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Well, the concept of needing to confess to a priest as a path to
absolution is pretty Catholic, I'd think.<br>
If Wolfe only wanted to play with familiar motifs, why include the plot
element that the Chapter was founded as a parody of another specific
religion?<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTiloFTTK3WSAYL4QchEBOAOuwMwhUoLLJwfNc7BT@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">Well, no, obviously not...I guess what I'm
asking is, do that parallels between the Chapter and the Catholic
Church rise to the level that within the fictive universe there must be
a cause-and-effect relationship between them, or can they be
interpretted as merely have a metafictive causal relationship, i.e.,
the author is a Catholic with something to say and playing around with
ideas that are familiar to him?</div>
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<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTiloFTTK3WSAYL4QchEBOAOuwMwhUoLLJwfNc7BT@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote"><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff">You could just as well ask
"How Catholic is the Catholic Church?" Obviously there are parallels
with other religions in this or that aspect. It's the whole package
that is at issue. I can't imagine that any reader has said, "Oh! You
think the Chapter seems like a twisted version of Catholic Church? I
hadn't thought of that."<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div class="im">
<div>How Catholic is the Chapter, really?</div>
<div> </div>
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