List of Catholic writers

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List of Catholic authors
)

The writers listed on this page should be limited to those who identify as

Catholic
in some way. This does not mean they are necessarily orthodox in their beliefs. It does mean they identify as Catholic in a religious, cultural, or even aesthetic manner. The common denominator is that at least some (and preferably the majority) of their writing is imbued with a Catholic religious, cultural or aesthetic sensibility.

Asian languages

Chinese language

  • Xu Guangqi – one of the Three Pillars of Chinese Catholicism. He was a Chinese scholar-bureaucrat, agronomist, astronomer, mathematician, and writer during the Ming dynasty. Xu was a colleague and collaborator of the Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Sabatino de Ursis and assisted their translation of several classic Western texts into Chinese, including part of Euclid's Elements.
  • Su Xuelin – Chinese educator, essayist, novelist and poet; she described Thorny Heart as a description of her 'personal journey on the road to Catholicism'[1]
  • John Ching Hsiung Wu – jurist and author; wrote in Chinese, English, French, and German on Christian spirituality, Chinese literature and legal topics
  • Li Yingshi – Ming Chinese military officer and a renowned mathematician,[1] astrologer and feng shui expert, who was among the first Chinese literati to become Christian. Converted to Catholicism by Matteo Ricci and Diego de Pantoja, the first two Jesuits to establish themselves in Beijing.

Japanese language

  • Shusaku Endo – Japanese Roman Catholic novelist; recipient of 1955 Akutagawa Prize
  • Ayako Sono – Japanese Roman Catholic novelist; part of the Third Generation
  • Jacobo Kyushei Tomonaga – He composed one of the first modern Japanese dictionaries.

Vietnamese language

European languages

Albanian language

  • Gjon Buzuku – priest; wrote the first known printed book in Albanian.
  • Pal Engjëlli – Archbishop; wrote the first known document in Albanian
  • Gjergj Fishta – poet; in 1937 he completed and published his epic masterpiece Lahuta e Malcís, an epic poem written in the Gheg dialect of Albanian. It contains 17,000 lines and is considered the "Albanian Iliad". He is regarded among the most influential cultural and literary figures of the 20th century in Albania.
  • Jesuit
    poet; poems include "The Nightingale's Lament" and "Imitation of the Holy Virgin"
  • Giulio Variboba – poet; priest, of the Arbëresh Albanian people of Southern Italy, regarded by many Albanians as the first genuine poet in all of Albanian literature
  • Pjetër Budi – Bishop; known for his work "Doktrina e Kërshtenë" (The Christian Doctrine), an Albanian translation of the catechism of Robert Bellarmine.

Bosnian language

  • Matija Divković – Bosnian Franciscan and writer from Bosnia; considered to be the founder of the modern literature in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Croatian language

  • Ivan Gundulić – poet; work embodies central characteristics of Catholic Counter-Reformation
  • Marko Marulić – poet; inspired by the Bible, Antique writers, and Christian hagiographies
  • Andrija Kačić Miošić – poet
  • Petar Preradović – was a Croatian poet, writer, and military general of Serb origin. He was one of the most important Croatian poets of the 19th century Illyrian movement and the main representative of romanticism in Croatia.
  • Roman Catholic
    priest, mathematician, writer, and musical theorist primarily known for writing the first Croatian arithmetic textbook Arithmatika Horvatzka (published in Zagreb, 1758).

Czech language

Danish language

  • Jens Johannes Jørgensen
    – late-19th and early-20th-century poet and novelist; also a biographer of Catholic saints

Dutch language

English language

As the anti-Catholic laws were lifted in the mid-19th century, there was a revival of Catholicism in the British Empire. There has long been a distinct Catholic strain in English literature.

The most notable figures are

Cardinal Newman, a convert, one of the leading prose writers of his time and also a substantial poet, and the priest-poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, also a convert, although most of the latter's works were only published many years after his death. In the early 20th century, G. K. Chesterton, a convert, and Hilaire Belloc, a French-born Catholic who became a British subject, promoted Roman Catholic views in direct apologetics as well as in popular, lighter genres, such as Chesterton's "Father Brown" detective stories. From the 1930s on the "Catholic novel" became a force impossible to ignore, with leading novelists of the day, Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene, converts both, dealing with distinctively Catholic themes in their work. Although James Hanley was not a practising Catholic, a number of his novels emphasise Catholic beliefs and values, including The Furys Chronicle
.

