An American Requiem

In his memoir, An American Requiem: God, My Father and the War that Came Between Us (1996), American Roman Catholic priest James Carroll traces his aspiration to the priesthood while he managed a difficult relationship with his domineering father, Joseph Carroll. Beginning his memoir in early adulthood, James Carroll meditates on the unique relationships that develop between fathers and sons when their sons engage in adult life. Carroll characterizes his relationship with his father as competitive, callous, and often based in resentment, due to his father’s failed endeavor to become a priest. Carroll’s memoir also traces the ideological underpinnings of his religious and political activism, showing how they were informed partly in resistance to those of his father. The memoir has been acclaimed for illuminating the moral struggles that members of religious clergies often repress, and for openly celebrating the cathartic purpose of expository writing.

An American Requiem begins the day after twenty-six-year-old James Carroll is ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. Father Carroll proceeds to give his first Catholic mass and deliver his first sermon to a congregation. His ordination emboldens him to work through many stubborn personal problems that worked against his best interests, including low self-esteem and fear of employing his voice to create social change. He links much of his emotional damage to his childhood socialization with Joseph Carroll, a strict, Roman Catholic and very traditional Irish-American father. Joseph Carroll frequently kept James and his four brothers in compliance, embodying a failed ideal of an omnipotent paternal figure that was based in his own fear of incompetence. On paper, Joseph Carroll was anything but incompetent: he was a successful lawyer who also worked for the FBI, and served for a long time in the Air Force, where he ascended to the rank of Lieutenant General. During the Vietnam War, he was known for his ability to implement clever strategies on the battlefield and foresee the Vietnamese forces’ actions. Devastated when he failed to join the priesthood, Joseph Carroll attributed it to the bad fortune of the Irish in the religious sphere.

James Carroll frequently uses Biblical quotes to color his memoir. One central quote from Ezekiel describes a valley of dry bones; Carroll analogizes this valley to the tragic destruction of human life facilitated by his father and his colleagues in the war when they dropped napalm bombs all over Vietnam. Carroll’s sermons are deeply informed by his intimate knowledge of his father’s evil deeds. He rebukes all those who would engage in mass killings with any political or even existential justification. After characterizing his father, Carroll turns memories of his childhood with his brothers and mother, Mary. Born into a well-off, white family in Washington D.C., the boys spent their youth in close quarters with the American political transformations that were going on at the time. They all attended several presidential inaugurations from 1945 onwards and observed their father receive the honor of being the youngest-ever Air Force general when he was thirty-seven.



James Carroll recalls this era of life as being both the most beautiful and difficult. He understood little about his own vocation or sexuality. Yet, due to his father’s relationship with the Roman Catholic elite, his inkling of a motivation to enter the priesthood was quickly recognized and enthusiastically affirmed by Pope John XXIII. He entered seminary in 1963 and was ordained six years later. Pope John XXIII’s relatively progressive stance on Catholicism clashed with the conservative views of Carroll’s father: the latter’s FBI job consisted of attempts to prosecute criminals and draft dodgers, while the former advocated tolerance of these same people. Carroll’s father also hated Martin Luther King, Jr., a fact that repulsed his son. Carroll’s disagreements with his father came to a head in 1965, when the Pope delivered a speech at the United Nations calling for world peace. Carroll thereafter became a staunch follower of the Pope, while Joseph denounced him. Their fundamental differences were never resolved, and the two lived with constant tension for the rest of their relationship; yet, they never split apart or believed they did not love one another.

Carroll concludes his memoir with a reflection on his eventual reconciliation with his father. After spending his career as a radical priest and supporter of civil rights, seemingly breaking off totally from his father, he learned that his father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The disease quickly progressed, and the entire Carroll family converged to keep Joseph Carroll company on his deathbed and to honor his life. The author relates that he still feels extreme love and respect for his father, despite their many differences. An American Requiem celebrates the fact that familial love can survive an ideological difference in an open and democratic society such as America.