercy on us.
Our Lady of Victory, pray for us.
St. Michael the Archangel, lead us in the battle.
Guardian angels, stay by our sides and guide us.
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