In America, Flannery O'Connor wrote powerful short stories with a Catholic sensibility and focus, set in the American South where she was decidedly in the religious minority.

A–C

D–G

H–K

L–M

N–R

  • John Henry Newman – convert; became a Catholic priest and later a Cardinal; master of English prose, e.g., his Apologia Pro Vita Sua; also wrote poetry, e.g., Lead, Kindly Light and The Dream of Gerontius
  • Aidan Nichols – Catholic theologian
  • Henri Nouwen – Dutch Catholic priest; left academic post to work with the mentally challenged at the L'Arche community of Daybreak in Toronto, Canada
  • Michael Novak – contemporary politically conservative American political writer
  • Alfred Noyes – English poet; known for "The Highwayman"; wrote about his conversion to Catholicism in The Unknown God (1934)
  • Kate O'Beirne – wrote syndicated columns for the National Review and other conservative publications; also wrote books
  • Francois Mauriac
    she often focused on sin and human evil
  • Flann O'Brien – Irish comic writer
  • Katharine A. O'Keeffe O'Mahoney
    – Irish-born American educator, lecturer, writer
  • Lee Oser – American novelist and literary critic; Christian humanist
  • Coventry Patmore – 19th-century poet; a convert
  • Craig Paterson – philosopher and writer on bioethics
  • British National Front member who renounced racism on conversion; edited the anthology Flowers of Heaven: 1000 Years of Christian Verse; biographer of Oscar Wilde and Hilaire Belloc
  • Walker Percy – Southern American convert and novelist who helped create the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He was also the man who discovered and helped publish the work of the deceased John Kennedy Toole. His most well-known novel, The Moviegoer, won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1962.
  • David Pietrusza – American historian, editor of "Sursum Corda: Documents and Readings on the Traditional Latin Mass"
  • pro-choice
    lobby in the United States
  • Alexander Pope – English poet; a Roman Catholic in a period when that was potentially unsafe in England (the early 18th century)
  • Katherine Anne Porter – on-again and then off-again convert
  • J. F. Powers – American writer of stories about clerical life
  • Tim Powers – American fantasy novelist, author of On Stranger Tides
  • Timothy Radcliffe – Dominican Order lecturer, writer, and professor
  • Piers Paul Read – contemporary but orthodox Catholic British novelist; vice president of the Catholic Writers Guild
  • atheist
    , she returned to the church in 1998 and pledged to use her talents to glorify God; in 2010, she recanted her faith, declaring that she was going to follow Christ without Christianity, out of solidarity for her gay son
  • David Adams Richards – award-winning Canadian novelist, essayist and screenwriter; from New Brunswick
  • Francis Ripley – English priest; wrote about the faith
  • Richard Rohr – contemporary American Franciscan friar
  • Frederick Rolfe (alias Baron Corvo) – late-19th- and early-20th-century novelist; a failed aspirant to the priesthood
  • Raymond Roseliep – American priest and poet
  • Kevin Rush – American lay Catholic, playwright of award-winning stage play, Crossing Event Horizon, about a Catholic high school guidance counselor's midlife crisis, and novelist, author of Earthquake Weather, a novel for Catholic teens, and The Lance and the Veil, an adventure in the time of Christ.

S–Z

  • Anna T. Sadlier – Canadian writer, translator
  • Mary Anne Sadlier – Irish author
  • George Santayana – Spanish-American philosopher and novelist; baptised Catholic; despite taking a sceptical stance in his philosophy to belief in the existence of God, he identified himself with Catholic culture, referring to himself as an "aesthetic Catholic"
  • Steven Schloeder – American architect and theologian; wrote book Architecture in Communion (San Francisco: Ignatius Press
    , 1998)
  • his religion
    was Catholic
  • John Patrick Shanley – screenwriter and playwright; educated by the Irish Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Charity
  • Patrick Augustine Sheehan – Canon Sheehan of Doneraile, Catholic priest, novelist essayist and poet; significant figure of the renouveau Catholique in English literature in the United States and in Europe
  • Dame Edith Sitwell – English poet; a convert
  • Robert Smith – American Catholic priest, author and educator
  • Joseph Sobran – wrote for The Wanderer, an orthodox Roman Catholic journal
  • St.
    Robert Southwell – 16th-century Jesuit; martyred during the persecutions of Elizabeth I
    ; wrote religious poetry, i.e., "The Burning Babe", and Catholic tracts
  • Dame Muriel Spark – Scottish novelist; decided to join the Roman Catholic Church in 1954 and considered it crucial in her becoming a novelist in the tradition of Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene; novels often focus on human evil and sin
  • Robert Spencer
    – writer and commentator on Islam and jihad
  • Karl Stern – German-Jewish convert and psychiatrist
  • Francis Stuart – Australian-born Irish-nationalist Catholic convert; son-in-law of Maud Gonne; accused of anti-Semitism in his later years by Maire McEntee O'Brien and Kevin Myers
  • Jon M. Sweeney – American author of many books on religion, popular history, and memoir; convert
  • Susie Forrest Swift (later, Sister M. Imelda Teresa, 1862–1916), American Dominican nun, magazine editor, writer
  • Harry Sylvester – American journalist, short story writer, and novelist; most famous books were the Catholic novels Dayspring and Moon Gaffney
  • Ellen Tarry – writer of young-adult literature and The Third Door: The Autobiography of an American Negro Woman
  • Allen Tate – convert; poet and essayist
  • Mrs. Bartle Teeling – convert; articles, biographical sketches, books
  • Hound of Heaven
    "
  • Colm Toibin – Irish actor and writer; wrote The Sign of the Cross
  • J. R. R. Tolkien – writer of The Lord of the Rings; devout and practicing Catholic
  • John Kennedy Toole – Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of A Confederacy of Dunces.
  • F. X. Toole
    (born Jerry Boyd) – Irish-American Catholic
  • Meriol Trevor – convert; author of historical novels, biographies, and children's stories
  • Lizzie Velásquez – writer of self-help, autobiographical, and young adult non-fiction
  • Elena Maria Vidal – historical novelist
  • Louie Verrecchio – Italian-American columnist for Catholic News Agency and author of Catholic faith formation materials and related books.
  • Christopher Villiers – British Catholic theologian and poet; author of Sonnets From the Spirit.
  • Maurice Walsh – one of the most popular Irish writers of the 1930s and 1940s, now chiefly remembered for the Hollywood film of his short story 'The Quiet Man;' wrote for the Irish Catholic magazine the Capuchin Annual and listed in the 1948 publication 'Catholic Authors: Contemporary Biographical Sketches, 1930–1952, Volume 1;'
  • Auberon Waugh – comic novelist and columnist; son of Evelyn Waugh
  • Evelyn Waugh – novelist; converted to Roman Catholicism in 1930; his religious ideas are manifest, either explicitly or implicitly, in all of his later work; strongly orthodox and conservative Roman Catholic
  • Morris West – Australian writer; several of his novels are set in the Vatican
  • Edgar Award
    winner
  • Antonia White – author of four novels – including her 1933 novel Frost in May, based on her experiences at her Catholic boarding school – two children's books, and a short story collection.
  • Henry William Wilberforce
    – English journalist and essayist
  • Tennessee Williams – convert, American playwright and poet, who wrote such noted plays as The Glass Menagerie, The Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and A Streetcar Named Desire.
  • D.B. Wyndham-Lewis
    – English comic writer and biographer
  • Oscar Wilde – late-19th-century playwright and poet; fascinated by Catholicism as a young man and much of his early poetry shows this heavy influence; embraced a homosexual lifestyle later on, but converted to Catholicism on his deathbed (receiving a conditional baptism as there is some evidence, including his own vague recollection, that his mother had him baptised in the Catholic Church as a child[8][9])
  • Book of the Long Sun
    , are considered to be religious allegory
  • Julia Amanda Sargent Wood (pen name, Minnie Mary Lee; 1825 – 1903), American author
  • Carol Zaleski – American philosopher of religion, essayist and author of books on Catholic theology and on comparative religion

French language

There was a strong Catholic strain in 20th-century French literature, encompassing Paul Claudel, Georges Bernanos, François Mauriac, and Julien Green.

