Catholic Thought discussion

Group, this is our first Catholic fiction read. Please nominate a Catholic work of fiction. Please no nominating works of self promotion. One nomination per member. If we get more than six nominations, we may have to figure out a way to whittle down the nominations. It has not been an issue in the past.

Let me start with a book that's long been a desired read by several members. Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen.

I nominate The Mango Murders by Mara Campos. I have reviewed it here and on Amazon.

Madeleine wrote: "I nominate The Mango Murders by Mara Campos. I have reviewed it here and on Amazon."

Madeleine, in what way is that a Catholic book?

I would like to read Mariette in Ecstasy. I think it would be an interesting complement to the book the Catholic Book Club is currently reading, The Story of a Soul. Although Therese of Lisieux is not at all like the title character of Mariette, both books portray the life of a young woman in a cloistered convent, one a canonized saint, the other, a bit of a mystery.

"The Power and the Glory" by Graham Greene. I nominate it because I have a copy of it. But it really is a great book.

Joaquin wrote: ""The Power and the Glory" by Graham Greene. I nominate it because I have a copy of it. But it really is a great book."

It is a great book. Thanks Joaquin.

Manny wrote: Madeleine, in what way is that a Catholic book?

It deals with law enforcement officers in San Juan investigating a string of serial murders who discover a connection with a home for orphan boys which is run by a ring of pedophile priests and New York traffickers. The characters are all touched in some way by the damage the pedophiles have wrought, especially one of the investigators whose wife was a childhood friend of one of the victims. I believe it highlights the far reaches of the abuse scandal in the Church, and how the families of victims struggle to understand the levels--personal, spiritual, psychological, political-- of betrayal and the depth of evil that drives the abuse.

And the author is Catholic.

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

There are some great nominations here. I am not sure if I should add to the list or save this for another round. I guess, I could re-nominate.

The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermitt

Madeleine wrote: "And the author is Catholic."

OK, the connection to Catholicism seems a little tenuous on the surface but I'll assume there is a Catholic connection.

Irene wrote: "There are some great nominations here. I am not sure if I should add to the list or save this for another round. I guess, I could re-nominate.

The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermitt"

There are some great nominations, and I've been wanting to read that too. It's going to be a hard choice.

I’ll recommend Robert Hugh Benson’s Lord of the World. It’s the classic Catholic Apocalyptic novel, written shortly before WWI.

Excellent pick Joseph. That makes six nominations. We’re going to stop here. Too many nominations spreads the vote too thin. Six is a good number. I’ll set up the vote in a little while.

So the final nominations are:

Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen
The Mango Murders by Mara Campos
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermitt
Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson

Great selections for our first Catholic fiction read. I'll set up the poll shortly.

Catholic Book Club discussed Lord of the World last year. It is an awesome book.

OK, the poll is up. We have one week to pick a winner.

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

Hey how perfect is this article from Aleteia? "10 Catholic novels to take to the beach this summer" and two of their selections are in our vote. You can go over to read all ten here:
https://aleteia.org/2019/06/07/10-cat...

But let me give you the describing paragraphs for the two in our poll.

3. Mariette in Ecstasy – Ron Hansen

Part saintly legend, part detective story, Ron Hansen’s novel invites his readers to ask a question as pious as it is horrific: is Mariette Baptiste a stigmatic? Mariette, a postulant, has longed to enter the monastery her whole life. When she does, she begins to receive ecstasies, including the stigmata. The nuns of the monastery must deduce, however, if Mariette’s pieties are real. But be warned: bold and fleshy writing make this novel not for the faint of heart.

And

7. Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather

Okay, okay. I know Willa Cather is not a Catholic. But she gets a pass and makes this list anyhow, because this novel is so profoundly Catholic. Set in the emerging American Southwest, Cather’s novel narrates the arrival of New Mexico’s first Catholic bishop. Cather tells the lucid and spiritual tale of saintly and vicious clergy, based on two historical figures, Jean-Baptiste Lamy and Joseph Projectus Machebeuf, animated by the region’s tradition and lore.

I'll have to put this note by the poll as well.

There are some great choices in this list!

The vote is over. Let me re-post what I said at the poll:

OK, the poll is closed and we have the results. But since this was a spirited vote and since the two top winners are both relatively fast reads, Kerstin and I have decided that we can do both books back to back. Death Comes for the Archbishop is around 290 pages, but a fast read, and Mariette In Ecstasy is only around 190 pages, I think the two combined can make for one read. That's 480 pages total, and at 60 pages per week, that makes 8 weeks. The summer!

So let's read both!

We'll do Death Comes for the Archbishop first, and we'll use 5 five weeks to read that, and three weeks with Mariette to follow. Let's not have a break in between, so get both books at the same time.

I'll lay out a reading schedule shortly. But I would say that June 23rd will begin the first read.

An excellent solution, Kerstin and Manny. Thank you.

Death Comes for the Archbishop is one of the best books I’ve read in the last couple of years!

What was it about the 1920s that made it the decade of the masterpiece? Just look:

1922 Ulysses by James Joyce
The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot

1924 The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

1925 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

1926 The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

In 1927, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize was Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey; To The Lighthouse appeared; and Death Comes For The Archbishop by Willa Cather was published.

Intellectually, you could probably stop there and say that most of the twentieth century's greatest works had been written. (And if you included 1929, then Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms and All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque would be added.)

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is another novel we might consider for the summer read one year. If you've already read it, you know it's profoundly Catholic.

I saw something very interesting today.

Literature: what every Catholic should know by Joseph Pearce

Here is the link:
Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know

Kerstin wrote: "Here is the link:
Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know"

That definitely looks like a book for my bookshelf.