PRIESTS DE LA RESISTANCE!

THE LOOSE CANONS WHO FOUGHT FASCISM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

FERGUS BUTLER-GALLIE

Oneworld, 273pp, £12.99

What would a Christian go to the stake for? Would it be to protect fellow human beings from persecution, whatever their faith or race? As Ysenda Maxtone Graham wrote in the Times, ‘some of the most unlikely people turn out to be saints and martyrs’, and warned the reader to ‘brace yourself for 250 pages of unbelievable goodness in the face of unbelievable evil’.

Author of the hilarious A Field Guide to the English Clergy, ButlerGallie’s natural voice is one of comedy, relishing human foibles in a cleric, and as Maxtone Graham noted, it ‘requires a skilled writer to

walk this tragicomic tightrope’. ‘He loves a jolly, fat priest who guzzles his food and drink, or a nun who chain-smokes, and he celebrates these types here,’ she continued, ‘but the next thing you know, they’re dying at Auschwitz or being shot in a ditch.’

Marcus Berkmann in the Spectator praised ‘a fascinating and entirely benign book, imbued with a surprisingly muscular Christianity’. Julian Coman in the Guardian wrote that this ‘hugely enjoyable if slightly eccentric account of clerical heroism in the face of evil’ was ‘timely and uplifting’ at a time when ‘hateful, divisive and xenophobic politics are being pursued in parts of Europe in the name of defending “Christian culture”.’ Paul Simon in the Morning Star agreed it was ‘timely’ and set a fine example.

John Arnold in the Church Times applauded ‘this splendid collection of 15 pen-portraits of Christians who in the encounter with Fascism knew the difference between right and wrong and were prepared to act on it ... all shared an unwavering belief in the common humanity of all humankind in Christ’.