I find George Bernanos’ classic novel, “The Diary of a Country Priest,” an unsatisfying tale that incarnates Bernanos’ own bleak vision of life, whereas Francis Kilvert’s diaries are delightful, and the real incarnation of a life of faith and service in the countryside.

Francis Kilvert

In 1979, I went to study theology at Oxford with the desire to be an Anglican priest in a country parish somewhere in England. I had become an Anglican at college and visited the UK a couple of times and got it into my head that I could be a country parson like dear old George Herbert, who lived in a tiny village, worshipped in an ancient church, lived in a big rectory house with climbing roses, ministered to the poor people, and wrote poems.

One day during my years of study, I loitered in the lobby of Pusey House and picked up a book I thought would fertilize and fortify my dream of being a country priest. It was George Bernanos’ classic novel, The Diary of a Country Priest. Those who have read the book will understand that it was rather a disappointment. I was anticipating a French George Herbert. I got a very French George Bernanos.

The grim story of an insecure young priest’s attempts to break through the indifference, insolence, and arrogance of his flock did not whet my appetite for rural ministry. Bernanos’ hero is not only burdened by the stodgy apathy of the villagers, but he also carries the load of abject poverty, the squalor of the village, and his own ill health. There’s more: He’s oppressively introspective, neurotic, insecure, and he has stomach cancer. The poor young curé is constantly belly aching—literally.

Needless to say, Bernanos’ novel did not win a prime place on my bookshelves. Nevertheless, when Ignatius Press published a new and more complete translation earlier this year, I thought I would give it a another try. After all, forty years have passed since my first, immature attempt to appreciate the book. Since then I went through my own experience of being a country priest, quit that, became a Catholic, and then a Catholic priest myself. Surely now I would be able to sympathize a bit better with the poor, young Curé d’Ambricourt.

It was not to be. I did have a better appreciation of the theological discourses and the spiritual struggles of the young priest, but I still found the relentless introspection, pessimism, and the particularly French glorification of suffering to be tiresome. Yes, yes, I know suffering takes us closer to Our Lord’s passion, and self-abnegation is part of the Christian calling, but it is Bernanos’ romanticization of the suffering that is so wearisome. One wants to shake the lad out of it and say, “Come now, get a life. I know things can be grim, but pull yourself together. There is Good Friday, but there is also Easter morning.” To be fair there are glimmers in the gloom. The young priest does, from time to time, glimpse the glory. The one scene in the book that brings some joy is one in which the poor chap is taken for a motorcycle ride by another fellow, and for a brief moment there is happiness not only in the motorcycle ride, but also a break in his unrelenting loneliness when he, for a pathetic moment, finds a friend.

It is worth remembering that The Diary of a Country Priest is a novel—not an actual diary, and as such it seems to me that Bernanos has totally over-dramatized the young priest’s predicament. The main conflict in the story is the spiritual struggle of Madmoiselle Chantal—the teenage daughter of the local landowner, and the strangled life of her unhappy mother, the Comtessa. The young priest interacts with both of them, but the level of their spiritual interest and self-awareness seems exaggerated. Bernanos imposes on them a level of spiritual consciousness and concern that does not ring true if they are as blasé and indifferent to the spiritual life as he believes. It is as if Bernanos has created these fictional scenes—as well as the long conversations with the curé’s mentors in order to express and outline his own spiritual agonies and ecstasies.

As a refreshment and a remedy, I turn to a real diary of a country priest. On one of my visits to England I was able to track down a rare copy of all three volumes of the diaries of Francis Kilvert.  I have written previously in these pages about country priests, but it is worth comparing and contrasting Francis Kilvert and the Curé d’Ambricourt in more depth.

Kilvert died in 1879 in his rectory in the village of Bredwardine. Bernanos’ protagonist lives and dies in the 1930s in rural France. One man is English, the other French. The first a Protestant minister of the Church of England, the second a Catholic priest. Were their lives so very different?

Francis Kilvert was a simple, young Christian minister serving people much like Bernanos’ hero. In the hill country of England’s border with Wales he also ministered to dirt poor farmers, as well as to landed gentry and fellow clergy. Like the Curé d’Ambricourt, Kilvert dealt with the lust, violence, despair, pride, vanity, and indifference of his flock. Both men come across as good and innocent if somewhat naive. Kilvert, like the curé, coped with personal loss, disappointment and like the curé, died young.

But Kilvert’s diary is a journal of faith and confidence written with a clear eye and a certain buoyancy of spirit. Kilvert loves life and loves his people. He revels in the beauties of the countryside and writes with a Wordsworthian delight in the details of nature. He displays a similar delight and simple curiosity in the lives of his people—accepting them and caring for them without judgement or excessive, neurotic concern for their souls. The curé famously concludes, “All is grace.” Kilvert lives it out with joy.

Kilvert was a traveler and an adventurer. I like to think he could have been friends with the morose Frenchman. Yes! Francis Kilvert would have been the young soldier who took the curé for that joyful motorcycle ride and then taken him for a very good dinner.

At the end of the day, the main difference in the two diaries is that Bernanos’ book is a fictional tale that incarnates Bernanos’ own bleak vision of life, whereas Kilvert’s delightful diaries are not fiction, but the real incarnation of a life of faith and service in the countryside.

Ignatius Press new (and superior) translation of Bernanos’ novel can be found here. William Plomer’s single volume edition of Kilvert’s Diary is the only edition popularly available. It can be found here. Fr Longenecker’s autobiography, There and Back Again is available on his website dwightlongenecker.com.

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The image of Francis Kilvert (taken in the 1870s) is in the public domain courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The featured, uploaded by Philip Halling, is “Country road leading to houses.” This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.