a bad catholic - the heart of the matter

8/2/2019 A Bad Catholic - The Heart of the Matter

1/5

NOTES AND COMMENTS

A BAD CATHOLIC?REFLECTIONS ON ISSUES OF FAITH AND PRACTICE IN

GRAHAM GREENES THE HEART OF THE MATTER

. . . Shes not a bad Catholic. Shes lucky. Shes free . . . are the words of LouiseScobie when describing Helen Rolt, the lover of her husband, Major Henry Scobie,the 50-year old Deputy Commissioner of Police in the unnamed West African state atthe centre of events in Graham Greenes 1948 novel, The Heart of the Matter. Whilesome of the issues in the novel are now seen through more liberal eyes, Louise Scobiesblinkered attitudes are still present in Christians of all persuasions, and the novelraises many questions concerning the dichotomy between legalism and true faith.

Scobie had fallen in love with Helen in the absence of his wife, who had travelled toSouth Africa in an attempt to find a new lease on life after the weariness of herexistence and the knowledge that her husband had been passed over for promotion tothe Commissionership after fifteen years of service in that country. Louise attendsmass and goes to confession, and in Scobies words has enough faith for both ofthem. It appears that he became a Catholic in order to marry her and meet therequirements of her beliefs, but in the story he reveals more knowledge of spiritual andbiblical truth than many nominal believers, which suggests that he comes from aChristian tradition, though other than Catholic. Louise is aware of his virtues. Shesays he has a terrible sense of responsibility. Scobie is known for his scrupuloushonesty and incorruptibility, and Scobies boss, the Commissioner, calls him Scobie

the Just. His sense of responsibility and honesty, however, are countered by a strongdesire to avoid causing unhappiness, and even to show pity, often in inappropriateplaces. It is this latter tendency that undermines his professional standard and leads tohis undoing, but the rot only starts once Scobie hears that he has been passed over forpromotion to the post of Commissioner; it seems as if he snaps finally after so manyyears of probity.

The first step comes when he fails to report that he found illicit correspondencebetween the captain of a Portuguese ship that had to be cleared to continue its

journey, and the mans daughter. It was a harmless letter, and Scobie tore it up out ofsympathy for the man and because he knew that strict adherence to the rules wouldnot serve any purpose in this case. He is compromised, but would certainly have not

suffered professionally after all, he is only doing what is quite normal in thisenvironment but for his wife, Louise, who unwittingly draws him into s second andmore dangerous step.

Scobie is unable to find the money to pay for her passage to South Africa and isreluctant to accept the offer of a loan from Yusef, a dubious entrepreneur, who haswanted to win Scobies friendship and gain power over him. When Louise offers toabandon her scheme to leave for South Africa, realising that her husband cannotfinance it, he is desperate to please her, and finally accepts Yusefs offer. He onlywants to make his wife happy. The loan is on a commercial basis, but he has takenmoney from a man of doubtful honesty and reputation, and has played into his hands.The irony is that it is his wife who has pushed him further along the road towards his

HeyJ XLVIII (2007), pp. 776779


2/5

doom. Without her pressure he would probably have ignored Yusefs offer and savedhimself the later disastrous pressure that will bring about his downfall.

Scobie, weakened, is now assailed by pity when, after his wifes departure, he at firstbefriends, then soon falls in love with Helen, the young 19-year old widow who hassurvived the sinking of her ship. He is aware that he is committing adultery, but he

manages, as far as he knows, to keep it secret. However, when Helen accuses him ofbeing ashamed of their relationship, he writes a brief note to her to convince her of hislove, openly confessing his feelings, which he then pushes under her door. The notefalls into the wrong hands, those of Yusef, who is able to exploit the situation andincrease his hold over Scobie. Scobie has been too weak to resist Helens accusations;pity and the desire to avoid creating unhappiness have again prevailed. These humanvirtues, clearly out of step with his duty as an important and responsible member ofthe community, lead him to an acute awareness of his growing dereliction of duty as aCatholic to shun adultery. He knows that he could not in all honesty go to confessionand promise to avoid what he now feels powerless to resist his meetings with Helen.Yusef, in possession of his incriminating note, is now able to blackmail Scobie into

handing a secret packet over to the Portuguese captain who has returned. By nowScobies dealings are becoming known to others, and he feels increasingly compelledto lie, or at least withhold the whole truth.

On the return of his wife from South Africa, with her new resolve for them to startafresh and make their marriage work, Scobie is put under more pressure. Not only ishe increasingly reluctant to give up Helen, but Louise is now pressing him to go withher to mass. He tries to avoid this, finding excuses, but eventually has to accept theinevitable. So anxious is he to avoid hurting her that he cannot tell her directly of hislove for the other woman; but in fact, Louise has been alerted to his new relationshipand has come home for this very reason. Such is her traditional love of her faith thatshe is pressing her husband to go to confession because of the strain she realizes he is

dealing with. She must have a strong belief in his sense of responsibility especiallynow that Scobie is to be the new Commissioner after all, and therefore all their hopesmay be realized!

Scobie has no way out of his dilemma, except the for him impossible one of simplygiving up his adulterous love for Helen, confessing, and starting again with Louisewhom he does not want to hurt, but for whom he can now feel nothing more than adutiful affection. He therefore begins to contemplate suicide. This starts with feignedchest pains which he uses as a pretext to avoid mass, but he then develops an elaboratestrategy to signal the onset of a terminal illness. He feels that this is the only way ofpreventing more pain for everyone. He tells Helen: I cant bear to see suffering. Icause it all the time. I want to get out, get out. Later he says: I want to stop givingpain, but Helen realizes that all he wants is peace. He seeks peace of mind, butwithout losing the life insurance for Louise, so his suicide has to appear a genuineillness. He builds up a supply of tablets to take all at once, and his diary entries beginto reflect this developing illness.

