Thorn Birds Impales Itself on Catholic Values

September 15, 2009

Clarissa Caruso, Staff Reporter  

Filed under Opinions

He said, she said, he did what?!  Various soap operas and reality TV shows entangle people in a web of deception and moral downfalls, enticing viewers to come back for more.   Junior/Senior summer reading book, The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCulloch, has the same effect on its readers.  The forbidden love and desire concealed within the novel exposes its readers to scandal, much like a TV soap opera. 

However, unlike a soap, a novel urges the reader to ponder the contents, giving an extra dimension of thought and interaction to the story.  As students, we are taught to put ourselves in the place of the characters in order to more closely understand the text.  So the question is raised: Is The Thorn Birds the kind of material and experiences schools, especially Catholic schools, should be compelling its students to read?

The novel opens as a seemingly innocent book.  Meggie Cleary, who spends her days helping her mother, playing with her doll, and romping with her brothers, is revealed as the main character.  Throughout the novel, we see Meggie compromise her innocence and leave her morals behind in pursuit of desires for a man she can never have, a Catholic priest.  Not only does this novel vulgarly expose students to immoral situations, but it contains an underlying theme of maligning of the Catholic Church.

Although as teenagers in the United States, most students have been exposed to sex, either through the media or by other means, the Catholic school which we attend should not direct its students to read a novel whose pages are filled with scandal and lustful desire.  As an educator of the Catholic faith, Presentation should strive to teach the principles and morals set out by the Catholic Church.  Though teachers should always respect and allow students to voice their opinions, the school should not encourage students in actions or thoughts that are lustful, as they do by instructing students to read The Thorn Birds.  The Church teaches that all sex outside of marriage is wrong, yet in reading this novel we are desensitized to the scandal of the various relationships, making sex out of wedlock more acceptable to students.  Meggie’s daughter Justine is the perfect example of someone desensitized to scandal, having sex with a man simply for the experience.  Since the school’s mission is to teach its students gospel values, how is it that we were obligated to read McCulloch’s novel?

English department head, Mrs. Ponikvar, said the aim of summer reading is to encourage students to read.  Books are chosen on the basis of their level of entertainment and accessibility.   She also said that although the book is chosen, it does not have a “rubber stamp of approval.”

While the school is not giving its official approval, the effects of reading the novel are still the same.  However, in compelling students to read the novel, more students are exposed to it than if another book had been chosen.  What does it matter if the school does not give its approval, if it does not show disapproval?  There are thousands of other “page-turners” that would further a student’s interest in reading.  In fact, it would be more beneficial to a student’s formation as a person to read a wholesome book, than to be encouraged in reading a virtual soap-opera.

Throughout The Thorn Birds the Catholic Church is mentioned continually; however never in a positive light.  Rather, the novel portrays the Church as a group of cranky, greedy people who discriminate against the poor.  The reader is introduced to the Church through the nuns at the Cleary’s school in New Zealand.  It is quickly explained that the nuns beat the Cleary children, as well as other impoverished children for small offenses, while they turn a blind eye to children from more prosperous families.  Again we see this reiterated with Father Ralph, who is able to rise in church hierarchy because of the money he acquired for the Church.  Although this quest for power is true in some religious leaders, most do not aim to rise in esteem or possess a greed that causes them to ignore the poor.  In fact, religious leaders are called to help the poor, and there are many orders whose life’s work is to administer to the less fortunate.

One of the few religious leaders depicted as a good priest, although ambitious to gain power, fell into the heart of the novel’s scandal.  The whole premise for the romance in The Thorn Birds centers on the personal fall of Father Ralph, who breaks his vow of chastity several times throughout the novel.  McCulloch attacks the priest’s vow of celibacy through his actions and Meggie’s complaints of longing.  We are all aware that the Church is made of people and therefore has her faults.  There are indeed religious leaders who break their vows of chastity and poverty; yet is it necessary to “put us in bed” with the situations, causing students to lose their faith in Holy Orders and the mission of the Church because of a book their school compels them to read?  Presentation’s job as a Catholic School is to promote the Church, always aware of her problems, yet not tearing her down with scandals that one could find in gossip magazines.

By endorsing this novel, the school promotes immorality and maligns the Catholic Church by spreading the scandal to each student that graduates.  Is this what Presentation High School’s mission is?

 Email This Story        Print This Story      

Tags: summer reading