This ex-priest’s history of the gospels could unsettle the most faithful churchgoer

When James Carroll was a boy, lying on the floor watching television, he would glance up at his mother and ‘see her lips moving, only to glimpse the beads in her lap. I recall thinking that they slipped through her thumb and forefinger the way cartridges moved into machine guns’.

There was nothing unusual about this: in 1970s England, as well as 1950s America, most devout Catholic ladies carried a rosary in their handbag. If you walked into church while the Legion of Mary were at prayer, you’d be deafened by their Hail Marys. It was a competitive sport. Whoever prayed loudest and fastest — usually an Irish biddy with the gleam of the Taleban in her eye — could force the others to keep up with her frantic pace. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessedartthou… women… fruit of thy womb Jesus… Holy Mary, motherofGod, pray for us… [gasp for breath] now-
andatthehourofourdeath, Amen! Hail Mary…’ etc.