I’m writing my thoughts on Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene, inspired by the public read sponsored by A Public Space (APS Together) and led by Yiyun Li.
Father Quixote (recently promoted to Monsignor due to a clerical error) of El Toboso and its communist former mayor, Enrique Zancas (called Sancho), are on a road trip to Madrid in Quixote’s aged Seat 600, Rocinante. The two engage in a long, friendly conversation about one another’s faith in religion and politics as they journey.
Photo credit: Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
“Ah, you indulge too much, father, in a dangerous drug—as dangerous as the old Don’s books of chivalry.“
“What drug?“
“Opium.“
“Oh, I understand . . . . That old saying of your prophet Marx—’Religion is the opium of the people.’ But you take it out of context, Sancho. Just as our heretics have twisted the words of Our Lord.” (pp. 33-34)
These are the kinds of conversations I enjoy with members of my family and long-term friends—those in which cultural references are tossed back and forth, caught, and examined further at times. To visit the rooms of another’s mind and find familiar books on their shelves can be a true human pleasure.
Though each has his own scripture, the father finds common ground with Sancho. This reminds me of interfaith gatherings in which participants announce afterward that they agree on the essentials: that love is the highest expression of spirit. Some meetings like these can lead to profound spiritual friendships, such as the one between Thomas Merton and the Dalai Lama in 1968 in Dharamsala and sadly cut short by Merton’s death. I will read on to find out if the father and the ex-mayor find a friendship as meaningful.