It was a pleasure to spend an hour yesterday talking to Radio Maria England about The Beast of Bethulia Park ( amzn.eu/d/axOkard) and Catholic literature generally. In case you missed it and want to listen to the broadcast, here it is: https://lnkd.in/eJBXpy4J Set in present-day England, the novel is both a wild romp that includes fistfights, love interests, and the pursuit of a pair of murderous doctors, and a careful study of human agents navigating the present-day moral landscape. At the center of the novel are two men and two women. Fr. Calvin Baines is a young, earnest, and naïve priest who becomes embroiled in a quest, together with nurse, Emerald Essien, and journalist, Jenny Bradshaigh, to unmask a prominent and powerful doctor, Dr. Reinhard Klein. Klein, who is at one with the spirit of the Nazi doctors, is both talented and intelligent, but believes he is working for the common good when he kills the old people in his care at Bethulia Park Hospital. In a post-coital conversation with Dr. Octavia Tarleton, his partner in both adultery and murder, Klein says that what he is doing is merciful. Mercy, Klein says, “needs, like so much else, to be redefined into something you can actually believe in. It needs to be purified for our century.”

The Beast of Bethulia Park by Simon Caldwell | Waterstones

Caldwell began his career on local newspapers and then spent over 10 years at the Daily Mail foreign desk. He brings a lively pacing to his first novel that speaks to those years of producing copy. At times his handling of the characters and the transitions between scenes feels a bit clumsy, but that is small criticism. We can only hope that there will soon be another Fr. Baines book to grab off the shelf when next passing through the airport. Canadian Catholic novelist Randy Boyagoda spoke of wanting to write his novels in the “here and now.” Caldwell manages that, placing his characters firmly in the here and now Britain of gamers, pornography, Tesco grocery stores and the NHS.

This novel aptly summarises the grisly reality of euthanasia beyond public debates about “compassion” and “dignity”. On this earth and Caldwell’s fictional one, the beasts are roaming far beyond Bethulia Park. Beyond a portrayal of contemporary Britain shot through with literary and historical references, Caldwell also manages to depict the moral world in which both Catholics and non-Catholics find themselves. It is habitat that St. John Paul II famously identified in Evangelium Vitae as a “culture of death” built on a “veritable structure of sin.” The archdiocese is, without any doubt, behaving responsibly in protecting the children in its schools from explicit descriptions of sexual, predominantly homosexual, activity. It has a legal obligation to do so. It must uphold the moral and theological precepts of the Catholic Church, which has always taught that sexual intercourse outside marriage between a man and a woman is sinful. It is what it exists to do under its status as a charity. It has behaved entirely as any independent observer would have expected. Need cheering up? Then get down to the Campbell Room of St John's Church, Standishgate, Wigan, on Friday June 9 where from 7pm I'll be speaking for 45 minutes about 'the 21st century Catholic novel' - and a bit about my own debut novel, The Beast of Bethulia Park ( https://amzn.eu/d/6CYOyvb). Q&A and refreshments to follow. All are welcome.

The Beast of Bethulia Park”: A Catholic tale for summer “The Beast of Bethulia Park”: A Catholic tale for summer

Dr Ashenden speaks to S.P. Caldwell about some of his characters and they discuss literary inspirations and writing style. Caldwell also reads exclusively from the book for the first time in public. The link to the past that bookends this modern-day tale is quite intriguing, but Catholic mystery devotees will likely get caught up in the all-too-timely moral quagmire of euthanasia upon which this story gallops along. We’re not talking about assisted-suicide, which is a fraught-enough issue, but characters who take real joy in deciding what a human life ought to be, and who gets to live it. Green likes to present himself in this way.It is how he sees himself.In a recent interview with the Guardian, he brushed off objections to the sexually explicit language in his children’s books as ‘a convenient excuse for homophobia’. The charity dinner will be a lavish affair, with an evening of inspirational talks from esteemed international and national speakers, entertainment, as well as a three course meal. At the centre are two men and two women. Fr. Calvin Baines is a young, earnest and naïve priest who becomes embroiled in a quest, together with nurse Emerald Essien and journalist Jenny Bradshaigh to unmask a prominent and powerful doctor, Dr. Reinhard Klein. Klein, at one with the spirit of the Nazi doctors, is both talented and intelligent, but believes he is working for the common good when he kills old people in his care at Bethulia Park Hospital. In a post-coital conversation with Dr. Octavia Tarleton, his partner in adultery and murder, Klein says what he is doing is merciful. Mercy, Klein says, “needs, like so much else, to be redefined into something you can actually believe in. It needs to be purified for our century.”Her deeply traumatic past and thirst for vigilante justice aside, Emerald is the closest thing the novel has to a stand-in character for a general audience. Like many Brits, she pokes fun at faith – especially Christianity – but is not openly hostile to it. Entering Father Baines’ parish church, she undergoes a sublime-like experience that she does not quite have the vocabulary to fringe. “She was not touched by a sense of history like she had been at the well in North Wales. There was something more than that. There was something alive within that church, something present but unseen, something too beautiful to put into words, something ineffable, something holy – something like a burning bush.” The Tafida Raqeeb Foundation (TRF) was formally launched on 22 March 2022 in London, United Kingdom. The Foundation believes that every child deserves a chance to live after any suffering from any form of neurological condition. The Foundation has been providing vital support to families when support is required. The Foundation aims to support these children and will offer hope to as many of these children as possible and will bring together new treatments and rehabilitation facilities which are currently available in other countries but which are not available in the UK. Since we need to be exact with the use of words and that it is now radically inclusive reflecting and… I'll be on Radio Maria England's Just Life programme ( https://lnkd.in/eqVqabkN) to talk about The Beast of Bethulia Park ( https://amzn.eu/d/axOkard) and the '21st century Catholic novel' for an hour from 10am on Friday June 16. The programme will also feature some music mentioned in the book - so expect a bit of John Lennon and Glen Campbell.