The Vatican Versus Freud

out of the minds of the monks he has had psychoanalysed by a distinguished Jewish woman, but also how to purge his own brain of such poison. The man is Gregoire Lemercier, the sixth of an artillery officer's thirteen children who feared his father and at the same time wanted to emulate him. When he became a priest he transferred his complex to God. His autoanalytical sermons bloom with double feeling for his Creator and they will be published in England next year as 'Dialogues With Christ'. Psychoanalysis came into his prayers: 'Father forgive me my sins, as I forgive you your sins.' Father Lemercier, a Belgian, became a brilliant teacher and was appointed prior of St. Mary of the Resurrection monastery at Cuernavaca, Mexico. He realised his monks bore a heavy burden of sexual and emotional problems and believed they could find release in psychoanalysis. They certainly did, for half of them left the monastery and most got married. He felt those who remained had purified faith, those who left were all the happier. But the Holy Office, headed by aged Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani to whom psychoanalysis is unmentionable sent three investigators to the monastery over