Author: Margaret Coombs

“A remarkable engineering feat,” the Mayor said, “like the pyramids. And it needed slave labor to accomplish it.””As in your Siberian camps.”(page 63) In yesterday’s post I failed to keep in mind the good Father’s devotion to humility. It feels embarrassing to have exaggerated the level of my knowledge. No, I did not “sometimes” engage…

“It occurred to Father Quixote that such a man was almost certainly a member of Opus Dei—that club of intellectual Catholic activists whom he could not fault and yet whom he could not trust. He was a countryman, and they belonged to the great cities.” (page 50)I met a man from a Central American country…

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…

In Monsignor Quixote, the priest begins a journey with the Communist mayor (Sancho), who lost his re-election. Father Quixote responds mildly to the mayor’s insult in line three. “What will you do, father, away from El Toboso?”“I shall obey orders. I will go where I am sent.”“To preach to the converted as you do here?”“That…