Catholic fiction

As anyone who has read The Mystery of Things knows, I have had a longtime interest in the so-called “Theology of the Body” developed by Pope John Paul II, so it was with some interest that I read this article in the National Catholic Register by Thomas L. McDonald on the first (presumably annual) national Theology of the Body Congress which was held last week in Philadelphia. Speakers included Helen Alvare, Greg and Lisa Popcak, Father Richard Hogan, Damon Owens, Pia de Solenni, Janet Smith, Father Brian Bransfield and Joan Frawley Desmond.

I would have most liked to have heard the keynote address by Michael Waldstein on the so-called “hidden talks” of JPII on the Song of Songs, Tobit and Ephesians 5. According to The Register,

Due to the adult nature of the imagery, the Pope chose not to deliver these talks in public, and Waldstein only discovered them after the death of the Holy Father. The talks do indeed include remarkably vivid language about human sexuality and provide a more complete sense of the biblical basis of the Pope’s theology. Waldstein is preparing a final edition that will include these lost talks.

One of the things I find encouraging about this development is that it reminds Catholics, who sometimes confuse the virtue of modesty with an unwillingness to say anything that a ten-year-old shouldn’t hear, that, yes, it is good to discuss the human body and its meaning and purpose, and in the sort of detail that is indeed beyond the range of a ten-year-old.

I may feel more than usually strongly about this subject, I suppose, as I have on several occasions received communications from disgruntled readers of my novel–or as Bertie Wooster would have it, “far from gruntled” readers–who have contended that mine could not be considered a “Catholic novel” because it deals frankly with sexuality in the context of the Culture of Death. As my book was intended for an adult audience, and this accusation has been thrown at some of the leading lights of Catholic fiction from Waugh to Percy, I haven’t seen any reason to change my mind on the subject, but it’s good hearing that theologians are taking the whole business ever more seriously.

As I have said elsewhere, for Catholics to excuse themselves from frank discussions of sexuality, is to leave this critical field wide open for every other point of view but our own.

Wish I could have been there!

To read Cardinal Justin Rigali’s homily during the Congress, click here.

Go here for the Congress’s website.

Go here for the website of the Theology of the Body Institute, which sponsored the Congress.

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Join Debra Murphy February 26 through March 5, 2010, for the Catholic Writers Conference Online, organized by the Catholic Writers Guild. Debra will be leading a five-day workshop, “Ten Commandments for Catholic Fiction Writers”, in which she will share some of the insights and resources she’s gleaned from several decades of reading, writing, editing, and publishing Catholic fiction.

There will be a number of workshops and pitch sessions—opportunities to pitch your work, fiction and non-fiction, to editors. Everything is conducted online, so you never have to leave the comfort of your home. Best of all, registration is FREE.

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