Veronica Chater

As my husband put it when I described sections of the book to him, "Dispensationalists don't have a lock on the loopy eschatology." One of my best friends is a trad Catholic, so I knew something about the fault lines post-Vatican II, but I didn't know how deep they ran or how truly fringe-y some of the more extreme schismatic groups could be.

I really enjoyed reading this book, actually having a hard time putting it down over the past 48 hours. There were two things in it that I found really sad, though: first, for all that I could sympathize with some of Veronica's dad's impulses if not his ultimate principles (I can't imagine what it must have been like to feel that precious parts of your faith were ripped away from you after the council), there didn't seem to be room for much of God's grace or mercy in the way he lived out his beliefs. That's what ultimately threatened to rip the family apart, as Veronica portrays it -- his dogged pursuit of an ephemeral "aura of true Catholicism" that never seems to have been substantiated. Second, no doubt related to that, the faith didn't seem to have been imparted to Veronica or the others in a way that could take hold on a heart-level. The only words I remember Veronica using to describe her personal faith were "rote" and "shameful," and she ultimately concludes that religion and education are incompatible. Ouch.

She does tell the family's story in such a gracious and human way, though, that I could tell how much she loves them all to this day. It's a well-written book.… (más)

It is hard to imagine a more bizarre Catholic childhood than that of Veronica Chater and her ten siblings.

Chater, a widely published essayist, gives us an impressionistic portrait of a family immersed in Catholic traditionalism. Her father was convinced that Vatican II was "the greatest crime in history apart from the Crucifixion" and Chater's imagination was steeped in the prophecies of Fatima, the expectation that "the world was teetering on the brink of the Holy Chastisement: an apocalypse so huge that entire nations would be annihilated..."

Waiting for the Apocalypse is written from the perspective of the child and adolescent Veronica Chater was, and she is successful in letting the reader experience the odd chaos that was her family life. When this memoir begins, Chater's father is a California Highway Patrolman and the family lives a comfortable and outwardly normal suburban life. His disgust with the American Catholic Church and friendship with Harry Doten, a wealthy (and eventually untrustworthy) traditionalist, leads him to quit his job and move the family to Portugal, expecting to find dogmatic fidelity.

When Portugal proves to be a disappointment the financially impoverished family returns to California and her father (believing that “the Crusades of the twentieth century had begun”) becomes an activist in the "counter-revolutionary movement." The children are sent to a traditionalist school and they worship with the schismatic Society of St. Pope Pius X (SSPX), the group founded by Archbishop Lefebvre.

Their daughters, meanwhile, are forbidden to wear modern clothes and Veronica's deception ("keeping a single pair of pants was like having a fire extinguisher on hand") leads to "a long series of self-preservations for years to come." Not surprisingly she and her older sister experiment with drugs, listen to suggestive music, go to discos, and become sexually active. When these secrets (and her sister's pregnancy) are discovered, their father disowns them, but a few days later their mother, an exemplary prodigal parent, seeks them out and brings them home.

That incident serves as a metaphor for the abiding loyalty to family, not faith, that emerged from this childhood. Chater writes about her complex father with affection, ambivalence and, ultimately, acceptance, but the heart of this book is her mother, the indomitable woman who was his backbone but who "refused to let religion come between her and us." This book is a worthy testament to her mother's legacy of love.

by Rachelle Linner

Copyright ForeWord Magazine, vol. 12, no. 1… (más)