The Cardinal tells a story of a working-class American’s rise to become a cardinal of the Catholic Church. The daily trials and triumphs of Stephen Fermoyle, from the working-class suburbs of Boston, drive him to become first a parish priest, then secretary to a cardinal, later a bishop, and finally a wearer of the Red Hat. An essential work of American fiction.
Before anything else I must say that you should not be put off this book if you are not religious, or not of the Catholic faith. This is not a book about Catholicism (although there is much about Catholic beliefs and practice within its pages), at its heart The Cardinal is historical fiction, a saga of the greatest tradition, anyone who enjoys that style of novel will love The Cardinal.
We follow Stephen Fermoyle from the outbreak of the First World War to the days leading up to the Second. At the beginning of the novel he is a new priest returning to America from Rome, and we follow him on his swift rise through the ranks of the church, facing both financial and spiritual challenges as the Depression takes hold and society has to find ways to care for the most vulnerable. As Stephen progresses in his career he moves back to Rome where we see the rise of facism in all its ugliness, and the threat it poses to the world, both religious and secular. Stephen also falls in love, probably the greatest challenge for a celibate priest, and one can only sympathise with a man torn between his love for a woman and his love for God. As the reader accompanies the priest on his soul-searching journey to find his way forwards through this dilemma, we are given a deeper understanding of the cost and rewards of following a vocation.
But The Cardinal is not a novel confined to the priestly, not only do we follow Stephen on his journey of faith, but also the members of his family who face trials and tribulations no different to the rest of us. The Fermoyles are a loving family of Irish extraction, a group of characters who follow their own paths through life whilst staying closely knit and offering support to each other through the tragic events which shape them. They are not a ‘sugar-coated’ family, the have their disputes and arguments, their rifts and tragedies, but through it all there is a love and faith which binds them together.
The Cardinal is a beautifully written novel with a well-crafted plotline, believable dialogue, and engaging characters which draw the reader in and leaves you wanting more – which is my one criticism of this novel. At the end we journey with the new cardinal from Rome back to America where new challenges await him; he is only fifty-one and there is potential for so much more in the lives of the Fermoyle family in general and Stephen in particular, so I found it disappointing that the novel ends at the point where Stephen’s work as a cardinal begins. Having said that, this is a beautiful novel which I highly recommend to anyone who is a lover of historical fiction.
‘The Cardinal’ can be found on Amazon
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