"Your kind letter," Evelyn Waugh wrote to Cardinal
Heenan in 1966, "encourages me to cling to the Faith despite all that is being done to
degrade it." Both endured the changes to the Liturgy following Vatican II in spite of their
personal preferences, accepting them only in the obedience typical of faithful Catholics at
the time.
A Bitter Trial explores the conflicts with which each of these men struggled: loyalty to Rome and loyalty to what Cardinal Heenan termed "the Old Faith". It makes public for the first time the frank correspondence between these two prominent Catholics: one to whom fell the task of leading the implementation of Vatican II in England, the other, a man - in his own words - "typical of that middle rank of the Church, far from her leaders, much farther from her saints."
In Waugh, the layman's viewpoint found an eloquent exponent. With the clarity and directness which characterised the man in his literary and personal life, the newly discovered letters published in A Bitter Trial (together with a selection of Waugh's other writings on this topic), represent a facet of this twentieth century literary genius until now not widely appreciated. Calls for a re-evaluation of the changes to the Mass following Vatican II are growing. The June 1996 Oxford Declaration on the Liturgy complained of "bureaucratic, philistine and secularist" forces influencing the changes. This volume contributes to this ongoing debate, asking that as discussion and exploration of the way forward continues, the "bitter trial" which tested the faith of Evelyn Waugh and so many of his generation, as well as the almost impossible situation in which Cardinal Heenan and many other clergy found themselves, be borne in mind.
". . .Intelligently chosen documents . . . a compelling drama." Catholic Herald.
A Bitter Trial, edited by Scott M.P. Reid.
81 pages, clothbound, illustrated. ISBN 1 901157 31 8.
£5.95 ; $9.95 in the U.S.A.
Published by The Saint Austin Press.
Click here to find out how to order from your local supplier.