ncrabb's review
4.0
This is the 17th book in the Father Dowling Series. As usual, I’m dipping in and out of the series, dancing around in it as if it didn’t matter. The thing is, I’ve read so many of these over the years that the suburban-Chicago priest is someone for whom I’ve gained a great deal of respect, so it’s ok for me to enter his life and world at odd times.
The good Father has just opened his mail as we open the book. Inside an envelope is a pair of highly valuable tickets to the Notre Dame USC game, and Father Dowling is a major Notre Dame fan. But in the moments when he is reveling in his good fortune, a man enters and announces without preamble that he absolutely will get his marriage annulled.
Things get worse from here. The suburban Illinois priest had once served on the church’s annulment bureau. Service on that bureau created so much stress for Dowling that he resorted to strong drink and nearly lost his career. His departure from the annulment bureau paved the way for his rehabilitation and reassignment to the Illinois parish. And now, here stands I the early pages of this book, someone from another parish who wants Father Dowling to help with the annulment. Ah, and those Notre Dame tickets? They’re free—well, not exactly. Father Dowling has to attend a secretive conference at which will preside a high-ranking official from Vatican City who will discuss the permissiveness of the American church regarding annulments.
Things get worse when the guy who wanted the annulment is murdered, and then a priest who apparently grants such annulments easily dies as well.
This is not among the strongest of the Dowling books. As an outsider looking in, I got the impression that the author is trying to portray the Catholic church as an organization creaking on its ancient foundations struggling for a sense of identity and relevance. The author addresses not only the idea of easy annulments but the child sex abuse stuff under which the church has labored in recent decades. It’s almost a clinical examination of the church’s woes as seen through the eyes of well-developed characters. This author’s ability to make you feel sympathy for even the bad guys to some extent is thought provoking indeed. I was surprised and disturbed by the resolution of this book. It’s still worthy of recommendation here, but it won’t have quite the same memorable effect on me as some of the other books in this series have.
The good Father has just opened his mail as we open the book. Inside an envelope is a pair of highly valuable tickets to the Notre Dame USC game, and Father Dowling is a major Notre Dame fan. But in the moments when he is reveling in his good fortune, a man enters and announces without preamble that he absolutely will get his marriage annulled.
Things get worse from here. The suburban Illinois priest had once served on the church’s annulment bureau. Service on that bureau created so much stress for Dowling that he resorted to strong drink and nearly lost his career. His departure from the annulment bureau paved the way for his rehabilitation and reassignment to the Illinois parish. And now, here stands I the early pages of this book, someone from another parish who wants Father Dowling to help with the annulment. Ah, and those Notre Dame tickets? They’re free—well, not exactly. Father Dowling has to attend a secretive conference at which will preside a high-ranking official from Vatican City who will discuss the permissiveness of the American church regarding annulments.
Things get worse when the guy who wanted the annulment is murdered, and then a priest who apparently grants such annulments easily dies as well.
This is not among the strongest of the Dowling books. As an outsider looking in, I got the impression that the author is trying to portray the Catholic church as an organization creaking on its ancient foundations struggling for a sense of identity and relevance. The author addresses not only the idea of easy annulments but the child sex abuse stuff under which the church has labored in recent decades. It’s almost a clinical examination of the church’s woes as seen through the eyes of well-developed characters. This author’s ability to make you feel sympathy for even the bad guys to some extent is thought provoking indeed. I was surprised and disturbed by the resolution of this book. It’s still worthy of recommendation here, but it won’t have quite the same memorable effect on me as some of the other books in this series have.
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