It is with great pleasure that we are able to bring you today the Preface and Chapter One of Robert Blair Kaiser's novel "Cardinal Mahony". In my own review of the book in 2007* I wrote: "Robert Blair Kaiser has turned to the novel form to advance his prosecution of the case that the Catholic Church is in serious difficulties — and the responsibility for the crisis largely rests with the men at the top who have had responsibility for leading the institution. ... It's a sort of cross between a Morris West novel — with its superb understanding of Catholic Church culture and politics — and a Tom Clancy action thriller."

Preface

THIS IS A RELATIVELY NEW kind of fiction—what some commentators  are now calling "reality fiction." It is a mixture of fact and fiction that uses the names of real persons, living and dead, to tell an entertaining tale and to make a point.

There is, of course, a right way and a wrong way to do this (as, indeed, there is a right way and a wrong way to do almost anything).

To do this the right way, I must be fair to the real persons in the  scenario—give each of them, in justice, their due, and, at the same time, give myself, in charity, permission to let my imagination soar.

• The Cardinal Mahony in these pages is both real and fictional.
• The facts brought out at his mock trial in Mexico are real.
• The conversion story is fiction. Obviously. It happens in the future.

In the narrative, I try to keep all the characters borrowed from real life "in character." Benedict XVI has to sound like Benedict XVI, not Martin Luther—not only in the way he speaks, but, as the story plays out, in the substance of what he does. And if he acts out of character, I try to set up a scenario that makes the fictional pope's actions plausible.

I have tried to do the same thing with Cardinal Mahony. In putting him on trial for his sins, my fictional prosecutor must stick to the facts. She (and I) can document everything she tells and shows the jury. Obviously, I cannot "document" what a new, transformed Cardinal Mahony might do in 2008 and 2009. I do try to keep him "in character." I can't have him competing (to use an absurd example) for a place on the U.S. Olympic swimming team. But I can imagine him falling in love with his kidnappers. And I can see him trying to lead the American Church into a new way of being.

I invented this scenario to help seventy-five million American Catholics see the possibilities—to help them understand how they can be Catholic—and aggressively American as well. And why they should. Catholics in England and Australia--in fact, Catholics everywhere—may well find this story will inspire them to invent new ways of becoming less Roman and more catholic.

Utopian? Yes.

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REVIEWS:
See Brian Coyne's Review at www.catholica.com.au/brianstake/031_bt_311007.php
and also the review by Peregrinus at: www.catholica.com.au/peregrinus1/082_pere_180708.php

©2009 Robert Blair Kaiser

[Index of this serialisation of Cardinal Mahony — A Novel]