A Catholic Reader

The future is no escape -- the Church will always be under fire. A few weeks ago, I promised a review of Cyril Jones-Kellett's Ad Limina: a novella of Catholics in space , and I've written and posted it over on my science fiction blog. What I’d like to mention here relates to the “Catholic” aspect of it, something I allude to briefly i n the full review : While the story is, on the face of it, a grand adventure, another way to read it is (and details in the story suggest that this is how the author hopes we will read it) as a spiritual trial, from which the soul in question emerges purified and hardened against the wiles of the Enemy. Bishop Mark Gastelum’s spiritual journey takes him into the wilderness where he is tempted in many ways; at the end, having endured these temptations without succumbing, he is spiritually mature and ready to take on greater challenges. Modern novels don’t always have a “hero” – in fact, one of the hallmarks of the novel, the thing that d...