I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Cardinal

Henry morion robinson’s roman a clef, The Cardinal—unlike the skeleton key he provided for Finnegans Wake—unlocked no library doors. It did transfer to paper a lot of ecclesiastical backstairs gossip. Those who knew the Boston archdiocese could and did identify most of the characters, incidents and places. Picking them out was an amusing parlor game locally when the book first appeared. Robinson had spent a year as a seminarian, and although he had not found his vocation there, he had picked up a number of incidentals. His theme seemed to interest a lot of people, for in spite of its contrivances and its lack of literary merit the book was translated into fourteen languages. The testy old cardinal was, of course, the late Cardinal O’Connell. Stephen Fermoyle, the book’s hero, in his upwards and onwards career from curate to cardinal was considered to be a somewhat less exact portrait of Cardinal Spellman.

Rumor has it that there were hierarchical objections to having The Cardinal made into a film at all. If so, the objections were well founded. Earlier I felt it none of my business if Otto Preminger wanted to rehabilitate all twelve of the Hollywood Ten. If he now develops a yearning towards the Knights of Malta, or even the Knights of Columbus, that is not my business either. But when he gasses me periodically with one of his three-hour monstropics, it is my business, for I have to sit there. According to The Cardinal souvenir program, the new Stephen Fermoyle’s problems “are Everyman’s timeless struggle; Tolerance against Hate, Democracy against Totalitarianism, Idealism against Doubt.” All those capitals are Mr. Preminger’s; that lonely figure doing penance in the mezzanine is F. Russell.

FR

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Francis Russell

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Henry morion robinson’s roman a clef, The Cardinal—unlike the skeleton key he provided for Finnegans Wake—unlocked no library doors. It did transfer to paper a lot of ecclesiastical backstairs gossip. Those who knew the Boston archdiocese could and did identify most of the characters, incidents and places. Picking them out was an amusing parlor game locally when the book first appeared. Robinson had spent a year as a seminarian, and although he had not found his vocation there, he had picked up a number of incidentals. His theme seemed to interest a lot of people, for in spite of its contrivances and its lack of literary merit the book was translated into fourteen languages. The testy old cardinal was, of course, the late Cardinal O’Connell. Stephen Fermoyle, the book’s hero, in his upwards and onwards career from curate to cardinal was considered to be a somewhat less exact portrait of Cardinal Spellman.

Rumor has it that there were hierarchical objections to having The Cardinal made into a film at all. If so, the objections were well founded. Earlier I felt it none of my business if Otto Preminger wanted to rehabilitate all twelve of the Hollywood Ten. If he now develops a yearning towards the Knights of Malta, or even the Knights of Columbus, that is not my business either. But when he gasses me periodically with one of his three-hour monstropics, it is my business, for I have to sit there. According to The Cardinal souvenir program, the new Stephen Fermoyle’s problems “are Everyman’s timeless struggle; Tolerance against Hate, Democracy against Totalitarianism, Idealism against Doubt.” All those capitals are Mr. Preminger’s; that lonely figure doing penance in the mezzanine is F. Russell.