The Fault of Fiction?

Does the scarcity of Catholic fiction tell us its worth?

One might gather that Catholics disapprove of fiction, judging from the difficulty of finding Catholic publishers willing to accept novels. When they do, it tends to be with the caveat “biographical fiction of saints only.” It’s made a challenge to submit anything fictional, and one would guess they never would have accepted The Lord of the Rings, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, work of Catholic fiction.

This is why I’m blessed to have En Route Books and Media, which accepts good Catholic novels, regardless of whether they’re on saints, or, like The Lord of the Rings, carve their own world to show God’s love.

So then, is fiction important for Catholics, or should they stick to spiritual reading? I’m not going to reference doctrine or any formal Church teaching, but use common sense.

From the works of beloved Catholic authors like Chesterton and Tolkien, both of whom had a profound way of applying Church teaching in their own lives, we can see that they certainly did not find fiction contrary to the Faith. It was seen as a gift from God, a means to glorify Him, which, like a weapon, must be used correctly to draw the soul closer to Him and further His designs.

Just as the heart and soul need good examples of how to love and live interiorly, the imagination must be filled with Godly inspiration. If left empty, it will find less worthy means of applying itself. We need examples of how to live, which may draw us in deeper through than the strictly religious, and which may be more accessible to the average soul.

We see Christ Himself utilize fiction in the many parables He tells within the Gospels, for it helped His audiences to understand what He was teaching, and the hidden meaning would have kept them mulling the tales over long after hearing His words.

“The Ten Virgins” by John Melhuish Strudwick, by Gandalf’s Gallery. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED.

It is true that our minds often grasp the imaginative better than the biographical. Factual accounts can often only demonstrate so much. Fictional characters help us to see how to live out virtue in human ways, and bring home lessons that we might not otherwise understand.

They can be used to give us accessible parallels and metaphors for Our Lord and Lady, and divine truths; and demonstrate how lessons, morals and virtues can be lived, whether in daily life or extraordinary circumstances. Pitting moral characters against their opposites deepens the lesson by showing us what we ought to and ought not to be. They can help us understand how to treat our enemies, and trust in the triumph of goodness that will always come after faith, hope, charity, and courage.

God gives us the imagination for a reason, so it must be used in His honor and for His glory. We must enjoy its color, for like all else, it is His creation. Otherwise, humanity would only be a mass of cold logic. . . for it was not logic alone which created the stars, the waves, elephants, and us.

I challenge all of you who are writers: write truly Catholic fiction. Don’t hide its Catholicism, even if you’re told it’s “too pious” or that too few will read it. You can take the route of Tolkien, and make it full of joyful discoveries to those who understand its symbolism, but call it Catholic, for there are too few books that are advertised as ours, and even when they are, they often fall short of what we hope for.

Keep your works clean, pure enough that a child could read it, for aren’t we told to become like little children? This isn’t to say that each book must be for every age - there are topics we might write on such as slavery or grief that may be for older audiences. But make it clean in purity, for there are too many Christian books that fail miserably, and these things are such that no one should read them.

Play with the colors God writes with through your imagination, and make it beautiful - make Him smile with how you use it. Fill it with His love, and your hope.

To quote John Paul II:

“Do not be afraid to be holy! Have the courage and humility to present yourselves to the world determined to be holy, since full, true freedom is born from holiness” and, “I plead with you- never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire, and never become discouraged. Be not afraid.”

Be not afraid, for you were born to show the world your flame and His love.