I'd had Come Rack, Come Rope on my TBR list for a while, but it was Melanie B's enthusiastic review that spurred me to download it. And then it sat on my Kindle for a long time: I found the beginning a bit slow-moving. Late last week I started it again and wound up tearing through it.
It reminded me first of all of the importance of the sacraments, the tremendous gift they are to us. Reading about the sacrifices that the recusants made to hear Mass highlighted for me the degree to which I take the availability of the sacraments for granted. In my town there are five places where I could get to Mass on a Tuesday. One of them is a five-minute walk from my office, beginning right after my office hours are over. And yet I hadn't been there in weeks. I got there today, and invited my across-the-hall colleague to come too.
It reminded me of the gift that we have in this country in constitutionally protected religious freedom. No one can charge us money if we don't go to a particular church on Sunday. No one can require us to profess allegiance to a particular faith, or to forswear another. No one can forbid a person to answer a perceived call to ministry, or torture and execute him because he disregards the proscription. I can wear my crucifix everywhere I go and keep a sacred vessel in my home without fear that I will go to prison if it's not hidden well enough. (Honestly, this book makes the HHS mandate look like small potatoes. It's not, you understand, that I don't see the need for conscience exemptions; it's just that in the scheme of things we're pretty fortunate.)
It emphasizes the evil of torture. I think we have a tendency to see torture as something remote, something that happens to other people far away. Without grotesquerie the author makes plain how hideous it is to torment another human being to bend him to your will. In 2008 I said, "I'm looking for a presidential candidate who acknowledges that both abortion and torture are wrong." Why, internet, why is that so hard?
Finally, it points up the gift of the priesthood. Here I wonder if I am being a little inconsistent, saying that Hilary Mantel's agenda grates on me while Msgr. Benson's doesn't. In both books, there are moments in which the hand of the puppeteer diverts attention from the actions of the puppets. But Benson's book filled me with gratitude for the priests who stand in persona Christi, channels of grace despite the costs. And its portrayals of the English martyrs, particularly the brave and joyful Edmund Campion, left me eager to be a little braver, a little more joyful myself.
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