I’ve just responded to some questions on the meaning and essence of Catholic literature asked to me by a student at Benedictine College. Here are the questions and my answers:

Who, in your experience, is the best example of a truly Catholic author?

This is a huge and difficult question to answer because it depends upon how we are defining a Catholic author. In terms of theology and philosophy, St. Thomas Aquinas (obviously!); in terms of literature, Dante (perhaps also obviously) and Shakespeare (less obviously but nonetheless as truly). In terms of modern literature, Hopkins or Tolkien.

Because so much of fiction is tied to a time-period and a certain set of circumstances, how is an ethos built to draw in the reader?

In one sense fiction is not tied to a time-period because it can transcend time (e.g. historical fiction), or space (e.g. science fiction), or time and space (e.g. fantasy); in another sense, it is indeed tied to a time period, insofar as each writer is drawing upon his own particular experiences. The ethos of a work contains and supplies the timeless dimension to any work of literature, in the sense that it builds the work on an ethical foundation and within an ethical framework that transcends time or space or circumstance.

What is the role of “the ugly” and sin in Catholic literature? What is the difference between portraying sin truthfully and glorifying it?

Ugliness is necessary in the portrayal of the dark side of life, i.e. sin and suffering, because these things are indeed ugly. Whereas sin is always ugly, deforming the sinner and inflicting suffering on its victims, suffering can become beautiful if it is a path to virtue. A work that portrays sin as ugly and harmful is true literature; a work that portrays sin as beautiful and harmless is a lie.

What are elements you look for in books that make them good Catholic literature? Should art be concerned with being specifically Christian?

All good literature, whether we care to label it as Catholic or not, manifests the triune splendour of the good (virtue or love), the true (reason) and the beautiful (the harmony and order of the cosmos). If a work conveys this trinity it is Catholic, whether it is labeled so or not; insofar as it doesn’t, it is not Catholic, whether it is labelled thus or not.

What about fiction specifically brought you to Truth and Beauty as compared with anything else?
In what way should a religious world view influence the arts in this age where anything that smacks directly of it is marginalized?

Fiction is simply the telling of a story, which is nothing less than a true image of the way that God manifests Himself to us. All of history is His Story. The life of Christ is the greatest story ever told. Within that greatest story ever told, Christ tells other great stories, his parables, which are the means by which he conveys the deepest and most important truths. We cannot fully comprehend the cosmos in the light of the purely abstract, we need allegory and metaphor and story, the very “stuff” of which literature is made.

A religious world view always influences the arts. Atheism is a religious world view; agnosticism is a religious worldview. A religious worldview is unavoidable, in life as much as in literature. It is, therefore, not a question of the influence of religions upon the arts, which is unavoidable, but of which religion influences the arts.