Catholicism vs. Protestantism Theme Analysis

Religion heavily underpins the characters’ motivations in “Grace”—in order to save their friend Tom Kernan from spiraling into alcohol abuse, Jack Power, Martin Cunningham, and Mr. M’Coy decide to take him to a church retreat where he will hopefully find God and reform his ways. However, Christianity in “Grace” is strictly divided into two strains of belief: Catholicism and Protestantism. On a broader scale, the opposition between these two belief systems has brought about centuries of sociopolitical conflict and war in Europe—and this rift in particular created a significant social division in 20th-century Ireland, where the story is set. In “Grace,” however, the Catholic versus Protestant struggle isn’t one rooted in deeply held tradition and intractable belief—rather, it’s a superficial conflict between two groups that the story suggests have more in common than they tend to acknowledge.  

The main characters in the story are all Catholics—though with differing degrees of faithfulness and belief—which speaks to the prevalence and cultural importance of Catholicism in Irish society. Kernan was born in a family of “Protestant stock” and is “fond […] of giving side-thrusts at Catholicism.” However, he converted to Catholicism when he got married (presumably so that his wife, Mrs. Kernan, could get married in a Catholic church). Even though he isn’t particularly devout, then, Catholicism remains important to him in a social and cultural context as an Irishman. Although Mrs. Kernan is a serious enough Catholic to have her husband convert, she is not the purest of Catholics—“religion for her [is] a habit.” She also believes in elements of Irish paganism like the banshee (a folkloric figure), which are in direct conflict with the Catholic faith. However, Mrs. Kernan is still a devout Catholic in many ways, since she “believe[s] steadily in the Sacred Heart” (a specifically Catholic devotion) and “approve[s] of the sacraments.” The other main characters in the story—Kernan’s friends Power, Cunningham, and M’Coy—are all clearly Catholic as well, given that they hope to save Kernan through bringing him to a Catholic retreat. They also spend most of the story trying to impress one another with their knowledge of Catholic history and theology, demonstrating their desire to prove that they’re sufficiently devout. Catholicism, then, is central to the characters in “Grace”—and, by implication, to Irish society more broadly.

However, a crucial way that the Catholic characters establish themselves as such is by denouncing Protestantism—in other words, their Catholicism is rooted not so much in Catholic belief, but rather in anti-Protestant belief. One of the main topics of conversation in the story revolves around Father Tom Burke, a 19th-century Catholic priest who was popular for his bombastic style but didn’t preach accurate Catholic theology. Burke was so popular, in fact, that Power says there used to be “crowds of Protestants in the chapel when Father Tom was preaching.” Although the men initially discuss Burke with admiration, after Power mentions the presence of Protestants in his sermon, the discussion quickly turns sour as Cunningham asserts that “our religion is the religion, the old, original faith,” implying that Protestantism is merely a poor imitation. Amid the discussion about Burke, M’Coy tries to find some common ground between Catholics and Protestants—but he’s hardly able to, stating, “we both believe in…the Redeemer. Only they don’t believe in the Pope and in the mother of God.” The ellipsis (…) here implies hesitance in M’Coy’s speech as he struggles to come up with a similarity. He does eventually come up with something, which is that both groups believe in Christ the Redeemer—not a particularly meaningful overlap, since belief in Christ is the definition of Christianity. He is ultimately unable to reconcile the two, however, concluding by emphasizing differences in their belief (that Catholics follow the Pope and place more emphasis on the Virgin Mary’s role).

In fact, the Catholic men in the story get so bogged down in trying to differentiate themselves from Protestants that they lose track of the underlying scripture and principles of their faith (namely, devotion to Christ). Much of the conversation between the four men revolves around two Catholic institutions: the Order of the Jesuits and the papacy. The men make frequent mistakes in this discussion as they try to show off their Catholic knowledge—and in obsessing over these minutiae of Catholic history and theology, they essentially miss the forest for the trees. There is little discussion of the fundamental Christian tenets of salvation and redemption that are most relevant to helping Kernan, which is their primary goal in speaking with him and taking him to the retreat. Later, as the friends prepare to go to the retreat, Mr. M’Coy mentions that they need to bring candles with them in order to participate in the Catholic ritual. Kernan balks, declaring, “No, damn it all, I bar the candles! [...] I bar the magic-lantern business.” For Kernan, candles symbolize the elements of Catholic worship that are more mystical than Protestant worship—and he almost doesn’t attend the ritual because of this superficial difference in ceremony, meaning that his close-mindedness about Catholicism nearly causes him to miss out entirely on what the retreat might have to offer. With this, the story suggests that perhaps ceremonial or ritualistic differences between Catholicism and Protestantism are what divide them more so than the underlying scripture and principles of Christian faith.

The idea that Catholicism and Protestantism are more alike than they are different carries profound political and social implications when one takes into account the history of Christianity in Ireland. Ireland is a predominantly Catholic country, but following centuries of English colonialism, many Irish intellectual elites were Anglican Protestants. For that reason, religion is particularly tied to politics and class in Ireland, and in the early 20th century (at the time James Joyce was writing “Grace”), Ireland was moving toward a predominantly Catholic nationalist uprising against the Anglo-Protestant ruling class. Thus, in downplaying the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, the story makes a profound statement in favor of reconciliation and peace in Joyce’s home country.