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| Fr. Frank Campo |
If you ever wondered what your parish priest’s life is like,
you’ll get your answer in The Edge of Sadness, by Edwin O’Connor. The major character is Father Hugh Kennedy,
the pastor of an old, tired, and run-down parish. Father Kennedy feels comfortable there. It suits him.
Dinner with the Carmody’s, is the first time the reader
meets the patriarch of this clan, Charlie.
Father Kennedy is one of the Carmody’s family. His best friends growing up were John and
Helen Carmody. John is a fellow priest
and still Hugh Kennedy’s best friend.
Like all families, Hugh and the Carmody’s lives are interwoven, and
complicated.
We learn as we read that Hugh is a recovering
alcoholic. Everyone is rooting for him,
yet watchful for slip ups. Fr. Kennedy
not only overcame his addiction, we see him mature as a priest. He grows to love his parish, his vocation, and his present life.
In The Edge of Sadness, the reader learns of not only
Fr. Kennedy’s struggles, but other priests, as well. Issues of the parish, pain-in-the-neck
parishioners, the associate priests, and the competition among the clergy, the
relationship between the bishop and his priests, and family pressures, are all
met in this novel.
Although the book’s date is 1961, it still seems
current. It is timeless because the
faith is the same. We still have priests
that struggle and fall. Catholics still
support their priests and pray for them.
The support of love ones, and of course, that includes the family
priest, is what our faith is all about.
