The Keys of the Kingdom
By A.J. Cronin

480 Pages • $13.95

The Keys of the Kingdom
By A.J. Cronin

About the Author

Francis Chisholm, the humble priest who is the hero of A. J. Cronin’s The Keys of the Kingdom, was the product of a unique Catholic culture that grew over generations and vanished with stunning speed in the decade following Vatican Council II. Older Catholics today preserve memories of this special time, and its look, values, and singular ways of thinking are recorded in books like the much-loved Keys of the Kingdom,one of the most popular Catholic novels of the twentieth century.

The story of Francis Chisholm, a Scottish orphan turned missionary priest in prerevolutionary China, reads well today, many years after its ecclesiastical and social context changed completely. An attentive reading of the story yields clues about the strengths of the pre–Vatican II church, as well as its weaknesses.

The glory of this church was its ability to produce men like Francis Chisholm. The boy Francis grows up in the crucible of Protestant-Catholic hostility in turn-of-the-century Scotland. His parents are killed by an anti-Catholic mob, and the woman he loves commits suicide, yet Francis resists bitterness. He becomes a priest and departs as a young man for China, where he becomes an exemplary missionary. Francis’s many adventures in China make up the bulk of the novel’s plot, but the book’s center of gravity is Francis himself. He is a dedicated, creative, unfailingly humble, and self-effacing priest. The pre–Vatican II church produced many like him.

The weaknesses of this church are also on display in the novel. Lay Catholics are docile and lukewarm. Spiritual life seems stale and formulaic. The clerical culture of the time is etched in acid. Priests and prelates, with the exception of Francis, are portrayed as rigid, ambitious, and deficient in charity. Francis’s fellow Catholic priests cause him as much trouble in the Chinese missions as hostile pagans and violent warlords do.

There are stereotypical elements to this part of the story, but the broader point is well taken. The church that produced Francis Chisholm had drifted from its roots. Renewal was needed.

The person of Francis Chisholm makes the novel appealing. A. J. Cronin portrays him as an essentially simple and winsome man, but there are ambiguous aspects of his character. He professes pacifist beliefs, yet he intervenes on one side of a battle between warlords, and his actions cause the deaths of dozens of men. He is troubled by the unbelief of a Scottish physician who works closely with him, yet he does not make an effort to convert him when the man is dying. When accused of error, Francis replies, “God judges us not only by what we believe . . . but by what we do.” He appears to be an outstanding example of evangelical humility, yet he believes himself to be prideful. At one point he scolds himself for his “incorrigibly rebellious nature.”

Saints talk like this. In this engaging tale of a magnificent good priest, Cronin seems to be suggesting that humility and dedication like Francis Chisholm’s are the real “keys of the kingdom” of God.

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About the Author

Archibald Joseph Cronin was born in 1896 in Cardross, Scotland, the only child of a Catholic father and a Protestant mother. His childhood was shadowed by the death of his father and poverty; his mother tried to struggle forward alone but eventually was forced to return to her parents’ home. Cronin would later often write of poor young people from mixed religious backgrounds. He was a precocious student who won writing competitions and was awarded a scholarship to study medicine at the University of Glasgow.

After serving as a surgeon in the Royal Navy during World War I, Cronin set up a medical practice in an impoverished region of Wales, where he was also appointed the medical inspector of mines. His exposure to the terrible conditions in the mines and their effect on workers’ health shaped his social conscience. Years later, he would draw on these experiences for his fiction, most notably The Stars Look Down, set in northeastern England, and The Citadel, set in Wales.

After several years in Wales, Cronin moved to London and established a successful practice on Harley Street. While recuperating from an illness in the Scottish Highlands, Cronin wrote his first novel, Hatter’s Castle. He said that at one point in the writing he gave up on the novel and threw away the manuscript. He was encouraged to finish by an old farmer who was digging a ditch that his father had started and left uncompleted. Hatter’s Castlewas a hugely popular success, and it permitted Cronin to give up medicine and write full-time.

Cronin wrote thirty novels and story collections, many of them best sellers. His fiction is marked by strong plots, acutely observed settings, and graphic description. Several of his novels, including The Citadeland The Keys of the Kingdom, were made into popular movies. Gregory Peck received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Father Francis Chisholm, the hero of The Keys of the Kingdom. Pointed social criticism is a theme in much of Cronin’s fiction. Some credit The Citadel, which vividly portrayed wretched medical care for the poor, with hastening the establishment of the National Health Service in Great Britain.

Religious faith is another important theme in Cronin’s writing. As a youth he was mocked for his Catholic faith, and he fell away from religion until the 1930s, when his faith reawakened. He detested religious bigotry and dreamed of brotherhood and ecumenical conciliation among the different churches.

Cronin moved to the United States in the 1930s with his wife and three sons. He later settled in Switzerland. He died in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1981.

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