A–K

  • Honoré de Balzac – 19th-century novelist; wrote in a preface to La Comédie Humaine that "Christianity, and especially Catholicism, being a complete repression of man's depraved tendencies, is the greatest element in Social Order"
  • Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly – 19th-century novelist and short story writer, who specialised in mysterious tales that examine hidden motivation and hinted evil bordering the supernatural
  • Charles Baudelaire – 19th-century decadent poet; long debate as to what extent Baudelaire was a believing Catholic; work is dominated by an obsession with the Devil and original sin, and often utilises Catholic imagery and theology
  • Georges Bernanos – novelist, a devout Catholic; novels include The Diary of a Country Priest
  • Leon Bloy
     – late-19th- and early-20th-century novelist
  • Louis Gabriel Ambroise de Bonald
    – counter-revolutionary philosophical writer
  • Jacques-Benigne Bossuet
     – 17th-century bishop, preacher and master of French prose; wrote famous funeral orations and doctrinal works
  • Pierre Boulle – writer; novels include The Bridge over the River Kwai (1952) and Planet of the Apes (1963)
  • Paul Bourget – novelist
  • Pierre Boutang
  • Pauline Cassin Caro (1828/34/35–1901), novelist
  • Jean Pierre de Caussade – Jesuit and spiritual writer
  • The Vicomte de
    Génie du christianisme
    " ("The Genius of Christianity"), which contributed to a post-Revolutionary revival of Catholicism in France
  • Paul Claudel – devout Catholic poet; a leading figure in French poetry of the early 20th century; author of verse dramas focusing on religious themes
  • François Coppée
  • Pierre Corneille – founder of French tragedy; Jesuit-educated; translated The Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis, into French verse
  • Léon Daudet
  • René Descartes – one of the most famous philosophers in the world; dubbed the father of modern philosophy; much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day; also a mathematician and a scientist.
  • Pierre Duhem – late-19th-century physicist, historian and philosopher of physics
  • Saint
    Pius XI
    proclaimed him patron saint of writers and journalists
  • Innocent XII
    ; he obediently submitted to the judgment of the Holy See
  • Pauline Fréchette (1889–1943), poet, dramatist, journalist, nun
  • Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange
    – neo-Thomist theologian
  • Henri Ghéon – French poet and critic; his experiences as an army doctor during the First World War saw him regain his Catholic faith (as described in his work "L'homme né de la guerre", "The Man Born Out of the War"); from then on much of his work portrays episodes from the lives of the saints
  • neo-Thomist
  • René Girard – historian, literary critic and philosopher
  • Julien Green – novelist and diarist; convert from Protestantism; A devout Catholic, most of his books focused on the ideas of faith and religion as well as hypocrisy.
  • Pierre Helyot
    – Franciscan history writer
  • Hergé – nom de plume of the writer and illustrator of Tintin, one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, answer to Le Petit Vingtième request for a Catholic reporter that fought evil around the world
  • Victor Hugo – French novelist and poet
  • Joris-Karl Huysmans – originally a decadent novelist, his later novels, En Route (1895), La Cathédrale (1898) and L'Oblat (1903), trace his conversion to Roman Catholicism
  • Max Jacob
  • Francis Jammes – late-19th- and early-20th-century poet
  • Pierre de Jarric – French missionary and author
  • Marcel Jouhandeau

L–Z

  • Brother Lawrence – 17th-century Carmelite lay brother; known for the spiritual classic "The Practice of the Presence of God"
  • Frédéric Le Play
  • Henri de Lubac – priest (later cardinal) and leading theologian
  • Joseph de Maistre – late-18th- and early-19th-century writer and philosopher from Savoy, one of the most influential intellectual opponents of the French Revolution and a firm defender of the authority of the Papacy
  • Joseph Malègue – novelist
  • Gabriel Marcel – convert; philosopher and playwright
  • Jacques Maritain – convert; Catholic philosophical writer
  • Henri Massis
  • François Mauriac – devout Catholic novelist; a strong influence on Graham Greene, whose themes are sin and redemption; recipient of the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature
  • Saint Louis de Montfort – priest; wrote The True Devotion to Mary; Catholic saint
  • Malika Oufkir – Moroccan writer imprisoned with her mother and siblings in a secret Saharan prison for 15 years; these years are recounted in her autobiography, La Prisonniere, later translated into English as Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
  • Blaise Pascal – polymath (physicist, mathematician and philosopher); made significant contributions to various fields including probability and mathematics; wrote Pensées
  • Holy Innocents
    ")
  • Charles Perrault – wrote epic Christian poetry before establishing the fairy tale literary genre with Tales of Mother Goose
  • Camp of the Saints
  • Pierre Reverdy – 20th-century French poet
  • Arthur Rimbaud – 19th-century poet and confessional writing pioneer; author of A Season in Hell; self-professed "voyant", or seer
  • Saint
    Therese of Lisieux
    – 19th-century Carmelite nun and now a Doctor of the Church; autobiography, L'histoire d'un âme (The Story of a Soul), was a best-seller and remains a spiritual classic
  • Gustave Thibon
  • Jules Verne – science-fiction writer
  • Louis Veuillot – 19th-century French Catholic journalist

