GHETTO PRIEST

This week, we will continue a series of excerpts from Father Ho Lung's bio, written by Joseph Pearce - 'Candles in the Dark'

Chapter five

FATHER Ho Lung's new-found fame presented him with a platform to preach. As an unknown, newly ordained priest, his words had only reached the small circle of people with whom he worked and prayed. Now, as the celebrated 'reggae priest', it seemed that the whole of Jamaica was listening.

In January 1974, as his hit single, Sinner, was still riding high in the charts, a Jamaican newspaper published an extensive interview, describing Ho Lung as "perhaps the greatest enigma to emerge in the entertainment spotlight [because] the young man whose lyrics and music come pounding from every jukebox, radio and discotheque is actually a Roman Catholic priest". The journalist emphasised that this paradoxical melding of the priest and the pop singer helped to explain the social consciousness of the record's lyrics:

"Sinner ... is infused with a relevance rarely encountered in locally produced records. Wrapped around a snappy and infectious reggae beat, the song is peopled with realities from several strata of contemporary Jamaican society: the sufferer, the oppressor, the girl heavy with a baby, the labourer digging at a rock."¹

^{1:Unknown Jamaican newspaper, January 1974.}

52 CANDLES IN THE DARK

Asked by the interviewer why a priest writes pop music, Father Ho Lung responded that it was all about preaching the Gospel: "The more involved I get in this type of music, the deeper my conviction that reggae and soul music provide a most powerful medium for communicating with young people."

At around the same time, Father Ho Lung's words from the pulpit were also making the headlines. 'Politicians set youths a bad example - Ho Lung' was the headline in the Jamaica Daily News on January 25, and The Daily Gleaner on the following day highlighted his keynote address to 2,000 young people at the annual gathering of Methodist youth. The fact that the organisers selected him as the keynote speaker was further indication that the success of the hit record had given him a platform from which to preach.

As Father Ho Lung recalled those heady days when his hit record was near the top of the charts, I asked him what his fellow Jesuits thought of the whole strange scenario. On the one hand, he was a lecturer in literature at the University of the West Indies and rector of the Aquinas Centre at Mona, and yet, on the other, he was a successful pop star. I was mindful of the supercilious response of the academic establishment at Oxford to J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, both Oxford dons, after their respective success with bestselling novels.

When Lewis and Tolkien became famous for writing their books, they faced a great deal of snobbery and a degree of elitist sneering from their academic colleagues for condescending to the level of popular culture. I wondered whether Father Ho Lung's Jesuit colleagues were similarly unsympathetic and aloof, or whether they thought him an amusing and amiable eccentric. Confirming that there were "strong undercurrents of resentment and anger", he sought to put the matter in perspective, drawing on the wisdom of hindsight:

"I think it all seemed a little odd to them. I had begun musicals with the kids, and I was writing music also for the liturgy, and I used to take kids to the slum yards and have them work two or three times a week with these very, very poor people. I was not spending all my time at the school, but was spending increasing amounts of time with the poor. The Jesuits were good men, don't get me wrong, but I was quite rebellious at that time. I felt that the changes in Jesuit education weren't making sense, and I made it very clear to my colleagues that the school didn't have a soul, it didn't have a clear purpose. It tended to be all about academics and football, rather than anything else, anything spiritual or formative. I think my fellow Jesuits saw my actions and my motives in that light. Mind you, I must also admit that I was fairly careless about classes. I guess part of it would have been lack of motivation. I think that I deserved to be chastised and to be, in a sense, looked at as somebody who was irresponsible."

