I think the first time I heard the name of the Japanese novelist Shūsaku Endō, I heard him described as the “Japanese Graham Greene.” Probably, I thought that he was being described that way because he was a Catholic, and he wrote some novels that I would consider “Catholic Novels.” This spring at St. John’s University, I led a seminar entitled “Philosophy and Catholic Novels,” and this gave me the opportunity to become more familiar with Endō’s writing and to discover why the title “Japanese Graham Greene” fits him so well.
Anyone who reads this column regularly probably knows that Graham Greene is my favorite writer. When I read many of Greene’s novels or plays for the first time, I experienced what I describe as a theological paradox. The paradox was that the apparent sinner turned out to be the saint. This is the experience I had in reading three of Greene’s most praised novels: “The Power and the Glory,” “The Heart of the Matter,” and “The End of the Affair.”
In ‘The Power and the Glory,” the “whiskey priest” who has fathered an illegitimate child sacrifices his life to hear a dying criminal’s confession; in “The End of the Affair,” a promiscuous woman becomes a saint; in “The Heart of the Matter,” the main character commits suicide as an act of love to protect others from being hurt. Of course, to describe these three novels in a sentence or two does not do them justice. I can vividly remember reading “The End of the Affair” in my first year in college.
I recall getting permission from my spiritual director to read the novel because I had heard that there was a great deal of sex in the story. Actually, I found the novel tame even by the standards of that time. What I recall vividly is the experience that God was leaping off the pages at me. I do not recall whether I ever had that experience previously. Perhaps that was the beginning of my opinion that Catholic novels can lead to experiences similar to those some people receive reading what are described as spiritual classics.
Greene’s play “The Potting Shed” is my favorite play, except for Shakespeare’s plays. I have been influential in getting it presented at a seminary and also performed by a small theatre group. I wish I had some contact that would lead to a revival on Broadway. When the play appeared on Broadway in the 1950s, critic Walter Kerr gave it a glowing review. In his excellent book “Reading Culture Through Catholic Eyes,” James Keane starts his essay on Shūsaku Endō with the following quotation from Endō: “Hatred can always turn to love.
When one can say to God, ‘I hate you,’ it is like saying, ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?’ With these words, authentic prayer begins.” Whether or not we believe in Endō’s view, we know that our interest has been captured by a novelist who warrants our attention. When I was a young priest, having read all of Greene’s novels and also many other Catholic novels, I became a kind of apostle or publicist for the Catholic novels.
Whenever I met someone who taught literature in a Catholic college or high school, I would ask them what novels they had their students read. A typical answer was “Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner.” I would respond that that was wonderful, but I would then ask if they ever thought of giving a course on the Catholic novel. No one I spoke to showed any interest. I had the impression that they thought reading Catholic novels would be too parochial.
Of course, I disagreed completely. At that time, I began to think of the Catholic novel as a treasure hidden in a field. I still do. Right now, I am aware of a course on the Catholic novel being given in a local parish. I was delighted that the course came about because of my promotion of the Catholic novel through this weekly column, and also because of the course I gave that is now on YouTube. All of us need encouragement, so it is a real pleasure when you discover that something important to you has become important to others.
I am going to find out which novels are part of the course and what the reaction of those taking the course is to reading the novels. When I was a parish priest, I was a moderator for 20 discussion groups. We read and discussed popular theology books. I now wonder why I did not suggest reading Catholic novels. I suspect I had not yet been convinced of the spiritual impact that reading Catholic novels can have on readers. At that time, I must have thought popular theology books would have a stronger impact. I wonder.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. His new book, “The Cosmic Love Story: God and Us,” is available available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.