liadnan: (sunset)
liadnan ([personal profile] liadnan) wrote in [community profile] trennels 2013-01-28 06:23 pm (UTC)

He preached at Ronald Knox's funeral in the Drome.

From the article:
(Father Rothschild in Vile Bodies is said to have been modelled partly on D'Arcy.)

I had a hunch this was iffy (not least because I don't find Fr Rothschild a particularly attractive character) and picked my copy off the shelf to check - In an intro written in the 60s and found in the back of my Penguin Modern Classics edn Waugh wrote " At the time I invented 'Fr Rothschild' I had never met a Jesuit'.

The PMG intro says "he almost suggests that he has to apologize for an overly satirical portrait of a Jesuit - which is presumably the opposite of most readers' response to him". I am not at all sure why the author, Richard Jacobs, presumed that.

The book was published Jan 1930, Waugh was received into the church on 29 Sept: a bit tight but no real reason to believe Waugh's version of events untrue.

Can't imagine D'Arcy was that pleased by the trajectory of the Jesuits post VII.

I have a copy of Waugh's grumbling correspondence with Cardinal Heenan on the various liturgical changes - a man after Anthony Merrick's heart.

Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting