Kelly’s Cross, Prince Edward Island, Canada 25.7.1983: Surly Students, Yawing Tombstones

Another (just another?) day marred by a scene in class today. To a question (so long with me, and still not see?) about the “devil” and then about Jesus’s references to the devil, I attempted to explicate the temptation narratives. At which point, a woman in the class who is headstrong and thoughtless put her head down and pounded the table. Was very upset—presumably at the notion that a literalist reading of the Bible does not necessarily lead us where we need to go.

I’m of several minds about what to do with the scene. Guess I must just play it by ear.

The sunset is beautiful. I sit in a chair looking out a western-facing window. The sun sets behind a ridge topped by spruce; in fact, the entire little dale between the house (which is on a hill) and the ridge is scattered with spruce. At points they’re so thick that one can’t breach them. In the foreground is an old (the original?) parish graveyard, with stones yawing in all directions. A meadowlark (or lark of some sort) gives its descending call as the sun slowly sinks behind the hill, leaving the clouds aglow.

The past two evenings, I’ve sat out in a chair under the trees till dusk. A healing experience.

Kelly’s Cross, Prince Edward Island, Canada 12.7.1983: Gloomy Skies, Low Spirits

Rather pallid of spirit this evening. Partly just mid-week fatigue, when fancy’s airy castle dissolves before one’s eyes. (And what an astonishingly silly thing to write.) Actually, I know I’m hovering on the verge of a pit of melancholy, and could let myself slide into it if I wished, but I don’t dare indulge myself. Melancholy of the self-indulgent sort can be a balm to the spirit: a shifting of the burden of personal existence to Fata.

I suppose I’m at that point when I’ve settled in here, my course is underway and going well, I have resumed dissertation work—and I’m simply experiencing the humdrum of a too-ordered existence. Not to mention the fact that I’m pushing myself with the dissertation. And that the skies are gloomy these three days. And that, push as I will, I still accomplish little. And that my landlord, Fr. K.: well, the best said about him, the better.

And what, after all, is love?

Kelly’s Cross, Prince Edward Island, Canada 10.7.1983: Hay Making and Spruce Shade

These past few days busy. Friday, one thing after another. Went early in the day to see if any mail for me was in the mail room. No; none. Later, recalled that I was promised the check for travel expenses by Friday. Phoned to ask about it, was told it had been sent to the mail room. Went to mail room, the mail room manager, who had told me earlier that there was no mail, looked in the box, and sure enough, there was a letter for me—but not the check. He called the business office, they told him it had been sent c/o religious studies, and we finally found it in the extension box.

This seems typical of how things work in PEI. The letter in the box was a second library card; I had been asked three times at circulation desk for my name, etc., for the card. Friday also discovered that the library had not put a two-volume work I wanted on reserve for student reading—only volume two.

After all that, a seven-mile walk restored my soul—through hilly land, all pasture, potato fields, and buckwheat with its pleasant-unpleasant odor that is just this side of rank in the nostrils. A flock of sheep pasturing were, typically stupid, all clumped along the fence. A herd of cattle ran madly to meet me, heads cocked expectantly. As it was evening, I’m sure the one who was leading all the rest mistook me for her feeder. She mooed in puzzled inquiry as I passed.

I also flushed what I took to be a quail—a bird really like a miniature turkey, with black and white fan tail, and brown body. It appeared to be a bird that struts as much as flies. But I have a nagging recollection that quails don’t have fan tails. Must have been a partridge?

A rabbit also came into the road about ten yards ahead of me. Was fat, and seemed quite tame. It stopped, pulled itself more or less erect, and waited. I stood still. After a minute or so, it hopped on, and I dared to try to move closer. That didn’t startle it, curiously. I was upwind, so perhaps that explains its lack of timidity.

The great benison of the walk was a stretch running between spruce on either side, with fern and bracken in the verges. This was cool and pleasant-scented, and, because spruce doesn’t branch horizontally to a great extent, left the blue sky open.

I also enjoyed seeing the hay-making. Farm machinery here is all old and small—no need for gargantuan machines in these small fields. I passed an old haymaker on his little tractor pulling a wain full, and passed the time of day with him. The tractor broke down just at that time, so I jestingly said, “Better find some binder twine to tie it up”—then saw that part of the tractor was tied together in just that fashion.

Saturday best left unrecorded—gray, gloomy, lonely, and filled with interminable chores.

Today, an eleven-mile walk which began nice and ended miserable. I began by walking through a dirt road, wooded along the road, but fields on the side. This emerged into a paved section and on a hill overlooking the sea to the south (or is sea the correct term? strait?). Was very beautiful; even with the slatey skies, the water seemed to glow with more light than the sky could give. In the distance I could see the land across the water—Nova Scotia? To the left, right on the hillside, looking out the six miles or so to the sea, was a lovely house—the front all covered porch facing the water. The owners have sensibly screened the house from view with a hedge that included mock orange. In a way, the house looked very Southern, with its porch and what appeared to be a large central hall.

Kelly’s Cross, Prince Edward Island, Canada 5.7.1983: Clericalism and Insularity

Heard more s—t today about Gregory B. Since I’ve been here, I’ve have not heard a single good remark about him. All remarks, all from clerics, are of that entre nous variety of club chat which completely dismisses the person from consideration.

