Paul Burke's Father Frank

This is a good one, I enjoy it...
honest!!!
hehehehe

Novel Title : Father Frank

Author : Paul Burke

Synopsis

Francis Dempsey or ‘Frank’ was a little boy who had big curiosity about the existence of God. But he still did everything that common Catholic people did, like came to the church to pray, make confession, baptized, and sang religious song.

When he was 18 years old, he did a test for joining Oxford University; he got bad result in his university examination. Fortunately, the chance to go to university arose. He could study in Oxford University but he had to study Theology. Three years later, again he faced a career choice. In fact, a pattern started to emerge Frank was clearly looking for options, which delayed having to go out and work. He chose to study a subject that did not interest him to avoid going out to work and now, armed with a degree from one of the countries top universities, Frank decided to go into a seminary to spend six years training to become a priest.

Frank was not a good priest, but he was a fantastic one. Everyone loved him, people would do anything for him. One member of his congregation thought so much of Frank that he bequeathed his black cab to him because he feared that Frank might be injured riding his motorbike.

Frank still did not believe in God but he did believe in the goodness of people and he wanted to make their lives happier. He discovered that the currently unused and dilapidated church hall had bags of potential and enlisted the help of the parishioners to convert it into a social club. The club would be run by volunteers and any profits would go to charity. Frank did not do other work for charity. Using his cab to travel round London, he often had people climbed in the back while at traffic lights. He always explained that he was not a licensed black cabbie but that he would happily drive them to their required destination if they would make a donation to the church. It was in this way that Father Dempsey meets Sarah Mitchell, a gorgeous advertising executive. The two were instantly attracted to one another and engineered all kinds of reasons to meet up. But, Nothing romantic or sexual can happened between them - as a Catholic priest, Frank had committed himself to a life of celibacy. Even he did love to his job, but he wanted to continue his life with Sarah. Therefore, he decided to marry Sarah and retired from his job as a priest.

Personal Response

In my opinion, nothing special in the plot; it is general, simple and easy to understand. What I stress in the novel here is the main character of the novel itself. The main character here in the novel, Francis Dempsey or Frank, has special and unusual character and habit. He had curiosity about the existence of god, means he doubts that the god is exist or not, but he still did his religion’s holly activity like came to the church to pray, make confession, baptized, and sang religious song. I honestly confuse about how to consider this person, was he really a catholic? But he doubted the existence of his religion’s god. Or was he an atheist? But he did do his religion’s activity.

My wonder increased when I read the next part of the story that he became a priest. I am confused why Frank, the person who doubted the god became a priest. As I know, in catholic religion, a priest is someone who is expert in the religion problems; he has to know everything about his religion. And how Frank could become an expert in his religion while he himself wondered about the existence of his religion’s god.

I also stress the moral message in the novel. The moral message here is although Frank still did not believe in God, he did believe in the goodness of people and he wanted to make their lives happier. This moral message is the good one in my opinion, because what the message here is there is the good side behind the bad side.

Yana Muhammad Fauzi

060751

English Literature B 06