Word: priestly
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Mortal Bishops. Within the confessional each priest is the ultimate human judge of sins not legally reserved to the bishop or Holy See (e.g., abortion, physical attack on the clergy, etc.). If a penitent is denied absolution by one priest, he may seek out another whose viewpoint is congenial to his. Furthermore, a Puerto Rican Catholic might believe that voting for the P.D.P. was a political matter outside the realm of faith and morals, and considered the bishops' letters merely advisory exhortations. In that case, if the voter has considered carefully and acted in good faith...
...Puerto Rican clergy, the most serious handicap in enforcing their dictum was the secrecy of the confessional: How would any priest know which Catholics who appeared at the Communion rail had or had not confessed their vote...
Such a hero is The White Stone's Don Ardito Piccardi, a priest haunted by the conviction that he no longer believes in God. As a religious novelist, Italian Author Carlo Coccioli, 40, is not quite up to the writing company he wants to keep. But with persistence, he tags manfully after the bigger models and every so often matches their literary stride...
...Quarry? The White Stone is a sequel to Coccioli's Heaven and Earth (TIME, July 28, 1952), in which Don Ardito grew in power as a preacher while losing his capacity to love his fellow humans. That novel ended with an act of expiation in which the priest persuaded a German officer in World War II to execute him for acts committed by others. The present novel begins by reducing that sacrifice to irony. Perhaps as a symbolic agent for the humbling of Don Ardito's spiritual pride, the German officer stages a mock execution of the priest...
Loss or Dross? Though Don Ardito shuns his priestly duties, he is periodically seized by religious raptures. In one trance-like transport, he rises a yard into the air and German troops mysteriously call off a military operation. Inevitably, the priest's miracles are less convincing than his miseries. Yet through Don Ardito's occasional wonderworking, Novelist Coccioli compellingly argues his central thesis: that the saint is not a spiritual generator, but a spiritual conductor through whom the current of godliness electrically flows. It is apparent long before novel's end that Don Ardito had never actually...