Mitre and Crook

Mitre and Crook by Fr Bryan Houghton ISBN 0870004344

Fr Houghton (1911- 1992) was a priest who resigned his parish in 1969 rather than say the New Rite of Mass: he felt so strongly that the new rite was not a worthy way to celebrate the central sacrament of the Catholic Faith.  Mitre and Crook is a novel he wrote after that retirement, which dramatises his view.

I first read it as an undergraduate; I picked it up out of idle curiosity from my mother's bookshelf one evening in the vacation.  I did not go to bed until I had finished it in the small hours of the morning.

In the best English tradition (and Fr Houghton would certainly have been aware of this) he uses letters to tell the bulk of the story, and this works exceedingly well.

The plot is fairly straightforward.  An English bishop, Edmund Forester (possibly the bishop Fr Houghton believed he could have become if he had not been so suspect because of his orthodoxy...) decided to reinstate the Traditional Rite of Mass in his diocese.

This is the substance of the first Chapter: The Bomb.  This is told in a narrative with two letters embedded: one the Ad Clerum which the bishop wrote explaining his decision to his clergy, and the second a private letter from him to Fr Houghton describing the reception of his 'Bomb' by his senior clerics.

In this way, Fr Houghton blurs the boundaries of the fiction: making himself a character in the book - albeit only as the confidant of the protagonist - is a very effective literary device, and one knows one is in the hands of a good writer, not merely a man with a story to tell.

The bulk of the book is the next eight Chapters, which tell of the reception of the Bomb: The Blast, The Counter-bomb, Hope, Treason and Trust, Penance, The Nuns, Faith and Practice.  These are practically all letters from the bishop, to laity, clergy, religious, the Chancellor at the Apostolic Delegation and so on.  We do not see the other side of the correspondence, which again is very effective: it leaves the reader with some imaginative work to do.  As the chapter headings suggest, it is something of a roller-coaster ride, but I will not give the plot away.  The final chapter, Mitre and Crook, is the climax of the story, and is told as straight narrative from Fr Houghton's point of view.  Again, a spoiler would be invidious.

But there are two things I want to convey in this brief review.  One is that, while it is very clearly an apologia for Fr Houghton's views, it is an exceedingly well written book: dramatic, and well structured, that carries you through the story to its dramatic climax.

The other is that Fr Houghton's character comes steaming off every page:  witty, full of insights and surprises, trenchant, in love with the Church - and the more hurt as a result...

To give a flavour:

Bishop Forester on the (new rite) Eucharistic Prayers All four are licit, although I should have thought Prex ll so obviously unworthy as to become obsolete.

Bishop Forester in a letter to a fellow bishop:

I am by no means certain that Christians ought to be "outward- and forward-looking."  I even wonder if you really are.  It seems to me that we cannot help being downward- and upward-looking: downward into the abyss of our own void, and upward into the abyss of the Absolute Being.  Herein lies the difference between the new horizontal and anthropocentric outlook, as opposed to the old vertical and theocentric religion.

The bishop visits a parish of which he had once been the parish priest:

My host came forward to greet me.  A handsome man and he looked very smart.  I could not help but admire  the fringe of the handkerchief  in his breastpocket.  I rapidly put on my spectacles.  It was exquisite drawn-thread work.  I recognised it.  "Congratulations, Father," I said, "I see you have found a use for those old corporals."  "Yes," he answered without a qualm, "I thought it a pity to throw them away."


This is a book for anyone interested in understanding the perspective of a loyal Catholic who believed the Church had made a pastoral mistake of cataclysmic proportions when outlawing the traditional rite of Mass (clearly a view with which the Holy Father has some sympathy).  You do not have to agree with Fr Houghton's point of view to find this a very stimulating read; if you are genuinely curious about how the changes were viewed from this perspective, you cannot fail to be gripped by this narrative.

It is not without its faults as a story, but the good points far outweigh them - so if you have never read it, I thoroughly recommend it - and if you have I'd welcome views in the Combox.