First remark: Fr. M. tells me that he once met some European clerics who told him a term (forgotten by M.) used in Europe for a Jew who “infiltrates” the church to wreak havoc from within. I pointed out that this remark, opprobrious enough on its own terms, is also anti-Semitic. Fr. M. didn’t seem to hear.

Second remark: a cleric-sociologist said that, when B. was a peritus at Vatican II, Cardinal McGuigan of blessed PEI memory once, at an intimate gathering, leaned back and said, “I give him about five years.” The sociologist-cleric seemed to revel in the fact that B. “left” the priesthood shortly after five years. I pointed out that B. was asked to leave, was driven out by Machiavellian measures that gave him no other choice. Didn’t seem to matter.

I’ve heard other remarks, but can’t recall them at the moment.

Weather intensely warm for these two busy days, and very hazy-humid, so must turn in early.

Class began. Predominantly Catholic, worried about some new “Family Life” program for the schools. The school system used to be, I understand, nominally public, but actually church-oriented. Consolidation has occurred in the past five years, and Catholics appear to fight it, of course—“our schools” don’t belong to us anymore. So the introduction of family life courses only exacerbates the situation, because “we” are sure “they” want to use this as a forum for Godless secularism.

Was told by some students that, a few years ago, the Roman Catholic and public hospitals in Charlottetown amalgamated. Prior to that time, the public hospital performed abortions and had a board to supervise this; the R.C. hospital didn’t. when amalgamation occurred, the Right to Life bunch created a hullabaloo, got anyone on their side to join the hospital board by paying $1.00, and now attend every hospital board meting to vote the “abortion board” down. Consequently, no abortions performed now.

I’m angry, as all this shows—am fed up with smug complacency; with a mask of piety concealing an interior of deceit, spite, authoritarianism; with the way priests here manipulate ignorance and gullibility and have nothing at all for those seeking learning.

Kelly’s Cross, Prince Edward Island, Canada 4.7.1983: Insularity and Nostalgia

Spent the day at the university preparing for the course. Fr. M. is a very amiable fellow, and gives one the impression of being naturally forthright and plain-dealing (in marked contrast to Fr. K.).

Theologically he is, as with almost everyone I’ve talked to here at this level, rather intransigent. PEI Catholicism partakes of the parochial nature of island life in general—small world, perceiving itself threatened by large world, and powerless to do anything but draw inside its boundaries.

They all hanker for the Faith that was: when life was rural and defined by that fact; when Catholics were Catholics; when you knew you ought to marry and have a large family; and on and on. It never seems to occur to them that a religion that can only hanker for this lost world is a religion that must be marginalized in the future of Island society.

And rightly so: it served its purpose. And now it positively seems to cultivate mental sickness . . . . I know about the halt and the blind, and I don’t deny that the sick have a special role. But is Christianity or Catholicism a creature that battens on sickness like a parasite? Is our only answer to modern secular existence this withdrawal into fearful, inbred, sick little worlds?

Another thing: the two priests I’ve talked to here both know this and that high muckety-muck in church politics and live as if that world is the world. One tells me that a high official in the Vatican from French Canada tells him that Rahner publicly professes that all he has written is wrong! Exegesis of Vatican official: Rahner can be ignored. What blindness.

Kelly’s Cross, Prince Edward Island, Canada 2.7.1983: Mustard Pickle and Haunted Houses

I arrived Wednesday evening to find the house locked. Since there was confusion between Fr. Kelly and me over my arrival date, he was not expecting me, so I walked across the churchyard to the house of a neighbor.

As I approached, I could hear the sound of a fiddle. An elderly, but spry, lady came to the door. One could see that she hesitated between an innate hospitality and a fear of strangers—a natural enough fear, in a small island community overwhelmed by tourists.

She invited me in, and turned out to be a Mrs. Kelly, 85 or 86 years old. Her husband, Joe Kelly, 92, was the fiddler. After a bit of conversation, she fed me a tea of homemade bread (white, but with a chewy, tough crust, as I’ve found much of the bread here so far to be), canned pressed ham, some preserved mustard pickle and strawberry jam, and homemade cookies. Since I had eaten only an egg and toast in Moncton, NB, that morning, this stood me in good stead.

As we realized that Fr. Kelly might be late (he was at a Charlottetown wake), I asked if we might try the key they had mentioned to me. We did, it worked, so I went into the house.

It’s a large old country rectory—I would imagine late 19th-century. It sits facing south, where one may see a tuck of seacoast, if one climbs the hill north of and behind the house.

It’s a huge old place—gloomy, with many windows covered by shades, and staircases and doors appearing, it seems, at every turn. Mrs. Kelly had alluded to some tragic murder of a priest. I discovered yesterday that a Fr. Roche was murdered here two years back, by three men (two teenagers and a young man, actually) who broke in at night. I gather that the murder was gruesome. I don’t want to know the details because, frankly, I’m jumpy and nervous in the house—spent a sleepless night after hearing of the murder, in fact, with dreadful visions going through my mind.

I hope to God—and pray devoutly—that these fears will be allayed. Most of all, I fear that I’ll be alone here some night, but must cross that bridge when I come to it.