Catholics

Catholics by Brian Moore, 107 pages

In the near future, the Fourth Vatican Council has declared the Mass to be merely symbolic and abolished personal confession.  In this atmosphere, a monastery off the coast of Ireland where the Mass is still said in Latin and private confession still practiced - for pastoral reasons - becomes a center of pilgrimage and media attention.  To forestall an ecumenical disaster that threatens to derail talks with the Buddhists, the Vatican dispatches a liberal American priest to squelch dissent at the monastery.  Father Kinsella must confront a cadre of true believers among the monks, as well as deal with the abbot, a man tormented by his own doubts and torn between personal judgement and the authority to which he has sworn obedience.

Catholics is a novella loaded with thick, gooey ambiguity, which is entirely appropriate given its time and theme.  First published in 1972, a mere seven years after the end of the Second Vatican Council, the novel asks what many Catholics and non-Catholics are still asking - whether the painful changes called for by the Council marked the beginning of a renewal of the Church, or the beginning of an end in which the Gates of Hell prevail at last.