I was reading Isabel's post here and I was typing a comment in response that was getting so long that I decided to make it into a blog post. Basically, Isabel remarked that she was horrified by Father Dolan's threats of hell in his sermon during the boys' retreat, and that the descriptions made her feel awful.
The Catholic Doctrine preaches that anyone can be saved as long as they confess their sins and try their best not to sin anymore. Even if someone rapes and murders, as long as they confess their sin, genuinely feel sorry, and promise to try their hardest not to sin again, they can go to heaven.
Instead of preaching about the evils of hell, the priests could emphasize love and forgiveness and following the church, because according to Catholic Doctrine, anyone who confesses, is sorry, and tries not to sin again will escape hell. In fact, logically the only people who go to hell by this way of thinking are those who don't believe in God. If that is what Father Dolan believes, then he should be emphasizing that the boys should stay with the church so they can be believers and go to heaven.
In the end, Stephen did confess and have his sins forgiven, and everything worked out in the short term, but theoretically if the goal is for him to go to heaven by the rules of the Catholic Church, then being scared of sinning won't work. The fact that everyone sins is an important part of Christianity, and there is no way that Stephen can avoid that. Stephen will sin even if he does everything perfectly, and he can't be "scared" out of that. He has to focus on the love part, and learn to forgive himself as well as letting God forgive him because no one is perfect.
I think one of the things that's so interesting about Stephen is how incapable of love he seems to be. The only recollection I have of Stephen loving anyone other than his brooding self is when he misses his mother at boarding school. I don't think Stephen is truly aware of how blind he is to love, but subconsciously perhaps his longing to feel love is what really scares him during Father Dolan's sermon.
ReplyDeleteThere's certainly a certain detachment from the world that Stephen has and his superiority complex doesn't help. I don't think that he's even be able to love the world or people after he reforms; he goes through the actions but it doesn't feel that there's anything else other than a sense of duty and, like you said, fear. I think that the horrific sermons could have been followed up by a loving speech; it seems to me that the priests want to emphasize that there will be horrible consequences, the descriptions of hell, that can be avoided by confessing their sins and emphasize the love and forgiveness of the church that way.
ReplyDeleteYea, going off of what Jonah was saying, It would be hard for the sermon to reach Stephen (and even the typical teenage boy) because love is such an unknown concept to him. I think Father Dolan chooses to preach about Hell because that's what he believes will connect with the boys. In a general sense (of course this is not true for everyone) but adolescent boys are thought to be as rough and rowdy, both actions can be disrespectful in the church. So, going off of this speculation, Father Dolan chooses to give a sermon on, like Donna said, the consequences of these actions. At the time, it would just seem more relatable, although it really only words for Stephen.
ReplyDeleteI might have accidentally propogated this confusion in class, as I was confused myself, but the priest from Clongowes who delivers the retreat sermon is Father Arnall (a teacher he mainly remembers fondly, but not in much detail), not Father Dolan (the rector who pandies Stephen). Which isn't crucial to the good points you make here, but it's important to note how the sermon as well as the person who delivers it helps return Stephen to a point of childlike credulity, but there isn't the same sense of the speaker's association with corporal punishment directly (which would have actually been a bit heavy-handed on Joyce's part).
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