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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

Diary of a Country Priest

Matthew: I think the priest's stomach is fallen nature. He has this ailment through his parents, not through his own fault. It's what kills him in the end. It prevents him from doing what he wants to do.

Ernie: His diet is also symbolic.

Matthew: All he can eat is bread and wine; that's what nourishes his nature.

Ernie: I loved his description of his stomach as "capricious." It's like the capricious human condition. Though we try to attain virtue, we sin again and again.

Matthew: Why does the doctor's suicide weigh on him?

Ernie: He's confronted with the paradox of a good man going to hell. On paper, here's a man who will suffer eternal perdition. But he knows the innate goodness of the doctor.

Matthew: I thought back to when the doctor said, "You and I are cut from the same cloth. We have dog's eyes--faithful eyes." Torcy says to him, "He believed right up to the end that his patients would come back." He had faith that his prosperity would return, but it didn't, and he despaired. That scared the priest, because he was hanging on by faith.

Ernie: He saw a reflection of himself and his ministry in the doctor and the doctor's practice.

--Ernie Grimm and Matthew Lickona