As a current author of Catholic fiction, it may seem strange to title my article something so bleak and seemingly contradictory as the “Death of Catholic Fiction.” I’d like to clarify first what I mean by “death” in this case.
We Catholics take for granted the collection of fiction we have accumulated from a handful of brilliant minds in the early 20th century. If you ask a Catholic who their favorite fiction author is, they will either tell you that they don’t particularly like to read fiction nowadays or they will recite the household names of Chesterton, Tolkien, or perhaps Christian contributors such as C.S. Lewis—all of them writers within a 50-year window of each other.
It need not be underscored the importance of these aforementioned authors. Their commentaries are piercing, their characters concretized in beautiful prose. These authors represented a true Western literary pinnacle, before the decline of standardized education and an age of postmodern cynicism. Bishop Robert Barron routinely invokes the once world-renowned “Greeneland” of literature (Graham Greene being a contemporary of the other authors listed here), but can Bishop Barron name a fiction author published in the last 50 years of the same caliber? If not, why?
Where are those great Catholic and Christian artists that dare address the issues of our time? There are several principal reasons as to this perceived (or actual) decline.
The first is that, as most of us know, the secular world of literary publishers has no interest in book queries with a particularly religious or “rightward” angle, championing instead what they call “marginalized voices.” Bestsellers of today are selected not for what they write but for who their authors are. Risk-averse publishers who, traditionally, would bear the brunt of introducing new voices to the world, identify a “winner” by the size of the author’s social media presence.
This year, an article from The Wall Street Journal titled “Waiting for the Great Woke Novel” surmised the role of artists as cultural commentators and their subsequent decline: “The artists among the class of 2020 have fallen uncharacteristically silent. All civilizations record major events…The Enlightenment turned the arts into a running commentary, especially in the U.S.—until recently.”
Wiseblood Books founder and editor Joshua Hren responded to the aforementioned article by citing literary works which do exactly that: delve into contemporary issues. Hren represents one of a few efforts to publish Catholic fiction and poetry in America today. Wiseblood describes itself as a publisher of “literature that doesn’t flinch.” It is an endeavor no doubt constrained by a lack of funding and marketing, but the idea and quality are there, and we ought to be paying close attention.
Secondly, larger Catholic publishers steer away from fiction unless it is written for children, opting instead to publish nonfiction—theological commentary, biographies, and apologetics.
As an experiment, and out of her own disbelief of my thesis, my own mother did an online search of the top Catholic publishers, looking specifically for adult fiction. Of the websites she was able to easily find, none published adult fiction. (I have since learned that Ignatius Press does however publish a small amount of adult fiction.)
Outside of these ecosystems, when I speak to Catholics who otherwise would be the publishers of the fiction that has since gone underground, the perception is that the readership just isn’t there—or, worse yet, that the authors themselves aren’t there. A striking trend emerges rather plainly: instead of reviving what of past culture they admire, the aforementioned institutions are moving more and more toward the digital, as was made evident by Pope Leo XIV’s recent convening of 1,000 Catholic “influencers.”
I make no criticism of His Holiness doing so, as he must surely address what spreads across the world and transforms nearly every culture. But I fear we have abandoned large shares of the public square that still exist. We have left this medium to the Bloomsburys, the HarperCollinses—those who mince no words in their disdain for our deepest convictions—while we ourselves play the social media “game.” This is not to say that there are not Catholic authors excelling in their respective literary genres, but for a multitude of reasons—including those above—we fail to identify them.
I assert, in these times where a pendulum swing is evident—a return to religiosity and tradition around the world—that we are no better served in abandoning these intellectual pillars borne of fiction as we are in abandoning Church Tradition itself for the sake of higher Mass attendance. For, many who convert—though they arrive from fallen places, a nihilistic culture of mindless scrolling—return to the Church precisely because of its steadfastness in such times. The New York Post recently published an article (which I highly encourage reading) substantiating in part this trend of “returning to tradition” among young people.
So, where does fiction differ from digital as a traditional medium? Marshall McLuhan aptly identified the function of mediums as more than mere distributors of ideas. Digitization, distinct from past mediums, steers us away from the many conventions which, though less arresting to the eyes, are more formative of the soul. It has a range of effects on cultural life, including how we are educated, how our social conventions form, and quite literally how our brains function. Much of the digital landscape has been carefully designed to trigger our base brain chemistry, rewarding our dopamine receptors—our God-given intellects reduced to those of laissez-faire consumers. Need I even address here the various encroachments presented by artificial intelligence?
The American adolescent no longer believes any value remains in the lengthy cultural interrogations offered by literary fiction. And why should they? In their eyes, no one has really done it since…well, those days.
Catholic writers and publishers must not simply adapt to the digital world. They must reclaim fiction as a medium that can carry the larger public imagination into the future. Art is only art because it is an expression of truth. As such, our digital presence must point toward greater richness of art itself. For, if the medium imparts messages of its own, then abandoning fiction is not a neutral choice—it is the quiet surrender of one of our richest instruments of evangelization and culture-making.
As the pope himself declared in his address to the Catholic missionaries and influencers: “It is up to us—it is up to each one of you—to ensure that this culture remains human.”
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