The Agatha Christie Indult

"You don't understand. God may need you." - Agatha Christie, Towards Zero

Stephanie LeBlanc via Unsplash

Dame Agatha Christie is the bestselling novelist of all time.¹ Known as the
“Queen of Mystery,” her personal life was somewhat mysterious too. A private and pious woman, she disappeared for eleven days after the collapse of her first marriage. She also preserved the Tridentine Mass in England and Wales, despite not being Catholic.

Some background might be helpful. Christie was born in Torquay, England in 1890 and published her first novel in 1919. In 1926, she realized that her first husband, Archibald Christie, was having an affair with a family friend.² This horrible discovery precipitated an eleven-day disappearance that makes “Gone Girl” seem dull. Christie vanished and law enforcement discovered her car abandoned by a quarry. After much press speculation, a stranger found her hundreds of miles away in a “health spa” checked in under the name of her husband’s mistress. She had, sources say, no memory of the days following her disappearance.³

Scholars still debate whether Christie suffered a psychotic break or whether she embarrassed her caddish husband on purpose. Either way, Christie reluctantly divorced Archibald in 1927 - reluctantly because she was a devoted Christian. Archibald married his mistress immediately. Christie married again, and much more happily, three years later.⁴

In 1970, Christie and several other British luminaries signed a letter to Pope Paul VI insisting that he permit the continued practice of the Tridentine Mass in England and Wales. The Tridentine Mass, often called the Traditional Latin Mass or TLM, was in danger of Papal proscription in the wake of the reforms following Vatican II. Pope Paul VI granted the letter’s request via indult⁵ in 1971, and Christie died five years later.

For those curious, the TLM is a Latin Mass promulgated in 1570 and used as the primary rite in the Roman Catholic Church until after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Below is additional history on the TLM excerpted from the Encyclopedia Brittanica:⁶

Latin replaced Greek as the official language of the Roman church after it was introduced by Pope Victor I in the 2nd century ce. The Latin liturgy appeared fully developed in Rome in the 6th and 7th centuries and was adopted throughout western Europe from the 8th century. By the 11th century the Roman liturgy had acquired much of the form that it retained up until Vatican II.

The full liturgy includes the daily celebration of the solemn high mass and the recitation of the divine office in choir. The solemn high mass was entirely sung and was performed by at least three major officers (celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon), who were assisted by many acolytes and ministers. The low (or less formal) mass was spoken and conducted by a single priest and one or two servers. Except during the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent, the church altar was decorated, and incense and numerous candles were employed. Singing and chanting were accompanied by the organ and, in modern times, even by orchestral music.

Whatever you think about the TLM and the so-called “Liturgy Wars,” the TLM remains important to many. The letter Christie signed describes the way the TLM affects its devotees:

The rite in question, in its magnificent Latin text, has […] inspired a host of priceless achievements in the arts -- not only mystical works, but works by poets, philosophers, musicians, architects, painters and sculptors in all countries and epochs. Thus, it belongs to universal culture as well as to churchmen and formal Christians.

Legend has it that Pope Paul VI himself exclaimed “[a]h, Agatha Christie!” upon seeing this letter, then granted the indult shortly thereafter.⁷

Awareness of Christie’s role in Church history lends a retrospective richness to her work. Christie does not always portray Catholics well - in one of her stories, a Catholic hides a stolen necklace in a customized rosary. But some of her Catholic characters are heroic, including one whose husband murders her when she keeps her faith by refusing to agree to a divorce. One wonders how Christie’s marriage to her beloved second husband influenced her opinion of the Church; Max Mallowan was a devoted Catholic, but he also could not receive the Blessed Sacrament following their union because Christie was a divorced woman.⁸

Whatever her religious convictions, Christie understood Christianity in her usual incisive way. She explained her faith in her autobiography using a speech a teacher had made to Christie and her classmates decades before. It may be one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I have ever encountered about faith - and therefore one of the most true:⁹

“All of you,” she said, “every one of you—will pass through a time when you will face despair. If you never face despair, you will never have faced, or become, a Christian, or known a Christian life. To be a Christian you must face and accept the life that Christ faced and lived; you must enjoy things as he enjoyed things; be as happy as he was at the marriage at Cana, know the peace and happiness that it means to be at harmony with God and with God’s will. But you must also know, as he did, what it means to be alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, to feel that all your friends have forsaken you, that those you love and trust have turned away from you, and that God Himself has forsaken you. Hold on then to the belief that that is not the end. If you love, you will suffer, and if you do not love, you do not know the meaning of a Christian life . . . . “

Christie reflected:¹⁰

Years later [those words] were to come back to me and give me hope at a time when despair had me in its grip.

Christie, the Queen of Mystery, was first of all a woman of faith. Perhaps this is why her stories endure - because she knew the answer to the mystery all humans hope to solve, whether we know it or not - the mystery of where we come from and where we are going.

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For those interested, I have started writing a bit of fiction for fun. Here is the link.

1. The Home of Agatha Christie, “About Agatha Christie,” (2024) https://www.agathachristie.com/about-christie.

2. “About Agatha Christie - 1925 - 1928, A Difficult Period,” The Home of Agatha Christie (2024) https://www.agathachristie.com/about-christie; Katherine Howells, “Investigating the Strange Disappearance of Mrs. Agatha Christie,” The National Archives (11 Feb. 2022) https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20speople-investigating-the-strange-disappearance-of-mrs-agatha-christie/; “About Agatha Christie - 1929 - 1938, A New Start,” The Home of Agatha Christie, (2024) https://www.agathachristie.com/about-christie

3. See Howells, supra.

4. See “About Agatha Christie - 1929 - 1938, A New Start,” supra.

5. An indult is “general faculties, granted by the Holy See to bishops and others, of doing something not permitted by the common law.” NewAdvent.org, “Pontifical Indult,” New Advent (2023) https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07789a.htm.

6. J.T. Kyler, "Traditional Latin mass." Encyclopedia Britannica, December 9, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/topic/traditional-Latin-mass.

7. K.V. Turley, The Mystery of the ‘Agatha Christie Indult’, The National Catholic Register (5 Nov. 2021), https://www.ncregister.com/features/the-mystery-of-the-agatha-christie-indult.

8. Nick Baldock, The Christian World of Agatha Christie First Things (4 Aug. 2009) https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2009/08/the-christian-world-of-agatha-christie.

9. See id.

10. See id.