The Ignoramus Library of Father Max
I believe you can tell a lot about people from the books they display in their homes. Anyone who browses my home library will learn a lot about me–my interests, my politics, my values, and morals, my tastes and idiosyncrasies, my curiosities and the mysteries I ponder–all from browsing a thousand or so titles.
I love to browse people’s home libraries. I get to know so many people, so deeply.
So, when I was sent to the second floor to wipe down all the door moldings, I started in Father Max’s new room. He had unpacked all his books. They were neatly arranged in two book cases next to the couch.
I was excited. If I could read Father Max by his titles, maybe I could find out what this creepy idiot was up to. I just didn’t trust him.
I had to work fast. If I got caught browsing, I would be fired, no questions asked. The priests must never feel bothered. It’s an unspoken rule.
What I found on Father Max’s shelf was nothing—no King Lear, no Divine Comedy, no Chaucer or Paradise Lost. He had no copies of Homer, Plato or Aristotle—the bedrock of Western thought. There was no Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Einstein, or Darwin—the makers of modern thought. There were no novels, no poetry, and no drama from any period.
Max had a Roget’s Thesaurus. He had a beat up copy of The Catholic Enclylopedia. He had several Saint Directories with titles like Modern Martyrs. There were fourteen different Bible translations. There were several books about each Bible translation.
But I saw no political science, sociology or psychology. There were no books about human emotions or mental illness, and I know for a fact that Father Max counsels people.
But there is no copy of the DSM-IV, I thought. How does he know when people need psychiatric care? Is this motherfucker telling depressives, and bipolars, and trauma patients to pray it all away? Could that really be going on in this place?
This was getting offensive. I backed away from the shelves, slowly. I had started this misadventure to poke fun at Max’s stupidity. But confirming his incompetence only made me feel sick with pity for the people he was “counseling.”
This man has no understanding of the modern world or modern thought, and he is guiding people’s lives, I thought. This man is dangerous. He has completely lost touch with reality. And he is woefully misguiding people.
I peripherally caught other titles, as I turned for the door. Some of them eluded to hearing God talk or deciphering God’s language.
He can hear God talk? Oh shit! Is Max Schizophrenic?
Is there an actual Schizophrenic priest living in this house?!
What if he’s violent?
I thought.
Then I saw Max’s crucifix. He had just hung it over his bed. My hands started shaking. My mind fell and landed on one thought:
Maybe I should call somebody about this.
♦
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March 20, 2010 at 11:13 pm
I have say that I wouldn’t be so mad at the guy himself; in and of himself, he has a right to be as much of an ignoramus or asshole as he chooses. It is the institution that has empowered him to have sway over the lives of others, that educated (or failed to educate him), kept his knowledge narrow, his doctrine rigid, — it is the Roman Catholic Church who is most culpable. Of course, there are the people who permit such a person to dictate anything at all to them, who submit their independent will, who surrender their own power of thought in exchange for certainty of rectitude in an uncertain world. Voltaire, as usual, had something pithy to say that applies here: “There is nothing so respectable as an ancient evil.”