The Beast of Bethulia Park

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At the center of the novel are two men and two women. Fr. Calvin Baines is a young, earnest, and naïve priest who becomes embroiled in a quest, together with nurse, Emerald Essien, and journalist, Jenny Bradshaigh, to unmask a prominent and powerful doctor, Dr. Reinhard Klein. Klein, who is at one with the spirit of the Nazi doctors, is both talented and intelligent, but believes he is working for the common good when he kills the old people in his care at Bethulia Park Hospital. In a post-coital conversation with Dr. Octavia Tarleton, his partner in both adultery and murder, Klein says that what he is doing is merciful. Mercy, Klein says, “needs, like so much else, to be redefined into something you can actually believe in. It needs to be purified for our century.” Well ,this book is a remarkably good read. It engages from the beginning and difficult to put down. It is very well written and leaves you still thinking well after you've finished it.' Thanks, Anna W, for your five-star review of The Beast of Bethulia Park ( https://amzn.eu/d/5rZGsKc). Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic. The magazine is now reaching many UK parishes and its globals subscription base continues to rise. When teachers from the school went on strike last week in support of governors who were removed for supporting Green’s visit, there was more of the same – lots of interviews with angry union representatives and with Green himself (of course).

Book Review: The Beast of Bethulia Park - CMQ

Wars are easy to get into, but difficult to get out of. Moving aircraft carriers around is one thing, but… October 26, 2023 4 Cross Catholic Outreach’s Box of Joy is a gift for children living in abject povertySuch is Dr. Klein’s crass disregard for the dignity of the human person that we are not surprised to discover that he treats his own wife and children with the same crassness with which he treats the women he abuses and the patients he kills. Although he seems to be a good father to his two daughters, he tells his wife, when she tells him that she is pregnant, that he expects her to have an abortion should this child be another girl.

The Beast of Bethulia Park by Simon Caldwell | Waterstones

To that end Catholic journalist Simon P. Caldwell’s debut novel “The Beast of Bethulia Park” more than fits the bill for a holiday or beachtime read, featuring a young protagonist priest, a mysterious string of hospital deaths, a journalist juggling a very modern sort of relationship, and a couple of nefarious characters who may or may not be connected with a historical bit of 17th-century anti-papist terrorism.

By S.P. Caldwell

If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity! The young journalist is repelled by the way that the nurses are flirting with the dashing young doctor, forgetful of the fact that they are in a courtroom, “the little coquettes, joking and laughing with him as he settled into their midst, batting their eyelashes and giggling playfully as he held court, those closest to him leaning into him with their breasts.” She is repelled but she is also feeling an uncomfortable attraction and is embarrassed when Klein glances up and catches her staring at him. However, are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us. SINCE Simon James Green, the homosexual author of ‘teen fiction’ was prevented from promoting his latest book at a Catholic secondary school, he has been depicted as a victim, a tragic and misunderstood defender of the rights of LGBT+ children.

Elizabeth Scalia - OSV News

Like all good stories this brilliantly crafted debut novel is engaging and thought provoking. It takes a story to reveal truths about the human condition that cannot be revealed in any other way, we recognise ourselves in the great ones which is why they stand the test of time. Not only is this book hard to put down, but you’ll be thinking about it long after. This writer is certainly one to watch." Beyond a portrayal of contemporary Britain shot through with literary and historical references, Caldwell manages to depict the moral world in which Catholics and non-Catholics find themselves. It is habitat St. John Paul II famously identified in Evangelium Vitae as a “culture of death” built on a “veritable structure of sin.” Beyond a portrayal of contemporary Britain shot through with literary and historical references, Caldwell also manages to depict the moral world in which both Catholics and non-Catholics find themselves. It is habitat that St. John Paul II famously identified in Evangelium Vitae as a “culture of death” built on a “veritable structure of sin.”It is surely ironic that TCWfeels unable to print the offensive material which the school considered to be entirely appropriate for children aged 12 upwards. If you wish, you can read it in the archdiocesan press release here. The characters of the novel fumble their way in the dark, trying to discern the way forward, questioning themselves. Things are off-kilter, but they aren’t quite sure why. In a speech that Fleabag’s vicar could only dream of, Father Baines tells Emerald: “We’d end up like Edward and Mrs Simpson, you and I. You might think you’d be getting a good man but you’d lament losing the man you once admired and were attracted to… You’d lose respect for me and you’d end up despising me, and I might resent you for taking me away from my priestly ministry.” The book, due to published by Gracewing later this month, has been described as a “wonderful” psychological thriller underpinned by Catholic themes. It tells the story of a young and idealist priest who is pitched into a dark world of sexual obsession, danger and death when he becomes embroiled in a campaign to unmask a murderous doctor.