Although the reggae priest was also a self-confessed rebel priest, his labours continued to bear good fruit. In September 1975, his musical, Brother Soul, Sister Song, opened to rave reviews. "The music, the singing, and the sheer enthusiasm and sincerity of the four very talented young performers in the cast are so disarming," wrote the reviewer in The Daily Gleaner, "That by the time the third song is finished, whether you like it or not, you like it."² The reviewer also encapsulated the infectious charm of Father Ho Lung's music, which is one of the secrets of its enduring success:

The thing about Father Ho Lung's music is that it is so derivative of so many different types of music that each song, on hearing it for the first time, becomes immediately familiar. One feels one has heard it before, and it has the instant impact of an old standard, in that one is delighted to hear it "again", for the first time.

This is not to say that any one of his songs is directly imitative of other songs; Ho Lung's gift, as a songwriter, is that he is able to capture the quintessential attributes of any particular style of music and infuse his songs with them. Then, within the format of any of these given styles he places his lyrics, his message. His sermons.

The reviewer also emphasised the liberal and catholic use of different musical styles employed in Brother Soul, Sister Song: "Its geography covers everything from Trench Town to Motown, from Broadway to Nashville, from the Deep South of America to the North Country of England. There are the sounds of dub and reggae, country and western, gospel, spiritual, soul, mento, rock, jazz, blues. There are ballads, show tunes, folk songs, madrigals, even a hymn or two."

Having waxed eloquently on the intrinsic qualities of Father Ho Lung's muse, the reviewer descended to the level of banal modernism in his sideswipe at the perceived Puritanism of the Vatican. "There was a time," the reviewer pontificated, "when the very thought of a Jesuit going into show business would have thrown the Vatican into an uproar of outrage. But times change, thank God, and the Church in recent years has begun to change along with them."

IGNORANT REVIEWER

As with most modernists, the reviewer is ignorant of history. If he had a modicum of historical knowledge, he would have known that Catholic priests have composed popular music throughout the centuries without the Vatican being thrown into apoplexy. The famous priest-composer Vivaldi springs instantly to mind. Others include Thoinot Arbeau, best known for his Orchésographie, a study of late sixteenth-century Renaissance social dance, and for his composition of the jaunty Christmas carol, Ding Dong Merrily on High. Far from the Vatican being thrown into "an uproar of outrage" by its priest composers, it has even been known to canonise them, as was the case with the Jesuit, Jean de Brébeuf, composer of another Christmas carol, 'Twas in the Moon of Wintertime, also known as the Huron Carol.

In the field of literature, the Jesuit martyr-saints Edmund Campion and Robert Southwell wrote plays and popular poetry, and the great St John of the Cross composed some of the finest metaphysical poetry ever written. There is, of course, a huge difference between the composition of popular music and literature, on the one hand, and 'show business', on the other. Since show business is all about show, i.e. fame, and business, i.e., fortune, it is true that the Vatican would frown upon any of its priests pursuing such a meretricious profession.

Since, however, Father Ho Lung has never written his music for either fame or fortune, but, on the contrary, has always donated all profits from his music to the poor, it can be stated definitively that he has never been in show business, in the sense in which that tawdry phrase is normally used. Indeed, and as we have seen in the wake of the success of Sinner, he has always shied away from show business whenever he felt its corrupting presence encroaching upon his vocation to the priesthood.

CONTROVERSIAL SONGS

In spite of the good reviews, Brother Soul, Sister Song caused a degree of controversy due to its criticism of the Government. One of the songs in the show, God and Caesar, was banned by the Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation when it was released as a single. The song was initially inspired by Father Ho Lung's appearance on a TV panel show with other clergymen, in which he took the minority view that churchmen should not necessarily comply with everything the Government says. His view, however unpopular at the time, has clearly been vindicated in the wake of the rise of secular fundamentalism and its attempts to outlaw Christian morality from public life; and it has also been vindicated by many of the great saints of history, each of whom defied the tyranny of secularism, such as St Thomas Becket, St Thomas More and St Maximilian Kolbe, to name but a few of the most obvious.

Ultimately, of course, and as the title of God and Caesar suggests, Father Ho Lung was taking Christ Himself as his model. As Christ's own example teaches, Christians cannot render unto Caesar the things that are God's.