Deep Reading #5 In an age flooded with media, the cinema industry wields enormous influence. In a little more than a century, movies have evolved into a highly consumerist market based almost entirely on entertainment. Given this (not really) innocent intention of allowing us a little bit of amusement, it Read more…
Deep Reading #4 The news, the media, and the internet are full of “buzzwords” or “hot topics.” Meant to quickly grab and hold our attention, this can be anything from “racism” to “left-wing” to “traditional Catholic.” Others we might see—especially recently—are “biotechnology,” “biological warfare,” and “bioethics.” Usually, these words are Read more…
**Warning: This article contains major spoilers** The world of Literature is not the same as it was a century ago. While there are many momentous changes that could be highlighted, one of the major ones is the introduction of the genre of speculative fiction—usually divided into the three subcategories of Read more…
This is my son, Daniel’s second post at Building Catholic Culture focusing on literature. He’s reviewing the newest volume of The Glaston Chronicles, which he has followed since the publication of the first book. -Jared Writing a book for teenagers is not an easy task. The challenge of creating a Read more…
Merry Christmas! This is Building Catholic Culture’s first guest post, written by my son, Daniel, who is a sophomore in high school. He is an avid reader of Dickens and writes his own science fiction novels. Everybody knows the story of A Christmas Carol. When we get to the later Read more…
What’s the point of reading fiction? Wouldn’t it just be better to read works of theology and the spiritual life? Well, I wouldn’t replace spiritual reading with fiction. Novels and shorts stories, however, do make a contribution to Catholic life and culture by engaging our imagination in a vicarious engagement Read more…
Yesterday Pope Francis met with participants from a conference on the arts jointly organized by La Civiltà Cattolica and Georgetown University, offering remarks on the importance of the arts and literature: I have loved many poets and writers in my life, among whom I think especially of Dante, Dostoevsky and Read more…
Is it loving to condone sin or participate in it? It’s amazing how often people say that we need to be like Jesus in accepting the behavior of sinners, even though Jesus himself called everyone to repent and to accept the Kingdom. Jesus clearly did not come to leave people Read more…
My last post focused on the background of the Divine Mercy devotion and St. Faustina’s Diary was actually the first Catholic book I ever read, back in 1995. I went on to read John Paul II’s Crossing the Threshold of Hope and his biography (in the pre-Witness to Hope days), Read more…
A few years ago I read to my kids the first few volumes of the The Green Ember series, written by S.D. Smith, and immediately I was struck by one of its central themes: betrayal. It stood out pretty starkly for a kid’s book. The rabbit kingdom, Natalia, collapsed and Read more…