FROM THE ARCHIVES:Novelist John Broderick reviewed two books, one on "bad popes", the other on bull-fighting, in this piece headlined "Papal Bulls". –
JOE JOYCE
IT MIGHT not appear on the face of it that the Popes of Rome had anything in common with the bull-fighters of Spain: but on reflection one begins to see that they share more characteristics than is generally supposed.
It is doubtful, of course, if the Papacy can be officially classified as a sport; but then, bull-fighting is not recognised by many people as a reputable game either. What cannot be denied is that they are both great institutions which give rise to violent passions. At the moment both are going through a crisis. The authority of the Papacy is being questioned by elements panting for what Mrs. Patrick Campbell called the deep, deep peace of the marriage bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise-longue; and bull-fighters are being driven off the pitch by soccer fans.
The analogy can be taken a few steps further. The Pope and the bull-fighter, strikingly and sometimes gorgeously attired, and surrounded by attendants only a little less so, are both ultimately at the moment of truth utterly and completely alone. Their respective roles are both heavily weighted with symbolism, not altogether dissimilar. Both are preoccupied with death and how it can be surmounted by skill, cunning or bravery: the one fighting for the life of the soul; the other courting death for the purpose of showing his complete disregard for it; since neither Pope nor bull-fighter can admit for a moment that death holds any fear for him if he abides by the rules of the game. In each case it is interesting to note that the adversary is horned.
Again, this all takes place in public. The Pope, representing a far greater and older institution, commands a much bigger audience, many of whom, like the aficionados, are consumed with religious fervour, and many more merely curious, hoping in a half-hearted sort of way that something spectacular will happen. This is more likely in Spain than in Rome.
And finally, behind the scenes in both arenas, there are similar intrigues, plots, plans, jealousies and violent partisanships whether the horned monster be wrested or not. He never is. There is an unending supply of young bulls ready to charge the scarlet cloak.
When the day dawns that the breed dies out, when the regalia and the implements of battle, crozier and estoque, are laid aside, both the Pope and matador will have had their chips.
It is, therefore, not altogether inappropriate that these two books should be lumped together in one review, with the warning that there is one important difference. It is possible that bull-fighting may be destroyed, bulls or no bulls, by the ineptitude of the men who practice it; but an institution which has survived the seven incumbents portrayed in Mr. Chamberlin’s book is clearly designed by providence to survive anything, as Cardinal Baronius, the first great papal historian, pointed out in the 16th century.
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