Merely Catholic with Simon Caldwell: The Beast of Bethulia Park

In brief and in sum, The Beast of Bethulia Park is a powerful fictional exposé of the culture of death. It lifts the lid on those who employ euphemisms to sugarcoat the killing and culling of innocent people, whether it be the reduction of the unborn child to the status of the depersonalized fetus or whether it be the disguising of the culling of the old and unwanted with cozy-sounding words like euthanasia. There is, in fact, quite a lot of darkness in “The Beast of Bethulia Park,” and at times it feels a little like the author has attempted to do too much, particularly when an older priest — a Jesuit, no less — bounces into the story to consider the problem of spiritual oppression, advises Baines to read Adolphe Tanquerey, Jérôme Ribet and other heavy-duty theological mystics and then more or less bounces out, leaving the reader a bit breathless. Church, Literary Converts, Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G.K. Chesterton, Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile, Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc, and Further Up & Further In: Understanding Narnia. Visit his Set in present-day England, the novel is both a wild romp that includes fistfights, love interests, and the pursuit of a pair of murderous doctors, and a careful study of human agents navigating the present-day moral landscape. Catholic journalist and author Simon Caldwell joins Anna Whitehead on air. Simon is the author of "The Beast of Bethulia Park", described as a "gripping psychological novel with Catholic themes". He explores the central themes and characters of the novel, and reflects in the second half of the episode on Catholic literature in general, and the role of Catholic novel in the 21st Century.An equally complex character is Father Baines. The young hospital chaplain struggles to master his desire for something more than friendship with Emerald, the nurse aiding his crusade for truth alongside Jenny. It is a humanising portrait of a genuinely devout individual trying, and largely succeeding, in living up to his religious principles surrounding sex and relationships, a tale that few English novels published this side of the sexual revolution have told well. If you can’t make it, we will be recording the event which will be available after the day on our John Bradburne Memorial Society YouTube channel. The link to the past that bookends this modern-day tale is quite intriguing, but Catholic mystery devotees will likely get caught up in the all-too-timely moral quagmire of euthanasia upon which this story gallops along. We’re not talking about assisted-suicide, which is a fraught-enough issue, but characters who take real joy in deciding what a human life ought to be, and who gets to live it. At the centre are two men and two women. Fr. Calvin Baines is a young, earnest and naïve priest who becomes embroiled in a quest, together with nurse Emerald Essien and journalist Jenny Bradshaigh to unmask a prominent and powerful doctor, Dr. Reinhard Klein. Klein, at one with the spirit of the Nazi doctors, is both talented and intelligent, but believes he is working for the common good when he kills old people in his care at Bethulia Park Hospital. In a post-coital conversation with Dr. Octavia Tarleton, his partner in adultery and murder, Klein says what he is doing is merciful. Mercy, Klein says, “needs, like so much else, to be redefined into something you can actually believe in. It needs to be purified for our century.” Emerald finds Fr. Baines in the confessional, and she asks him, “So which is worse? Adultery, drug abuse, or keeping quiet when you see others kill? You’d think being an accessory to murder is the easiest thing to avoid. But not in my job it ain’t. Does it make me a coward if I just carry on regardless? Is cowardice a sin? Just how bad am I?”