The Red Priest

About the book

Father Augustine Card is a very advanced Anglo-Catholic clergyman described by the press as 'The Red Priest'. This is partly because of the Russian clerics whose visits to his church were a newspaper sensation, and partly because in his sermons Father Card compares the sermon on the Mount to Russian communism. Some of the more fashionable of his congregation leave the church; but one, a beautiful young woman, remains, and eventually marries the vicar.

Having spent his days at university as a successful boxer, Father Card does not lay down the gloves after being ordained. His fondness for boxing ends in tragedy. He loses his church and goes with his holiness and his tragedy, into the polar regions.

Father Card had attempted to build up a new kind of Christianity in his West-End church. He falls foul of one of his lieutenants, and comes crashing down. The psychology of this ambitious priest, thwarted by his violent and domineering nature, is the story which is worked out in this dramatic tale.

The girl who shares Augustine Card's stormy life is as strongminded as she is beautiful. In the marriage there is a dark antagonism between these two natures, both self-willed and passionate. But, in the tragic sequel, the wife stands by the husband, in adversity their love manifesting itself with paradoxical ardour.