Fr Dominic Allain, who has edited this volume, is, as is now generally known, ‘Pastor Iuventus’ himself; here he has made selections over 12 months of his very popular weekly column in the Herald. I do not mean to flatter him when I say that his is always the first item I read in the newspaper; this is partly because of the themes he tackles but more especially because of the way in which he writes about them.

It would be easy, in such a column, to fall into a dogmatic or critical mode, be tempted to put oneself centre-stage, demonstrate cleverness or a false bonhomie. Instead, the voice is self-deprecating, conversational and reflective, with an unfailing, though unforced, sense of the presence of God and humility in his own vocation: “The priesthood is not...what someone does, but what someone is, or is becoming, by co-operating with God’s grace”.

In his Foreword William Oddie mentions Bernanos’ Diary of a Country Priest. Though I have read it several times (and the film, directed by Bresson, is almost as good) there is nothing to compare between the two except their contrasting titles. Bernanos’ fiction concerns the elemental dramas of the – often tormented - soul; Fr Allain’s columns concern the small daily stuff of ordinary lives.

As a parish priest he is often present at privileged moments, such as administering the sacrament of the sick to the dying, but he does not allow them to become commonplace occasions: “I blessed God for this mysterious and wonderful vocation he has given me” is a typical remark. There are painful episodes too, such as being asked to bless a baby after an abortion. He refuses, thinking it would seem to condone what has taken place, but adds, “I am sick at heart...and ask was there something else I could have done.” On another occasion, seeing a tiny, perfectly formed, aborted baby in a hospital bucket he weeps, while filled with “the certainty I would see the child in heaven.”

Fr Allain finds crematoria funerals – “those sad half-services” – painfully staged and artificial compared with burials. Having attended several of these, I wholly agree with him; I think it would be better for the mourners to make their last farewells and leave the chapel before the coffin makes its awkward mechanical journey behind the tasteful curtains.

Inevitably, he also comes up against government lunacy, such as having to display a “No smoking” in church, commenting drily: “This is about whether you can break the law by not telling someone not to do something they haven’t yet done.” As a hospital chaplain he finds the recent “right to privacy” irksome when it means the staff will not tell him of Catholic patients; only relatives can now do this and he urges them always to do so. Having frequently to take a sick-call on his bleeper in the middle of the night, miss hours of sleep yet still function normally the following day, must be very hard. My late father, an old-fashioned GP with his own practice, was sometimes called in the night; GPs today, with their “nine to five” mentality, would be aghast at the hours Fr Allain is on duty.

There are also devious parents, anxious to get their children into the Catholic schools, who make him “squirm with embarrassment as total strangers appear and swear on their granny’s grave that they attend Mass each week.” In contrast he describes buoyant occasions with young people, answering schoolchildren’s direct questions about the Faith and taking a youth group to St Thomas More’s cell in the Tower, where he had permission to celebrate Mass; elevating the host he glimpsed through the slit window the merchant bank where he once worked and experienced a sense of the working of Providence.

Such is the daily round of a parish priest’s life, ordinary and yet extraordinary, where the task is to connect every activity “with the still centre of the turning world, the Mass.” Many of Fr Allain’s activities, inevitably, centre on visiting the frail and elderly, for whom he clearly has a great affection and respect.

Reading his reflections on this aspect of his priestly work I wanted to give Baroness Warnock a (strictly metaphorical) kick in the shins: how dare this “medical ethicist” pontificate where angels fear to tread. If it is not carrying coals to Newcastle, buy this book as a Christmas present for your own parish priest; without him we are lost indeed.

© 2008 Francis Phillips

Theotokos Catholic Books - Book Reviews Section - www.theotokos.org.uk