Such Is My Beloved

Such Is My Beloved, a novel by Morley Callaghan (Toronto and New York, 1934) is, on the surface, the story of an idealistic young Catholic priest's failure to help 2 prostitutes he befriends. Stephen Dowling's relationship with the prostitutes is condemned by his rich, sanctimonious parishioners and his bishop; Dowling's anguish over the girls' fate drives him mad, and the novel closes on his realization of the purely Christian love he bears for them and for humanity. But the novel's apparent simplicity becomes the means to a symbolic exploration of Dowling's faith, as set against the various secular, socioeconomic and political creeds of the time. Such Is My Beloved has been translated into French as Telle est ma bien-aimée (Montréal, 1974).