The Cloister, Carroll - B

                                                      Carroll is a well-known author of both fiction and non-fiction, a former RC priest and a man with a keen eye for the intricacies of faith and religion. He has published a book that studied the RC faith's treatment of Judaism, and again in this novel explores the two religions, their shared history, roots and built-in antipathy and contradictions. He weaves together in 1950 NYC the stories of a priest, Michael Kavanaugh, and a French Holocaust survivor, Rachel Vetter, who was a student of Latin and Medieval History and a specialist in the romance of Abelard and Heloise.  Kavanaugh's world is the parish just north of the Cloisters in Manhattan, where he meets Rachel, a docent at the Museum. She was working for the Musee Cluny in France when she was caught up in the 1942 roundup of Paris' Jews. She and her father were transported to Drancy, where she managed to keep her father supplied with medicine until he was transported to the east. She denied he was her father the night he was taken away and thus saved her own life. The shame and guilt would forever haunt her. Kavanaugh struggles with much less baggage as they become friends and he seeks the truth of the banishment of a friend from the seminary a decade and a half ago. He had been told his best friend left because he had 'feelings' for Kavanaugh, which Michael now learns to not have been the truth. The story of Abelard and Heloise, the medieval French lovers, he a priest and she a postulant, is a tragic one, yet filled with inquisitive discussions of the meaning of faith and forgiveness and portrays them as modern humanists centuries ahead of their times. Also explored is the role of anti-semitism in Catholicism, and the absolutism and conservatism of the church hierarchy, because part of the reason Peter Abelard's writings wound up on the Index was that he wrote that Jesus would never condone the castigating of his people as  Christ-killers. Abelard's theme was simple: a loving God was not cruel and did not condone cruelty or violence in his name. The conversations between Michael and Rachel lead them both forward to the next stage of their lives. She comes to grips with her past, sheds her mourning demeanor and become a vibrant school teacher. He parts with the church after midnight mass on Christmas. This is a very well done and thought provoking novel.