The Grand Inquisitor

This book presents an alarming but interesting interpretation of the "liberal" vs. the "traditional" views of the Catholic Church from the perspective of Dostoevsky's section in The Brothers Karamazov. The storyline will not be given away here, but I recommend this book for young adult readers and not children, as the story and illustrations provide disturbing images. If one is into graphic novels, this is one of the best.

Sometimes fiction can capture a truth better than simply reciting the facts. The "Grand Inquisitor" is an example. Ever since the moment of its inception, the Catholic church has faced seemingly insurmountable challenges. In the last, unlamented century, secularism and atheism have attacked the church relentlessly. Millions fell away in Europe. Communists sent priests and nuns to the gulag, murdered them, or sent them to insane asylums. The 20th century had more martyrs than any century before. Those who stood firm in the church against battalions of those who chanted: change, change, change, were derided. But at the core of the church is not men with their failings. It is the Holy Spirit, guiding it always to the truth. And that is the truth told in this graphic novel. It's so unique, such a strange and intelligent story, that I think it is one of the most remarkable books I have ever read. The pictures are wonderful. The language spare but gripping. For every traditional Catholic, this a book to savor, and to send on to your friends and children.

(This review first appeared at http://holywhapping.blogspot.com/) At first glance, it seems designed specifically to freak out everyone in its numerous potential overlapping markets--an intricately Gothic comic book, its dialogue written in elaborate blank verse, its plot inspired by and title borrowed from Dosdoyevsky's heavy-going Grand Inquisitor, and filled with all manner of strange hellfire, Marian visions, doctrinal arguments, and one deeply creepy Infant of Prague statue. But the author knows all that, already, and it is to his credit he forged ahead to produce this suspensful theological roller-coaster ride of a graphic novel. The brilliance of John Zmirak's first graphic novel, The Grand Inquisitor, is precisely that its genre-bending, everything-but-the-sacristy-sink extravagance works so well. Uptight crypto-Jansenists will probably initially dismiss it as frivolous, beige Catholics as a Traddy screed, but those who actually read the text, and consider its elaborately-drawn pages for more than five seconds, will be rewarded. (Plus, the illustrations have all sorts of wonderful little surprises embedded within them--conclaves, Tridentine liturgies, Cardinal Mahony playing golf, and my favorite, the Infant of Prague in full armor.) The tale is simple, but all its permutations are profound. Sometime in the near future, a papal conclave drags on as the College of Cardinals finds itself at a deadlock. Tension mounts outside the Vatican walls. The liberals stage a walkout and hurl their scarlet robes to the crowd below in protest. The few remaining electors choose a complete unknown as the next pontiff, an African monk from a forgotten Traditionalist order. (Think Hadrian the Seventh, but with real saints and real sinners facing off rather than an empty conflict of aesthete poseurs and vulgar bureacrats). Unfortunately, one prince of the Church, possessing his own strange and alarming agenda, arranges a mix-up at the new pontiff's airport pickup. The vast bulk of the story deals with the confrontation between the cardinal--incidentally, a dead ringer for Teilhard de Chardin--and the simple priest, now imprisoned in the mental ward of a Roman hospital along with a dozen or so deranged papal claimants of a less legitimate nature. What happens next will decide the fate of the Church, and with it, the world. In the hands of nearly anyone else it might have turned into a clunkily-plotted Dan Brown novel, but instead it takes a wholly unexpected and thought-provoking turn. Indeed, it amazes me how quickly the reader is drawn into the story, even though it contains no car-chases or fantastical BOOMs! and ZAPs! but focuses instead on the claustrophobic struggle--sometimes spiritual, sometimes quite physical--between the African Carthusian and rightful pontiff-elect, his captor, and a mystical Eastern-Rite cardinal the villain has also imprisoned. All three are remarkably well-imagined and believable characters, wrestling with equally believ

"If you're already a fundamentalist Catholic, then this book will only reaffirm what you already believe." NO! The African Pope-elect starts out a fundamentalist, but undergoes a radical conversion in the course of his dialogue with the false progressive--not to any kind of progressivism, but to the mystical Christianity represented by the Cardinal of the Eastern Church. If you miss this, you miss the whole point of the book. Zmirak shows, brilliantly, I think, how false traditionalism and false progressivism share a common vision, which leaves out the gospel of divine love and mercy. Hope is held out that the progressive is not finally damned, because the God he refused to serve was not the true God, but the Accuser--in Hebrew, Satan. After all, he did not conspire against Catholicism for selfish reasons, as the reviewer claims, but precisely for the salvation of souls. Those of us who cling to either side of the sad debates of the last century are not ready for Zmirak's message. I pray that the new generations will be.

For those that are not Catholic, I would suggest you read this book as good fiction. Enjoy the excellent artwork. When the DaVinci Code was popular, I was told it's just good fiction, not dogmatic, read it as such. Well, the same should apply here. The Grand Inquisitor thankfully, has re-introduced me to how good graphic novels can be. Catholics and non-Catholics will enjoy the excellent storyline and art. Get the book.