If the only Jesuit you ever met was a character in a work of fiction in a library collection, what would this individual tell you about Jesuit life?
In this series, IgNation blogger Kevin Burns, who is not a Jesuit, takes a look at some of the works that come up in a large urban public library when he entered the search term "Jesuit" and filtered it through the genre of "Fiction". The novels that popped up include some familiar names and some not so familiar Jesuits.
This week: a Spanish Jesuit, code-breaking, astronomy-obsessed, archive-sleuthing priest, Father Hector.
On the copyright page the publisher warns: “This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously.” On the very next page, the author suggest something a little different: “This novel is based on real people and events. Only the narrator of the story and his two friends are fictitious.”
All we know from the start is that the novel is set in the present and Father Hector – the only name he’s given – has been ordained for two years and is teaching science in a run-down Jesuit-owned school in Castile. He has stumbled on an article about the Voynich Manuscript, housed in the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale, “an illustrated book that’s about five hundred years old. It is unique in that it is written in a language that has never been identified or deciphered.” He wants to find out more about its 170,000 characters seemingly organized into 35,000 words. This manuscript is in sections and is thought to addresses medicine “or at least medicinal plants; another about biology; a third about astronomy.” And the manuscript was in Jesuit hands for a very long time, that was until…
But back to young Father Hector. He has always felt tested. “What did God want? To test me again” choosing to enter the society at an earlier pivotal, uncertain stage of my youth had been a considerable test. Did I really have the calling to be a priest? Hadn’t I exceeded the limits of common sense with the ecological and radical libertarian impulses, with my obsession to save the world and love the dispossessed, to become a champion of social justice?” (p. 61-2)
Challenged by the smartest kid in the class – “Hector, you’re always saying the same thing,” a kid complained, “that astronomy was the beginning of everything” – the young Jesuit explains: “And that is what I truly believe … Since human beings began to walk on two feet, they stopped looking at the ground. So the next step, which was looking at the sky, was only a matter of time. Then questions came up – reasoning and thinking. That’s how our intelligence developed.” (p. 273)
This science-teaching priest is asked about the concept of Intelligent Design which he considers to be: “Exactly the opposite of what it seems… It’s a messed up version of the theory of evolution, much closer to the creationist view. It talks about man first appearing on Earth by the will of God, and not as the random result of natural selection. But Darwin demonstrated that the evolution of species was a natural phenomenon, not directed by a supernatural power, and that its results depended on circumstance and chance… [Intelligent Design followers] think that life is too complex to be a product of chance, so they assume that superior intelligence must have guided evolution. Obviously, God. It’s a kind of Christian fundamentalism.” (p. 106)
This novel is not a dry theoretical debate. Without addressing plot details, the action places Father Hector in life-threatening encounters in archives and famous buildings in various locations in Spain, England, Rome, Mexico, and the Canary Islands (where incidentally the author works at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias).
The novel offers a plausible but fanciful version of Jesuit history, with manuscripts stashed in secret by zealous archivists during the various periods of the Society’s Dissolution. It weaves a worldwide web of conspiracy and/or connections in time that involve a wonderful array of outlier scientist characters: Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, John Dee, and most intriguingly of all: the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher. The Cathars could have been involved, so too the Knights Templar.
Is the Voynich Manuscript "gibberish devised to decerive a foolish king" (p.31) or serious scientific inovation written in code for the safety of its discoverers? To talk further about this aspect of the novel is to enter review mode which is not the intent of this series. I’ll just say that this novel is a romp through detailed conspiracy and code-breaking that leaves poor Dan Brown and Opus Dei in the dust. But back to Father Hector.
He’s teaching because the Society needs his salary. “Teaching provided practically the only income for the Jesuits. Donations were becoming scarce and grants from a non-Catholic government depended too much on political fluctuations.” (p. 29)
Ordination narrowed his personal world. “Since I’d become a priest, my contacts with the outside world had greatly diminished. My new family was within the seminary and monastery walls, in parishes and religious retreats.” (p. 29)
Although he spends a great deal of time online, he has learned to respect the traditional value of a library. “Our assets were rarely replenished, partly because we had no money and partly because there was less and less interest in maintaining this small repository of knowledge. Mea culpa. I myself had advised against investing in its upkeep on numerous occasions, always opting to spend our scarce resources on computers. Through the Internet we could access any source of knowledge in the world. That’s what I always said. But anyone can make a mistake.” (p. 56)
When challenged about his belief in the Bible by a pushy researcher, Father Hector asserts:
“‘The Bible simply teaches us that the world was created by God, and this truth is expressed in the language uses at the time it was written,’ I said, brandishing it. ‘Any other lesson concerning the origin and composition of the universe is alien to the intent of the Bible, which doesn’t exist to tell us how heaven was created but how to get there.’
‘Nice phrase. Some Jesuit, I suppose.’
‘Not exactly. John Paul the Second,’ I answered.”
And like all good priests, he sometimes doesn’t need words.
When his young niece draws Noah’s Ark for an art competition organized by her history of religion teacher, she puts in all the animals she can think and shows it to her Jesuit uncle. “‘But aren’t there any dinosaurs?’ I asked gently but with a touch of mischief. She paused to think for a moment and then answered. ‘I forgot them. Can you help me, Uncle?’ she asked, handing me a pencil.
‘Of course.’ And to her brother’s delight and my own, I drew a huge Tyrannosaurus rex in the middle of the boat.” (p. 148)
The Book of God and Physics – A Novel of the Voynich Mystery by Enrique Joven was first published in Spain in 2007 and in English in 2009 by William Morrow/HarperCollins.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The next and last in this series of Keyword: Jesuit, Genre: Fiction is Brian Moore’s 1985 novel Black Robe.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Note to the Reader:
– This series represents a tiny selection from a wide range of possibilities.
– igNation invites readers to describe a Jesuit character they have encountered in fiction. Tell us about the character in 300 words or less and send your article to pungente@sympatico.ca [1]
– igNation welcomes your articles!