Monsignor Quixote

“The Lord is my shepherd.” But if we are sheep why in heaven’s name should we trust our shepherd? He’s going to guard us from wolves all right, oh yes, but only so that he can sell us later to the butcher.’

‘But to become a Trappist?’ ‘I think, you know, professor, that when one has to jump, it’s so much safer to jump into deep water.’ ‘And you don’t regret …?’ ‘Professor, there are always plenty of things to regret. Regrets are part of life. One can’t escape regrets even in a twelfth-century monastery. Can you escape from them in the University of No

‘After all that good wine,’ Father Quixote said, ‘we shall sleep well wherever we are.’ ‘I shan’t sleep a wink.’ ‘She is one of your people.’ ‘What on earth do you mean?’ ‘The poor.’ He added quickly, ‘Of course they are my people too.’

‘I don’t understand. A contraceptive? But what can you do with a thing that size?’ ‘It wouldn’t have been that size if you hadn’t blown it up.’

‘There’s only one prayer we need say for anyone dead.’ ‘So you’d say it for Stalin?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘And for Hitler?’ ‘There are degrees of evil, Sancho – and of good. We can try to discriminate between the living, but with the dead we can’t discriminate. They all have the same need of our prayer.’

‘Oh, the English,’ Sancho said, ‘forget the English – they never conform to any rules, not even of economics.

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Someone had painted a hammer and sickle crudely in red upon the crumbling stone. ‘I would have preferred a cross,’ Father Quixote said, ‘to eat under.’ ‘What does it matter? The taste of the cheese will not be affected by cross or hammer. Besides, is there much difference between the two? They are both protests against injustice.’ ‘But the results

he indulged himself in a waking dream of how their journey would go on and on – the dream of a deepening friendship and a profounder understanding, of a reconciliation even between their disparate faiths.