The grandmum of my chidlhood friend had been raised entirely by nuns. Her house was full of reproductions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and that sort of stuff. Sometimes my friend and I would stay with her for a week during the long summer vacations. There was always an atmosphere of deep piety. I've got memories of my friend and I, aged six, crossing ourselves in the car at every roadside crucifx. I tried that with my parents a few times, it freaked them out a little, but they understood that if they tried to say anything, that would just make me want to do it more, so they let it slide.
So anyway, my friend's grandad died, and her grandmum came to live with them. My friend's dad had always been more of a viveur, and not very churchy at all. He had no problem with his wife's education, but that was her thing. When the grandmum started to live with them she brought her devotional practices with her, possibly reinforced by the recent loss of her husband. My friend's dad found this very hard to live with but his wife supported her mum. He became very restless. I remember him having a drink at our house and saying "this is not me".
Eventually, he started thinking about escaping. This was in part enabled by my own parents getting a divorce around that time. Suddenly, it could be done, he could get out. So my friend's mum had to cope with an aging relative and a husband who wanted out. It drove her nuts because she loved her husband and her mum. At that time she behaved pretty phony but still very churchy. She dropped the ball with the kids, and the youngest ones started to behave (relatively) wildly.
Her husband wanted a divorce, but she didn't. He was the only man she'd ever loved, and she could not bear losing him. But he really wanted out, left the home and started an affair. Under French law, you can get a divorce without the consent of both parties if you can prove that you have been separated for six years. So he was staying out of town on purpose, so he could get that divorce. But all the time he didn't live too far, so he could keep an eye on the teenage kids, over whom he had some mild authority.
About two years ago, my friend visited me at my mums'. She noticed the renaissance paintings on the wall, one of the virgin, and one of the donna velata. The donna velata isn't the virgin, it is quite possibly a woman whom Raphael was in love with, but who was married to someone else (hence the veil). I will never forget my friend's fear: not you?!? she asked, visibly scared by the virgin on the wall. She thought I'd gone all devotional too. Don't worry, I said, I just like the aesthetics, it makes me look cultured, and it fits in with the cavernous basement room, but really these are just cuts from a two-euros discounted art book. She looked a bit suspicious. I had noticed the fear, so I asked, why would that be bad? How's your mum?
It turned out that her mum is living is a small flat packed full of devotional paintings and rosaries and that sort of stuff, about twenty miles from our town. Now having lost both her parents, her husband and the kids who think she's gone weird, she's struggling to keep a job. My mum never sees her anymore. She's big on religious retreats, and the like.
My reason for writing this post is the diffuse sense of ressentment I harbour for our town's parish priest. He welcomed my friend's mum's overblown piety, right at the beginning when it was causing trouble in her marriage. In a town full of not-so-religious nominals, he was thrilled to encounter some of this full-scale devotional stuff that you encounter only in the older generations, or within the secluded atmosphere of a seminary. So he encouraged the zillions masses, the holy water and the retreats.
I have a massive fondness for the priest my friend and I grew up with, but he had been replaced by this new guy. I think that the original priest, who was from the area and knew his parishioner's stories, would have acted very differently. He would have kept my friend's mum from all this devotional nonsense because he also knew her husband, liked him and understood him. This overblown zealotry destroys families. As it happens, families close to me.
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