Monsignor McNulty

Monsignor McNulty is a former pastor of St. Mary of Jesus Christ Church whose role is revealed through other characters’ accounts rather than through an independent narrative of his own. After his death, Father Guglielmo says McNulty regretted mocking Thomas Birdsey; Domenico Tempesta, however, remembers him as a priest who cursed the family home and became bound in his mind to the losses that followed. The difference between reported remorse and Domenico’s lasting accusation makes McNulty a figure through whom the novel examines religious authority, blame, and grief.

Identity and Place in the Parish

McNulty’s background is not developed beyond his position in the church and Domenico’s identification of him as an Irish priest. A newspaper reports that he died of a heart condition after the war. Father Guglielmo is then appointed acting pastor of St. Mary of Jesus Christ Church, becoming its first Italian pastor. Domenico welcomes both McNulty’s death and Guglielmo’s promotion, though he regards Guglielmo as having been subordinate to McNulty rather than as a source of authority in his own right.

The novel supplies no direct account of McNulty’s pastoral work or private life. Instead, his character emerges from what the newspaper records, what Father Guglielmo later recounts, and what Domenico remembers and alleges. That limited, conflicting record matters: McNulty is not presented through an authoritative biography, but through the afterlife of his actions in the parish and in Domenico’s memory.

Thomas Birdsey and the Family’s Losses

When Father Guglielmo meets Domenico after becoming acting pastor, he recalls the day Thomas fell from the roof as a terrible day for the family and the priests. He says McNulty spoke with regret on his deathbed about having mocked Thomas, and had prayed for forgiveness. This is the clearest account of McNulty’s treatment of Thomas, but it reaches the reader through Guglielmo’s report rather than McNulty’s own words.

Domenico remembers the incident differently in emphasis. He tells Guglielmo that McNulty had pronounced a curse on his home after priests were ordered to leave, and that the words remained in his ears. Domenico connects that curse to Thomas’s fatal fall, which he says occurred fifteen minutes later, and to the calamities that followed in his marriage. The narrative establishes Domenico’s conviction and the timing he recalls, not that McNulty caused those later events. His accusation shows how a remembered clerical condemnation becomes part of his explanation for suffering.

Death, Remorse, and Narrative Significance

McNulty’s death closes off the possibility of a direct reckoning between the priest and Domenico. Guglielmo’s visit offers a belated account of remorse and an attempted reconciliation, but it does not erase Domenico’s anger. In later exchanges, Domenico continues to condemn McNulty for mocking Thomas and insists that the priest bears responsibility for the curse. Guglielmo counters that judgment about sin and salvation belongs to God, not to Domenico.

McNulty therefore remains a largely offstage character whose importance lies in the competing meanings attached to him. Guglielmo remembers a dying man who regretted his conduct; Domenico remembers an authority figure whose words seemed to confirm the family’s doom. Neither account gives McNulty a full interior life, and the novel leaves the conflict between repentance and resentment unresolved. His place in the story is consequential precisely because his absence cannot settle what happened or release Domenico from the grief he has attached to it.