A comedy-thriller about the Reformation

A comedy-thriller about the Reformation August 18, 2016

You have GOT to read The Relic Master, a novel by Christopher Buckley (son of conservative icon William F. Buckley).  It’s about a dealer in sacred relics (bones of the saints, artifacts from Bible stories, etc.) that, when venerated, were thought to provide time-off from purgatory.  The story takes place in the time of Martin Luther.  The cast of characters is a who’s-who of Reformation history.  Buckley, a noted satirist, has written a novel that is funny, exciting, and true to history.  His scathing portrait of the religious corruption and decadence of the time leaves no doubt that Luther, in his effort to reform the Church and recover authentic Christianity, is the good guy.

Dismas is the relic supplier for both Frederick the Wise of Saxony and Archbishop Albert of Mainz.  Some theses posted on a church door by a friar who teaches in Frederic’s university start to make waves, with Frederic protecting him and Albert trying to burn him at the stake.  Dismas, caught in the middle with his livelihood threatened, sees Luther’s point, but gets caught up in a relic forgery scam, aided by his side-kick, the great artist Albrecht Dürer.  The plot thickens, and their plot thickens, leading to a mad-cap scheme to steal the Shroud of Turin.

Accompanied by three brutish mercenaries and a female apprentice of Paracelsus (who, Buckley informs us, did for medicine what Luther did for religion), the group heads for Italy, where they have dealings with the Machiavellian Lorenzo de Medici (“Machiavellian” because he was the patron of Machiavelli), and the minions of his uncle, Pope Leo X.

Suffice it to say that things get really complicated, and the novel becomes almost impossible to put down.  (Caution: The book has some bad language, though few other negative elements.)

The action of a storyline makes little difference if the characters don’t come alive.  These do, and Buckley, who includes a bibliography of his sources, tries to keep them authentic.

Frederick the Wise comes across as a man of integrity, compassion, and, well, wisdom.  (Buckley lists as a source Sam Wellman’s excellent biography of Frederick, published by Concordia Publishing House.)  Albert of Mainz is pretty much the opposite of all of that, a corrupt, cruel, and foolish profiteer from indulgences.

Albrecht Dürer is brilliantly talented, witty, and vain.  He too has moral integrity–being faithful to his rather shrewish wife, holding the corruption he sees in church and society in contempt, and showing loyalty to his friends–and he is an unabashed supporter of Martin Luther.

The reformer himself looms in the background, but we meet Spalatin, Frederick’s advisor and Luther’s friend, and the indulgence peddler, Johann Tetzel.  The patron of this blog, Lucas Cranach, has a minor role, and his seal–the dragon with a ring, the logo of this blog–becomes a plot point.

Dismas, for all his participation in a religious scam, becomes a sympathetic character.  Unlike many of his colleagues, he tries to deal only in authentic relics, and it’s only his conflict with Albert of Mainz, who tortures him, that gets him into trouble.  Throughout, he is good-hearted and increasingly aware of the need for reformation.  We learn that he is later buried outside a Lutheran church.

Buckley has the reputation as a take-no-prisoners satirist, hitting all sides in his novels about the corporate world (Thank You for Smoking) and Washington lobbyists (They Eat Puppies, Don’t They?).  But here, he saves his barbs for the worldly clerics.  Luther and those on the side of the Reformation are unscathed, and, in fact, constitute the moral center of the book.

Furthermore, Buckley is a Catholic.  His father was a devout Catholic.  He describes himself not only as a “lapsed” Catholic but as a “collapsed Catholic.”  But that he takes the Reformation side is pretty remarkable.  What this shows, though, is that anyone who undertakes an in depth study of Europe in the 16th century, with its Medici Popes, indulgence salesmen, and ecclesiastical con artists, will generally come to the conclusion that, though they may disagree with his theology, when it comes to the need for a reformation in the church, Luther was right.

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