ASHES TO ASHES

ATTICUS by RON HANSEN (1996) Being on something of a “crusade” of reading and discovering Catholic authors, I have been determined to discover as many contemporary Catholic/Christian writers of realistic fiction as possible. Tolkien, Lewis, Sayers, O'Connor and Percy have been written about elsewhere and are generally considered to be part of the 20th Century Christian writers cannon. But has anyone carried on this tradition? Are there Catholics who still write quality fiction? And are there writers who go outside the confines of a parish or monastery or church to grapple with modern problems of living a life of faith in an increasingly secular world? Writers who are, as I like to call it, “informed by their faith”, are those who bring a Catholic Christian world view to their writing much as Grahame Green and Evelyn Waugh did in much of their writing. While rarely writing directly about the Church and their faith from the inside, nonetheless, their writing was deeply Catholic i...

Most troubling is San Francisco's reaction after some of the horrendous crimes committed there by illegals, especially the Bologna murders in 2008.Now they are planning on giving illegals the right to vote in school board elections!

Why did the LEFT want the bomber to be a tea partier or a conservative? An actual terrorist came in 3rd on THE DAILY KOZ'S poll. I am not surprised that they think conservatives are more of a threat to the country than Al Queda. These leftists are seriously disturbed....been watching too much Keith Olberman and Jon Stewart. LOL........surprised they didn't have FOX NEWS as an option to blame.

Since the passage of the controversial Arizona immigration law I have been engaged in a lively and thought provoking debate with many over this issue. Inevitably it leads to discussion of government's role, socialism and our duty as Christians. one priest friend of mine provided this link on the Church's teachings on socialism. the problem, in my opinion, is that socialism is coerced by the STATE. It has failed every time it has been tried (USSR, CHINA, NORTH KOREA, CUBA, VENEZUELA). The only possible exception that I can think of where it "succeeded" was NATIONAL SOCIALIST GERMANY and we all know what happened there. Economic socialism is inevitably followed by social engineering by an elite class who want to dictate what is best for us. It removes freedom by its very nature. Free expression and freedom are inevitable casualties of socialism. The central planners brook no opposition.

Prelude: Back when The Da Vinci Code first came out, I noticed that many Catholics were reading this novel.Several of them, whom I interacted with on a frequent basis, seemed to take the premise of the novel rather seriously: that Jesus had an affair with Mary Magdalene and fostered children by her. One even told me it wouldn't be a problem for his faith life as a Catholic. The others seemed disturbed by what the book was promoting and I could see that it had shaken their faith. Needless to say, most Catholics are fairly ignorant of their faith these days. The religious education since the Council has been fairly awful overall, and has not instilled much in the way of real knowledge or truth about their faith. This incident seemed to exemplify how bad the situation really was. But it also illustrated one other important point. Catholics are hungry for something good to read but don't seem to know where to turn these days. Most go to their nearby secular bookstore (virtual or o...

I first came to know of Caryll Houselander as a seminarian in the 1970’s. I had heard from fellow seminarians that her classic work, The Reed of God , was a must read. For some reason I never managed to find the time or interest to open the book. But the opinion is was held in was so high that I gave a copy of it to my father-in-law who had a very strong devotion to Our Lady. Caryll Houselander was many things, an author, a mystic, and ordinary person trying to live out her faith, but she was not a scholar or particularly learned. Her popularity was high in the English speaking world of the 1940s and 50s. Born in Bath England in 1901, she eventually became a well known Catholic writer when her first book, This War Is the Passion , published in 1941, launched her literary career. Her unique vision was that of the suffering Christ and she articulated this in a way easily accessible to the readers of the time. This vision was infused by her mystical experiences which had begun after her...