Altar Servers and Servants of the Devil

Freedom is in our pockets and so is the flourishing of a new Catholic revival. Every dollar we spend makes the world a better or a worse place. Every dollar we spend on products produced by corporations with an anti-Catholic, globalist, or woke agenda is making the world a worse place. Every dollar we spend on products produced by faithful Catholics or by small and local businesses makes the world a better place. It’s not rocket science. It’s common sense.

This is as true of the books we buy as it is true of anything else. If we buy and read books that are on The New York Times Bestseller List, we are making the world a worse place and probably poisoning our own minds and souls at the same time. If, however, we buy Catholic books published by Catholic publishers (preferably directly from the publisher, not from Amazon), we are making the world a better place and nourishing our minds and souls into the bargain.

It is with this in mind that I make a point of reading the new generation of Catholic novelists who are being published by the new generation of Catholic publishers. One such novelist is Brian Kennelly, whose latest novel, The Savios, is published by one such publisher: Chrism Press. Let’s say a little about Chrism Press before discussing the merits of Mr. Kennelly’s novel.

The editorial team at Chrism Press have the courage to publish gritty novels which would probably not be accepted for publication by mainstream Catholic publishers, which are understandably fearful of offending the sensibilities of some of their more pietistic customers. Since Chrism Press does not aim to censor good fiction by placing it in a censorious straitjacket, it is able to publish darker works that highlight the real ugliness of evil—as well as showing the silver lining to the darkest of situations, which grace and sanctity provide.

Chrism Press has published novels by Eleanor Bourg Nicholson and Kaye Park Hinckley, two fine writers whose works I have long admired, and by Roseanna M. White, whose novel, Shadowed Loyalty, I have yet to read but should. Judging by the single paragraph description of the book provided by the publisher, Shadowed Loyalty is similar in theme to Brian Kennelly’s new novel that I have just had the pleasure of reading. Both novels deal with gangsters and the seedy and violent criminal underworld. The protagonist of Shadowed Loyalty is the daughter of Chicago’s leading mob boss; the protagonists of The Savios are a tight-knit group of altar servers from one of the poorest neighborhoods in Boston.

In The Savios, each of the boys is given a medal of St. Dominic Savio, the patron saint of altar servers, by their saintly but down-to-earth Irish pastor, Fr. Patrick Bradley. It is significant, however, that St. Dominic Savio is also the patron saint of juvenile delinquents because the friends who serve Fr. Patrick’s Masses are far from being saints. Known collectively as the Savios, in honor of the saint, the boys rule the roost at their high school. Nobody dares to mess with the inseparable group of friends who wear the saint’s medal around their necks as a mark of pride more than as an act of piety.

Problems arise when the boys grow old enough to be noticed by Michael “Clover” Connell and his psychopathic and sadistic son, Mikey, leaders of the Green Kern Gang, Boston’s Irish “mafia.” Very quickly, the Savios get sucked into the cycle of violence and viciousness, in which the claims and counterclaims of virtue and vice vie for power within each of their hearts. Can belief in the Fatherhood of God or the Brotherhood of Man survive in a world of terror and terrorism?

Brian Kennelly has written a real page-turner, which grips the reader at every turn as the plot twists and action accelerate. It is, however, flawed in a key respect that spoils and blemishes its integrity as a work of art. The Savios is a historical novel, set in 1968 in Boston and Belfast, Northern Ireland, with flashbacks to Ireland and Boston in the early 20th century, when Fr. Patrick and “Clover” Connell had become childhood friends before their radically different life choices took them in diametrically opposed directions.

The problem is that historical fiction must also pass the test of historical nonfiction. The fictional narrative must conform to the known historical facts. This is where Mr. Kennelly’s oversight spoils the reading experience for those who know anything about the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Mr. Kennelly has his protagonists and antagonists facing off in a gun battle in Belfast in September 1968, a year before the Troubles truly ignited with the anti-Catholic riots in August of the following year and the subsequent and consequent deployment of British troops to restore order. The Northern Ireland depicted in The Savios resembles the situation in the early 1970s and was not the situation on the ground in 1968.

Those who know little to nothing about the history of the Troubles would be blissfully ignorant of this major historical faux pas, enabling them to enjoy the story unhampered by the historical blunder. This will be the vast majority of readers. Nonetheless, as a cautionary corrective to all prospective writers of historical fiction and to all prospective publishers of it, it cannot be stressed enough that authors and editors need to get their facts right in their fiction.

This necessary admonishment aside, Mr. Kennelly is to be congratulated and praised for writing such a well-paced page-turner of a novel; and Chrism Press is to be congratulated and praised for publishing it. All that is needed now is for Catholics to put their hands in their pockets, spending the few dollars necessary, so that they can both enjoy this gripping and suspenseful thriller and support the talent of Catholic authors and the courage of Catholic publishers.