This is the reissue of a little book that will speak to many people. “When I was little, I was a Catholic”, by Pierre Kretz. In a small village in Alsace, at the beginning of the postwar boom, a young boy takes his first steps in the Catholic faith.
France is still the “eldest daughter of the Church”, and this rural community is entirely rocked by religious rites and dogmas. There, it was the famous Hodie, by the little singers of Gaïwena, Guewenheim. Under the leadership of the priest, who has a lot to do to distance his flock from modern temptations, the young Catholic sees maturing, between two crises of mystical guilt, a feeling of incurable loneliness and an attraction towards the divine mystery.
The young boy takes a candid and humorous look at the world of “grown-ups”: the confessional, “sins closet”; the miracles of Padre Pio which he learns in catechism; the oddity of the Protestants; and, above all, the strange inconsistency of the adults. Encouraged by the village priest, the little Catholic is destined for the priesthood. But on his way he encounters the tempting brilliance of doubt and the first forbidden fruits… Over the pages, in the boy’s eyes, surprise gradually gives way to uneasiness. With an acerbic tenderness, which questions us about tradition, dogma, spirituality in the face of materialism, this autobiographical story brings life, without nostalgia, to a society in the process of metamorphosis.
Both an initiatory tale and an ethnological document, this book, first published in 2005, was a great success in bookstores. This reissue is enriched with an afterword by Pierre Kretz, with the hindsight of the 17 years that have passed since the original release. You will find this book in large format at the price of 17 € in all your bookstores.