MALVOLIO

"Malvolio," Italian word  for “bearer of ill-will.”

Father Frank Julian Gelli, Princess Diana’s favourite priest and confessor in Kensington, part of London, reports that a woman parishioner recently so labeled him because he joined in a campaign to oppose proliferation of strip-clubs in the queen’s neighborhoods in Britain’s capital.

Father Frank quotes William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”:

“Does thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

Father Frank says the parishioner “accused me of encouraging moves towards setting up a ghetto-like caliphate in East London. Of supporting the bolshie Respect MP [Member of Parliament’] ‘Gorgious George’ Galloway. Not fair. A mini-apologia pro vita mea is in order.

“First, etymology ... Malvolio’s character wears his mean heart on his sleeve. In the play, Olivia says that he is ‘sick of self-love’. And Maria adds that this prig and self-important ass is ‘a time-pleaser’. When Malvolio falls into the trap of believing the lady Olivia is in love with him, he starts behaving as a status-hungry and power-seeking suitor. So he is unmasked as a hypocrite and fraud. And his enemies' triumph over him is cruel indeed.

“He is a caricature, of course. Of a certain type of ‘puritan’ or intensely religious person. Maybe today he’d be a Wahabi, who knows? But a caricature is just that. Oliver Cromwell and John Milton were puritans. Mighty and true ones. No one would judge them phoneys. Cromwell’s powerful statue outside Parliament today shows him with the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other. Sums it all up, eh? Even a fun-loving Thespian like the Bard would never confuse Cromwell with Malvolio. Puritan theology isn’t quite the priest’s pigeon – cakes and ale are not sinful in his book – but that doesn’t mean the puritan programme was wholly contemptible.

“Second, strip joints. Bit of autobiography. Never been in one in my life. Not because the priest is particularly virtuous -- just it does not appeal. Anymore than a football match does. Or a cello performance. Thus, it is no merit of mine to have abstained from what does not grab me. I frankly admit to that. This matters because following Christ means self-denial.

“Geddit? Hence, if it is true that Victorian PM Gladstone secretly lusted after street-walkers, it would stand him very highly in Paradise to have refused their embraces. ‘Father Frank, how good of you to have overcome your penchant for the oldest profession. It gets you right to the front stalls of the choir of Heaven’ – St Peter, the celestial gate-keeper, won’t ever say that to me, no way.

“Third, is it obscurantist to oppose the spread of night clubs and strip joints in a community? Feminists would argue that strip clubs and lap-dancing places affront and degrade the dignity of women. Nobody has ever called the priest a feminist, but I agree with the sisters here.

“However, Persephone, my dear friend, countered: ‘If some women freely decide that they wish to display their nude bodies in a night club, then it is for them alone to decide. Moral decisions must come from inside a person and not be imposed on them from the outside.

“I replied that I am, like her, a Christian and that a biblical ethics and strip-tease are uneasy bedfellows (eh?). St Paul’s fulminations against sexual immorality come to mind. ‘I don’t always agree with St Paul’ Persephone shot back. ‘I’d rather be ‘wrong’ with St Paul than ‘right’ with the strip-joint brigade’, I meekly ventured.

“That got me a withering look. She insisted that a change of life-style should be the result of inner transformation, education and free choice, not compelled by anyone. I pointed to the state-sponsored campaigns against smoking, the exclusion of smokers from public places. Well, we agreed to disagree.

“Not all women who strip-tease in a night club are exploited or forced to do so, sure. Some may enjoy it, or fancy the money or both. A libertarian, free-market argument would support their choice. Indeed, libertarianism would also favour legalising brothels.

“However, the local community has its rightful claims, too. Concerns about the sleaze and unsavoury atmosphere generated by the ‘sex industry’, for instance. And such local voices may include faith voices, why not? Muslims, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, you name it. Such people won’t ape Malvolio’s self-righteous spite.

“Muslims enjoy their cakes, and Christians and Jews their cakes, plus ale. Who’s better off, huh? But religious believers have families and naturally care for the environment in which their kids will grow up. Not many of us wish our children to grow up in the streets of Soho.

“Not that children are angels. But that’s for another tant. Nothing to do with bringing about that tiresome bogey, the caliphate.

“Well and good. Yet, two queries: How on earth did the identification of religion with being a long-faced bore arise? The Pharisees took a dim view of Christ. They asked the disciples: ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ (St Matthew 9:12)

“The gospels aver that the saviour of the world was convivial. He went to parties, drank and rubbed shoulders with all sorts of dubious people. Amongst them, one woman of ill-repute. What’s more, Jesus, as lord of the sabbath, could override ritual rules and regulations. ‘The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath”, he decreed. Can’t quite figure Malvolio saying ‘Amen’ to that.

“However, dislike of Puritanism should not induce the opposite mistake.

“Frequently, today’s libertines have the gall of invoking Christ to justify their wicked ways. A very liberal tutor of mine when at theological college, an exponent of the pestilent and unethical ‘situation ethics’, held seminars in which he suggested that Jesus would have approved of one-night stands, providing it was done ‘in a loving spirit’.

“Perhaps he was a bit confused about the meaning of Christian love –- in the Gospels Jesus never uses the Greek word ‘Eros’, not even once.

“I’ll be revenged on the pack of you.’ Those are Malvolio’s last words in the Twelfth Night. Posthumously, he was. In 1642, the Puritans closed all the London theatres. The 1660 Restoration brought them back. Good. We do want our cakes and ale. Strip joints, no.”

This is not syruppy sentimental stuff. It goes right to the heart of true values held dear from scripture going back centuries.

Way to go, Father Frank. Sic semper tyrannus.