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Pater Brown

 

The English Catholic Father Brown grew up in Essex and attended the fictional Mandeville College, University of Oxford, one of the oldest universities in the world. A sister and a niece are the only relatives of the priest, to whom he has only little contact.

 

The little priest worked for some time in a prison in Chicago in the United States and over the years at several parishes, which include, among others, St. Dominic in London, the small village of Bohun Beacon and Scarborough. He has also tried to convert people to Catholicism in Africa. In addition, he has also worked in Germany, France, Italy and Mexico. Father Brown knows how to appreciate a good cigar or pipe and enjoys a glass of beer or wine from time to time.

 

Father Brown’s writer, H.G. Chesterton's, described his character as a small and finely built man with a large head, whose round face was dull and resembled a full moon. His features were grey and expressionless. His eyesight was not the best, so he squints his eyes when he does not use his glasses. Unless he is in deep thought, he would blink frequently.

 

Father Brown is firmly rooted in his faith and cherishes a certain scepticism about people for whom truth consists only of scientifically demonstrable facts. He also confronts the belief that men could be mastered by machines sceptically. The greatest hobby of Father Brown is to solve criminal cases.

 

On the way to the solution of a case he tries to put himself in the killer’s footsteps, and so, through imagination, commit the crime himself. The focus of the stories is always the human being, with all his strengths and weaknesses.

 

His ministry work allows him a look into the depths of human life through attentive confessions. And this knowledge about the strengths and weaknesses of his flock always helps Father Brown to solve a case.

 

One could say that the amateur detective Father Brown was the first to solve a crime by looking into the necessary psychology of a candidate suspects and regarding his suspects as a profiler. His ability to obtain information unassumingly through his involvement with the church is a relief in the prosecution of a case for Father Brown.

 

Contrary to the intention of the famous Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown's interest to deliver criminal justice is rather small. Rather, he wants to convince the perpetrators thereof to file a voluntary confession and lead the penitent man thus to God.

 

A good, if not the best example of this, is the trick thief Hercule Flambeau, called Duroc in civilian life. Father Brown captures and converts Flambeau in his own way. Later, the former trickster and master criminal becomes a detective and Father Brown’s best friend.

 

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