Dorian Speed is discussing the goals and future of the Catholic Arts, spurred in part by a provocative article at OSV weekly.  This speaks to the heart of our mission at The Catholic Writers Guild.  I’d like to open the discussion here with a few comments of my own, and then invite you to join the conversation either here or at your own place.

1.  I couldn’t agree more with the need for Catholic writers and artists to produce top-quality work, as Ellen Gable mentioned here yesterday.

I’m 100% in support of amateurs — completely in agreement with GKC, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”  Story of my life.   It’s important not to lay into the enthusiast with a website or a blog or a stall at the craft fair, who is following a passion, however humbly.

But it behooves us in the same humility to not call something a masterpiece unless it is, in fact, a work worthy of the name.

2.  I take issue with this quote in the OSV article:

Right now 90 percent of what we do is geared toward catechesis and 10 percent to evangelization. It needs to be the other way around.

My reason for disagreeing is this:  I think as a Church we are very poorly catechized.   Basic messages like, “You need to attend Mass every Sunday,” or “This is how you make a good Confession,” are no longer settled into the Catholic popular conscience.  I see the fruits of bad catechesis in people catechized even fifty or seventy years ago.  The travesty of the American church in the 1970’s and 1980’s didn’t come out of nowhere.

Yes, evangelization.  I get it.  Important.  But without solid catechesis, evangelization is DOA.  The two are in no way opposed.

3.  It’s hard to be Catholic in the arts today.  Frankly, as a Catholic parent I’ve steered my children away from theater and dance, and towards music, for the simple reason that I don’t want my daughters being pressured to perform in roles that are utterly contrary to purity and decent behavior.  I am thrilled therefore to see a growing number of initiatives to provide performing arts education in a truly Catholic environment.

4.  It’s all Catholic. One of the troubles we have in discussing the “Catholic Arts”, is that anything true, beautiful and good is Catholic.  End of story.

5.  But there’s a place for overtly Catholic-y stuff.  Regina Doman said it passionately at the CWCO one year, and I wish I had the text of her talk to quote here.  It is normal that we Catholics would love our Catholic stuff.  Why shouldn’t we want stories with priests and nuns and saints?  Why shouldn’t we love to see a good character fight the good fight, and draw on his faith in the process?  We aren’t too cool for that stuff.

It’s a small market, I know.  But I am very grateful to the many Catholic artists who are making the sacrifice to write and produce overtly pious works for those of us who find them edifying and enjoyable.

***

Those are my thoughts — how about you?  Here at the CWG, our small part in the work of renewing the Catholic arts is to provide training and support for everything that is Catholic writing and publishing, whether the artist is working in “Catholic” genres or in the wider publishing community.  So this discussion is at the core of who we are and what we do.  I’m interested to hear your thoughts.

Three ways to share:

  1. Leave a comment in the combox.
  2. Write a post at your place, and leave a link here in the comments.
  3. If you’re a member of the CWG and would like to write a guest post that furthers the discussion, write it up and submit.

This topic will never grow old.   Let’s help each other refine our focus as we discern how God is calling us to grow as artists in this particular time and place He’s given us.

UPDATE:  I was reminded in the combox of this recent column by Simcha Fisher at the Register, without which our discussion would be incomplete.

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Jennifer Fitz is the author of The How-to Book of Evangelization: Everything You Need to Know But No One Ever Taught You from Our Sunday Visitor and Classroom Management for Catechists from Liguori Publications. She writes about all things evangelization and discipleship at jenniferfitz.substack.com. For updates on where else to find her, visit JenniferFitz.com.

By Catholic Writing and Publishing, Editing15 Comments on What Calling for Catholic Writers?

15 Replies to “What Calling for Catholic Writers?”

  2. I enjoyed the articles you linked to in this post.

    On evangelization vs. catechesis – my opinion as a convert (12 years ago) is that I was fortunate to go through RCIA at age 27 instead of what my kids could experience as cradle Catholics – i.e., catechesis by assumption / osmosis.

    The catechesis of my children is one of my most important responsibilities that I share with my wife. Many fellow Catholics assume that programs at their parish or sending them to Catholic schools will result in life long faith.

    Some of these kids will grow up and start writing blogs that begin, “I was raised a Catholic” or “I went to Catholic school” and then begin to cite crazy and utterly false “reasons” that they reject the faith. It makes me sad to read them.

    I also think the Bishop Aquila’s example to reorder the sacraments is an excellent example of a commitment to catechesis and to move us away from the idea of confirmation-as-graduation.

    Looking at wider trends, I believe that abdicating the responsibility of catechesis to an institution does not work because less than 30% of us Catholics go to mass every Sunday and only about 25% of us read scripture each week.

    I hope we can remember to be like St. Paul and live our lives so that they are examples that lead to evangelization. Conversion happens one person at a time. Without relevant examples of Christian living, catechesis is a waste of time.

    Regarding amateurs. Amen and Mark Shea is an excellent example of a lay Catholic who works to understand our faith through writing and speaking.

