BINGO!!!!
To me, his disillusionment with religion as a result of the actions of callous priests towards the poor, in the most culturally Catholic country on earth, seemed a major theme of the book. For what it's worth, I did not take away from that a desire to despise the Church; but rather a pity for his estrangement from the divine — something he probably never consciously intended.
Having lived in a working-class Catholic parish in a large city, I saw for myself a great variety of priests and their skill levels — some were kind and loving; others were cold and contemptuous; some were intellectual; others not too bright. The big lesson all of us who love Christ must learn is that no man is perfect and that all earthly leaders we look up to can, and probably will, let us down. It's just that some let us down or humiliate us more than others; and when their job is to represent the love of God, it's very hard to get past:
In a 2004 interview that also included his brothers Malachy, Mike and Alphie, author Frank McCourt related,
"Once we were outside a monastery begging for food. I could smell the bread baking inside and the monk finally came out and flung some stale loaves at our feet. 'Pick it up out of the dirt, boyo,' he said, 'if you need it so bad.'"