“Combativeness was, I suppose, the dominant trait in my grandmother’s nature. An aggressive churchgoer, she was quite without Christian feeling; the mercy of the Lord Jesus had never entered her heart. Her piety was an act of war against the Protestant ascendancy […] articles attacking birth control, divorce, mixed marriages, Darwin and secular education were her favourite reading. The teachings of the Church did not interest her, except as they were a rebuke to others […] The extermination of Protestantism, rather than spiritual perfection, was the boon she prayed for.”

— Mary McCarthy , book Memories of a Catholic Girlhood

Source: Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (1957), Ch. 1

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Mary McCarthy 79

American writer 1912–1989

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Mary McCarthy 79

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