    His work speaks for itself and when I met him 2 weeks ago at a Catholic conference in Denver, he told me that he’s been at it for about 20 years.

    Not all of us are called to be like Mark. I think it’s important for us amateurs to understand why we write, take photos, paint or whatever. I write to understand my faith. I share it because people tell me that it is useful for them to peer into my world. Ultimately, each of us are called to discern our ministry.

    †

    1. I love Mark Shea…I’ve listened to him for years, but all this recent art/movie talk had me introducing him to my husband this week too. He’s a great bridge since he reviews mainstream film through the lens of Catholicism.

    2. Well said. I’m thrilled my children are being raised Catholic, but I’d never be satisfied with only the parish program.

      Even my own class. I teach a good class. But there’s no replacing round-the-clock catechesis at teachable moments and in handing a particular child exactly what he needs right now.

      –> I find blogging interesting this way. I throw out a topic, and invariably get a reply from some unexpected quarter, where I reached the one person who needed that message and just happened to see it that day. (Or, sometimes, months after the fact — I love that posts remain searchable.)

  3. So sorry, misunderstood the pronouns. Thought a member didn’t want to list Simcha as “Catholic” which I thought rather confusing! Got it now. Simcha is def. Catholic. As for a Catholic member linking even though content is not Catholic: I love knowing an author is Catholic, even when the content of the book/text isn’t, because it tells me to look in-between the words for the influence. It can be fun to search for the hidden.

  4. (Why isn’t Simcha a Catholic writer? She’s one of the best I’ve seen in a long time! Her and Jen Fulwiler, both who I’ve just really discovered, totally bring what we need to Catholic column writing. Fun, smart, Catholic women. I’m so glad to see them in the Catholic media market — makes me excited about the future of the new evangelization.)
    I just write bloggy stuff currently. But, I don’t think I’d argue many points based on a Catholic viewpoint, because my readers aren’t really of that worldview, so I just do natural law…common sense…it all fits with the faith and can be convincing … You have to know when to bring God in and when to wait. (Sure there’s a place for super Cath. lit, anything that’s written well, maybe it will even attract a few nonbelievers, maybe it will be a best seller, you never know what the HS can do…but in case that doesn’t happen, we need to know how to tone it down.) I just discovered a blog Hell Burns with a nun that talks about film along some of these lines, good piece: http://hellburns.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-i-review-film.html

    1. Misunderstanding above. No one doubts Simcha Fisher is a Catholic writer!!

      I had a CWG member (and Catholic-who-writes) who felt that she herself (a person not named Simcha) shouldn’t link her general-audience, not Catholic-specific blog in the CWG sidebar.

      But answering exactly your point — the answer is that the CWG is for both Catholics writing varying shades of Catholic-genre, and for Catholics who write for all-audiences. (As well as publishers, illustrators, etc. who work in either sphere.)

  6. Simcha Fisher linked to the piece you talk about, and I absolutely loved the comments that followed on her blog. The point that we should be telling good stories, not necessarily ones completely and obviously focused on our faith, is a good one — one that I think needed to be discussed. I think those of us who write want to convert everybody through our faith sometimes, because we feel we need to do our Godly mission. Still, it’s not always directly through faith talk that people become interested in Catholicism — sometimes it’s just our attitudes that pull people toward our faith, how we face things, how we are resilient, how we are not torn apart by every sadness in life, how we find joy in the most simple aspects of Creation — those attitudes are attractive. I found the piece you linked to, as well as Simcha’s, to be a good reminder to me as I continue to write. Catholic columnists are needed; but so are good Catholics that write about every other subject for a secular world. Too much God talk can alienate some; how we weave it in must be done organically.

    1. Good thoughts — yes, you reminded me I completely forgot about that post from Simcha. Eek.

      “Catholic columnists are needed; but so are good Catholics that write about every other subject for a secular world.”

      Completely agree! I had to talk one CWG member into letting me list her on the sidebar — she worried that since she didn’t do “Catholic” writing, maybe she didn’t belong. Not so. Not at all.

      “Too much God talk can alienate some; how we weave it in must be done organically.”

      Maybe the distinction is between writing that picks up religious themes or characters (or comes at the truth with no overt religious discussion at all — think of a good science article, or a nice landscape painting), versus a specific genre that we might call “pious” literature — the latter being for a much narrower audience of people who already accept the faith.

      –> I definitely agree that we fantasize when we imagine most non-Catholics or non-Christians are suddenly going to be converted because they read pious lit.

      1. Jen I agree……we have SO left out catechesis for the “people in the pews”. We are killing ourselves to catechize: converts, reverts, kids, newly marrieds. Our faithful “pillars” get nothing new or encouraging to help them keep going on the journey. We need to thoroughly catechize our own house as well as evangelize outsiders. And we need to produce top quality everywhere. We are too used to the folks who are well meaning but create stuff that is not quite up to par or cutting edge. We use them because of budget or lack of resources. This is not the image of a Church for the modern world who will hold it’s attention.

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