[Cicero]

I’m a Dickens fan, but I never liked Angela’s Ashes. To me, it seemed like a piece of anti-Catholic bigotry. Which was why it was so popular among the NYTimes book reviwers and leftist intellectuals.

To quote from the text below the photo:

“Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood....”

Well, sorry, but that’s a load of horse manure. Having a drunken father is tough, but it doesn’t require you to join the liberal establishment and curse the Irish and the Catholic Church.

[Clemenza]

The most vehement anti-Catholics tend to be former Catholics. Its a faith that arouses strong passions both positive AND negative. Remember the old saying that in Italy, everyone follows the Church: one half with a candle, the other half with a club.

[Albion Wilde]

See post 29. I realize he was criticized for criticizing the Church as he found it; but I do believe he painted a realistic picture of the particularly Irish working-class or poverty-class situation. I grew up with an Irish orphan grandparent who went to work at age 7. If you have not experienced the verbal abuse and shaming behavior that haunts those families, including members of the lower class who became priests and continued to blame the poor for their poverty, it's hard imagine how he lived.