Suicide has been signalled early in the novel. Scobie has had to attend to a youngDistrict Commissioner, Pemberton, lonely and heavily in debt, who has hangedhimself. Scobie is aware that suicide is a mortal sin, the final act of despair that in thewords of a priest, Father Clay, puts a man outside mercy, even though the dead manwasnt a Catholic. When Scobie sees the note left by the dead man, he gentlyreproaches Father Clay, saying: Youre not going to tell me theres anythingunforgivable there. While he knows that Pemberton was no Catholic, and Scobiesorthodoxy tells him that the deceased is thus outside any condemnation, it is clear thatScobie has a more liberal and forgiving attitude, and is only keeping to the Catholic

NOTES AND COMMENTS 777


3/5

Scobie confuses this name with the name Ticky, Louises term of endearment forhim. Thus early in the novel, a seed is planted that will be watered through Scobiescrisis. As the idea sends out roots, Scobie finds himself justifying it when he says at onepoint that even Jesus, in his crucifixion, went voluntarily to his death, and thus wishedit on himself a form of suicide. Christ had not been murdered you couldnt murder

God. Christ had killed himself: he had hung on the Cross as surely as Pemberton fromthe picture-rail.If we jump ahead to the time after Scobies death when Father Rank, in his

conversation with Louise, expresses the view that Scobie really loved God, Louisecounters with: He certainly loved no one else. She is convinced that her husband hadbeen a bad Catholic. Father Rank, indignant at her limited vision, tells her that theChurch knows all the rules. But it doesnt know what goes on in a single humanheart. Ironically, however, even he, with his apparently enlightened attitude, in replyto her final words; He certainly loved no one else reveals his own limitedunderstanding when he adds: And you may be in the right of it there too. In otherwords, having realised that only God knows the human heart, Father Rank

nonetheless falls into her trap of judging Scobie, without knowing his true feelings.Louise has always believed that her husband didnt love her, despite his frequent

weary protestations to the contrary. But while she may have been half aware that hislove came from a sense of dutiful affection, she is more aware of his terrible sense ofresponsibility than of his instinctive compassion for suffering human beings, shownin his care for the dying child after the sinking of the ship, an instinctive compassionthat soon leads him into confusing agape with eros as his relationship with Helengrows. What neither Louise nor Father Rank knows are the final words that Scobiebreathes as he dies: Dear God, I love . . . Father Rank senses that he really lovedGod, but he does not know what the reader knows, that Scobie loves both God andpeople, possibly so much that he confuses love and pity, and that his love therefore

becomes weakness. Witness his reaction of love as he is standing over the corpse of hismurdered servant Ali, even though he has done little to prevent what he had sensedcould happen to his servant at the hands of Yusef. He is incapable of tough love, thesort of love that Father Rank demands from him during confession when he tells himto cease his relationship with Helen.

The secret seems to lie in the quotation from the French Catholic poet, CharlesPe guy, that precedes the opening of the novel: Le pecheur est au coeur meme dechretiente . . . Nul nest aussi competent que le pecheur en matie`re de chretiente. Nul, sice nest le saint. (The sinner is at the very heart of Christianity. Nobody is ascompetent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. Nobody, except the saint.) Scobie,trapped in the sins of adultery and deceit, and tortured by his over-active conscience,reaches the stage where he knows that he has sinned so much that there seems no pointin trying to be saved. One may as well go on damning oneself until the end. Why notgo to communion and continue to commit adultery? Even the honesty that he showedearlier in refusing to repent and desist from what he knows he will continue to do hasnow evaporated. He now wants nothing except that others should be happy, even ifthis means punishing and hurting God by his sin. He has despaired of himself for ever.

But a second look at Pe guys words shows that a great sinner may be able tounderstand and feel Gods mercy more than a so-called righteous person. While thissituation risks the charge implicit in Saint Pauls words shall we go on sinning so thatgrace may increase? (Rom.6:1), it is more than counterbalanced by Our Lords wordsrecorded in three of the gospels: It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick(Matt.9:12, Mark 2:17, Luke 5:31). While the believer should not trifle with sin, abeliever who knows no sin or is so bound by conformity to ecclesiastical doctrine that

778 NOTES AND COMMENTS


4/5

God might forgive cowardice and passion, but was it possible to forgive the habit ofpiety?

At one point in his now rapidly growing despair, Scobie, having shown so muchmisplaced pity towards others, asks himself: Am I really one of those whom peoplepity? The answer is that he could well be, but he is also one whom God loves, because

Scobie has loved others, albeit confusing the nature of love, and at the cost of hispeace of mind and sense of professional responsibility. Greenes awareness that fatalhuman weakness and knowledge of the rules and demands of the Church dwelltogether in the souls of his Catholic protagonists finds its fulfilment in the honesty andsense of responsibility of the man in whom the virtue of pity becomes his undoing, butwho nonetheless demonstrates tortuously the meaning of love and what goes on in asingle human heart. Unfortunately he is not free to experience the joy that Saint Paulfelt when he wrote When I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:10). But perhapssome saints are destined to remain locked in the misery of their flawed humanityunaware of the extent of the grace that only God sees in them.

WORCESTER, UK GORDON LEAH

NOTES AND COMMENTS 779


5/5

a bad catholic - the heart of the matter

Documents