-
The State of Catholic Letters, Part IV: Generations Lost...and Found
As I wrap up this series on the state of Catholic letters, I’d like to make a few final distinctions and then name some of the writers I think should be more widely known and discussed within the Church in North America. I’ve thrown down what I think is a friendly, if frisky, challenge to traditionalist Catholics, urging them to reject the myth of decline that says our time is somehow more inhospitable to imaginative writing informed by faith when compared to some former era....
Tags
-
The State of Catholic Letters, Part III: The Whiskey Priest Meets Charming Billy
In the last two posts I’ve sought to explain a curious phenomenon: why a relatively significant portion of the intellectually active portion of the Catholic community in America has failed to engage both the literary culture of their own time and the specifically Catholic authors they should be reading and discussing (and perhaps emulating)....
Tags
-
The State of Catholic Letters, Part II: Shouts or Whispers?
In my last post I opened up one of those proverbial cans of worms: the question of whether or not something called “Catholic fiction”—or perhaps any sort of creative writing by Catholics—is alive and well, or not. I admit it: in that post I came out swinging. One Catholic blogger thought I went too far: see Matthew Lickona’s post on his Godsbody site here, and if you’re in the mood for it, my exchange with him....
Tags
-
The State of Catholic Letters, Part I: Déjà vu All Over Again
In the conservative Catholic press—and blogosphere—there has been much harrumphing about the decline and fall of Catholic letters. Of course, the question of whether Catholic writing is alive, much less well, is really just another skirmish in the larger culture wars....
Tags
-
Do This in Memory: 2008 SPU MFA Commencement Address
I’d like to say a few words today about memory, inspired by St. Augustine, whose Confessions we have been reading together....
Tags
Current Issue
Issue 72
Memoir by Lauren Winner, Poetry by James Harpur, Art by Guy Chase and Adrian Wiszniewski
Tag Search
