It appears that Catherine Called Birdy and Midwife's apprentice were both written in the mid 1990s. Matilda Bones was 2002. Maybe something in that time frame affected the author's perspective? I don't know. I can't really comment on Matilda Bones because I haven't read it yet.
The book follows the well-known young-adult theme: child or young person spoilt by a flawed upbringing is placed in a new environment and thereby gets their values straightened out. In Matilda Bone, the protagonist of the title is the child spoilt by her upbringing, of which pious, “observant” Catholicism is no small part.
Since it takes place in 14th century England, all the characters are by default Catholic, but there is a very definite distinction drawn between the attitudes that the different characters display. On one hand there is Matilda (and by implication the priest who brought her up) who prays frequently, fasts a lot, knows Latin and Greek and a lot about the saints and so forth, but she is also rather cold, arrogant, and incompetent at anything practical. On the other hand is Peg, the bonesetter to whom she is apprenticed, and several other characters in her new environment: warm, loving and practical, but almost no practice of particulars of the Catholic faith – they cross themselves and swear by Honorious the Anti-Pope, but they apparently do not go to church, are never portrayed praying, etc. (Jesus Christ, incidentally, is barely mentioned by anybody - there is a tiny reference when Matilda prays to “St Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead”, but that is the sum total of references to Christ.)
The only Catholic holy day mentioned at any length (and very briefly) is Ash Wednesday – and Matilda is shown taking pride in her ashes as a mark of holiness, even though she knows better. If there is a feast at Easter or Christmas or any saints’ days, we aren’t made aware of it in the book – in the 14th century!
Worst of all, in direct contradiction to actual Catholic teaching, Matilda (a) initially believes that particular misfortune is the direct result of personal sin (b) initially refuses to assist to treat a medical emergency on a Sunday and (c) when someone brings up God’s love, Matilda thinks, “Walter must know a different God from the one she did.”
All of this fits exactly into the template I guessed at: nice and good medieval Europeans who are portrayed as almost as non-observant and non-believing as the typical agnostic liberal today, and on the other hand the observant Catholics all have (at best) completely messed-up values.
Anti-Catholic? Charmingly so, but yes.
Obviously evil can be associated with pleasure, but the way the admonishment is phrased, it sounds to me like the character is identifying joy and pleasure as inherently evil. And the idea that Christianity teaches the hatred of joy and pleasure is a common anti-Catholic and anti-Christian claim. (Try googling on "hatred of pleasure".)
I'll see if these books are in the library next time I'm there.
Uh... what am I missing? Sounds like good advice to me!
“Farewell, Matilda. Remember all I have taught you, about right and wrong, sin and Hell, and Hell, and the evils of joy and pleasure. Do always as you think I would have you do, remember your Latin, and pray ceaselessly.”
I think that speaks for itself.
Firstly, reading the CL quote carefully, it does not sound to me as if they were objecting at all to the portrayal of Catholics using holy water and relics, as you say. It objects to a quote from the book, “Superstitions included the use of relics, water from holy wells…”, i.e, they are objecting to the author describing the use of sacramentals as superstitious. That may be her opinion, but it isn’t Catholic; it’s a standard objection of Protestants and atheists. So I would bet with the CL here.
The CL further claims that the midwife (who is negatively portrayed) is the only character who is depicted as an observant Catholic. If this is correct, I would bet with the CL again. I think a lot of anti-Catholic thinking among the non-religious goes something like this: “Plenty of people are ‘cultural Catholics’ who don’t care much about the Church and are almost indistinguishable from me! I don’t have anything against them. Obviously, it’s those observant Catholics, who actually share the views of that horrible Church and are probably also evil hypocrites, that I hold in contempt.”
For medieval Europe, I think the liberal anti-Catholicism then takes the following form: “The nice medieval Europeans couldn’t help being Catholic, but since they were nice they must have ignored the Church as much as they could afford to under the circumstances. And just like today, the observant Catholics were evil hypocrites with horrible values.”
This framework is exactly consistent with the idea that the only person in this book portrayed as an observant Catholic is a bad person – so I would guess that the CL is correct that this is probably not a coincidence.
In fact, I’ve just skimmed through the description of Cushman’s other novels at Amazon, and I think she does have a problem with the Church – take a look at the descriptions and reviews of Matilda Bone and The Loud Silence of Francine Green.
I wonder what they would think of Catherine Called Birdy, one of my favourite novels of all time. At one point, the heroine, worried about the difficulties her mother is having in childbirth, wanders around the whole manor, unstopping jars, unlocking doors, and generally loosening everything she can find that is tightly closed--and all the while praying devoutly to St. Margaret of Antoich, Patroness of women in labour.
I think that Cushman's historical accuracy and geniune love of Medieval culture makes up for any skepticism she may have towards Catholic beliefs.
Blessings,
Faith
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