The phrase has become slippery.
“Catholic writer.”
What does it mean?
For some the phrase plays like a favorite old song, an evocation of the glory days of Greene, Waugh, Percy, O’Connor, et alia. Days long gone and sorely missed.
For others “Catholic writer” may spell an oxymoron, or at least refer to the kind of writer one would not like to meet at a Manhattan cocktail party.
Even for some Catholics the phrase increasingly tends to serve as a signal that some exceptionally maudlin fiction is quivering like a bad cheese on the horizon.
But even looking at the thing dispassionately, it’s not exactly clear what is being described when one uses the phrase “Catholic writer.” Does it refer to
[a] someone who writes stories set in a Catholic environment featuring (mainly) Catholic characters?
[b] someone interested in giving his or her audience what Flannery O’Connor called “instant uplift”?
[c] a writer whose religious affiliation happens to be Catholic?
Of the above options, I would argue that only [c] is a good answer to the question of what “Catholic writer” means. A Catholic writer need not write stories set in a Catholic environment featuring (mainly) Catholic characters (O’Connor almost never did, Waugh didn’t for the first half of his career, Greene only sometimes–and with dubious theology, Percy wrote some Catholic characters but never put them in a Catholic environment).
And a Catholic writer should not be interested in “instant uplift.” Our remit is not to conjure warm, comfortable feelings but to tell the truth in a beautiful (not necessarily “pretty”) way.
But I think we can say something more about what it means to be a Catholic writer. A Catholic writer is a writer who sees the world from the point of view of Catholic theology and, whether or not Catholics or Catholic things ever appear in his or her work, endeavors to tell the truth about the human condition from the point of view of that theology.
Such a broad charge can take a Catholic writer into some strange and unsettling territory, territory held largely by the devil, as O’Connor warned. If the Catholic writer is going to write stories about the times we live in, then he had better gird his loins and get ready to depict the devil’s territory in a convincing way. In light of that fact, this admonition by Barbara Nicolosi, “Why Good People Do Media Wrong,” is worth reflecting upon. Allow me also to recommend my essay, which includes some input from Barbara Nicolosi, “What Are The Limits to Depictions of Sin in the Arts?”
But the Catholic writer is certainly not obliged to take on the modern world mano a mano. In Kristin Lavransdatter Sigrid Undset took us to medieval (Catholic) Scandinavia. Tolkien took us to Middle Earth. Shusaku Endo took us to 17th-century Japan.
In fact, the choice of setting and characters–whether they are Catholic or not, contemporary or not, realistic or fantastic–is not the most important choice for the Catholic writer.
The most important choice is the commitment to excellence in the writer’s craft. That is what really makes a Catholic writer a Catholic writer. Sure, it would be great to change the world for Christ. But the first duty of the Catholic writer as writer is to create a masterful work of art. As Patrick Coffin argued recently in reference to cinema, that commitment to excellence is what is missing in so many artistic efforts by Catholics and other Christians.
I expand a bit more on this last theme in two other pieces:
“A Catholic Moment in the Arts?”
“Let’s Renovate the Catholic Literary Tradition”
Catholic and other writers, I’d be interested to hear what you think of these thoughts.
Daniel – “It would be great to change the world for Christ”?. I believe you have made the understatement of the century!
The problem lies here. Right in between the two thoughts of “creating a work of art” and “changing the world for Christ”. If those two things are not one and the same in the mind of the writer, he is not a Catholic writer. He is just a writer who happens to be Catholic. It is all about priorities.
If the creating of the piece has value of itself it is because it is fulfilling the calling of the writer, his Vocation. Our Vocations are not fulfilled outside of the realm of the Body of Christ. If ones actions uplift the Body of Christ, than it is fufulling it’s calling; they are not exclusive of eachother. Believing they can be is humanistic.
You and I have tasselled with this before as I objected to the foul language in one of your books. I do not believe that a Catholic writer must exclude evil, sin, and the protraying of the world as it is in order to remain “Catholic”. But a writer should be able to convey without offending. If I write, “He swore.” That is one thing. If I write, “‘FUCK!!!’, he shouted.” That is another. Somehow I can not picture Chesterton chosing the second option. Can you?
My point is backed up by the article you suggested:
Barbara Nicolosi concludes, “will always need the seven deadly sins. Sin is the
essence of the human problem with which so much art is wrestling. The challenge is to represent sin in a way that isn’t an occasion of sin.”
Evelyn Waugh, in Brideshead Revisited, adequately portrays the fact that there was illicit sex happening. He never described it. There is a big difference there.
Maura, thanks very much for these thoughts. I think both you and Teresa (see below) are on the same wavelength: endeavoring to create a great work of art is one and the same with the effort to transform the world in Christ. I whole-heartedly agree and should have been clearer about this in my post.
In terms of the limits of depicting sin in the arts, I don’t think you and I are very far apart. You are absolutely right, Waugh’s portrayal of sex in “Brideshead” is a model of discretion, as is Flannery O’Connor’s depiction of a child rape in “The Violent Bear It Away.” With you and the Greek tragedians, I am generally in favor of keeping gross evil offstage. Questions of morality aside, I think the artistic impact is usually, if not always, greater.
The use of foul or obscene language is a matter of discretion and can easily be overdone. This is the only point in which we disagree. No, I can’t imagine Chesterton using the f-bomb. But that doesn’t mean it can never be used effectively and appropriately. Currently I am reading David Mitchell’s novel, “The Bone Clocks,” and he has his 15 year-old scruffy female protagonist of Irish descent use “feckin” as a colorful adjective. This seems to me to reflect the character and not inappropriate. How different is the use of such a tool in a writer’s hand from your use of the f-word in a com box? I’m not trying to be snarky in asking this. I’m simply trying to point out that the use of foul or obscene language can sometimes be a means of communication–in fiction, a communication of character.
Teresa, that’s a marvelous point. Of course, a beautiful work of art is by its beauty alone (whatever else its impact) a tribute to the glory of Christ and a contribution to culture. I would say that even the effort to create such a work (whatever the result) is of value. I suppose in what I originally said I was thinking of cultural impact beyond the existence of the beautiful work itself. Thanks so much for your insight!
You say: “Sure, it would be great to change the world for Christ. But the first duty of the Catholic writer as writer is to create a masterful work of art. ” And so I ask, why the “but”? Doesn’t a “masterful work of art” change the world for Christ by bringing the True, the Good and the Beautiful into being and calling us closer to the Source of Truth and Beauty? Seems to me it is all of a piece.