German language

A–M

N–Z

Icelandic language

Irish language

  • Máirtín Ó Direáin, Irish-language poet.[11]
  • Amhlaoibh Ó Súilleabháin (1780–1838) – Irish language author and one-time hedge school master; is also known as Humphrey O'Sullivan. Was deeply involved in Daniel O'Connell's Catholic Emancipation movement and in relief work among the poor of County Kilkenny. His diary, published later as Cín Lae Amhlaoibh, was kept between 1827 and 1835. "His personal charisma allowed him to cross social and religious barriers, and he used this affability to collect signatures in support of Catholic Emancipation – even getting non-Catholic friends to add their names to 'The Protestant Declaration in favour of Catholic Emancipation'."[12]

Italian language

Latin language

Lithuanian language

  • Maironis – Romantic poet and priest
  • Vaižgantas
    – priest and an activist during the Lithuanian National Revival
  • Antanas Strazdas – priest, writer, and poet; became a folklore hero because of his humble origins
  • Motiejus Valančius – Catholic bishop of Samogitia, historian and one of the best known Lithuanian writers of the 19th century

Norwegian language

Polish language

Portuguese language

Russian language

Slovenian language

Spanish language

Swedish language

Welsh language

Genre writing

Mystery

Science fiction and fantasy

Screenwriters

Writers mistaken for Catholic

See also

Notes

  1. ^ [dead link] "The Study of Professor Su Xuelin" Archived 22 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine. National Cheng Kung University.
  2. ^ Roger Robinson and Nelson Wattie, The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, Oxford University Press, Auckland, 1998, pp. 45–48.
  3. ^ "The latest priest-scandal scapegoat - Salon.com". Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 17 August 2006..
  4. ^ http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1995/heaney-bio.html
  5. ^ First Tings
  6. ^ "The Contemplator's Short Biography of Thomas Moore".
  7. ^ "New Catholic Dictionary: Thomas Moore". Archived from the original on 12 February 2007. Retrieved 20 November 2005..
  8. ^ Cavill, Paul; Ward, Heather; Baynham, Matthew; Swinford, Andrew (2007). The Christian Tradition in English Literature: Poetry, Plays, and Shorter Prose. p. 337. Zondervan.
  9. ^ Pearce, Joseph (2004). The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde. pp. 28–29. Ignatius Press.
  10. ^ "IrishAbroad Internal Messaging". Archived from the original on 19 October 2006. Retrieved 22 August 2006..
  11. ^ Cuireadh oileánach do Mhuire (The poem An Islander’s Invitation to Mary) set to music and cited: https://www.catholicireland.net/maynooth-celebrates-50th-christmas-carol-service/
  12. ^ Diary of an Irish Countryman https://www.irelandsown.ie/diary-of-an-irish-countryman-writings-of-humphrey-osullivan/
  13. ^ "In Praeclara Summorum". 30 April 1921.
  14. ^ http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0078.html .
  15. ^ http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/136/12.0.html . Christianity Today.
  16. ^ http://books.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,11617,1283895,00.html . The Guardian.
  17. ^ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/08/29/LVGA98D32M1.DTL . San Francisco Chronicle.
  18. ISBN 978-607-417-264-5
    .
  19. ISBN 978-0-271-03439-3
    .
  20. Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
    .
  21. ^ "R. A. Lafferty at the Great SF&F site".
  22. ^ "The Infinite Matrix | David Langford | Runcible Ansible Week 18".
  23. ^ http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:hffgCZgnC4oJ:news.ansible.co.uk/a177.html+%22R.+A.+Lafferty%22+%22conservative+Catholic%22&hl=en .
  24. ^ [dead link] [1].
  25. ^ http://studiobrien.com/site/index/php [permanent dead link].
  26. ^ "Locus Online: Tim Powers interview excerpts".
  27. ^ "Strange Horizons Articles: Interview: Tim Powers, by Lyda Morehouse". Archived from the original on 11 September 2005. Retrieved 22 November 2005..
  28. ^ "Catholics & Science Fiction | an Interview with Sandra Miesel".
  29. ^ http://www.timeout.com/film/news/454.html [permanent dead link]. Time Out.
  30. ^ http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/en1/Articolo.asp?c=93974 Archived 26 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine.
  31. ^ "Bresson, Robert – Senses of Cinema". 24 January 2003.
  32. ^ The Keeper of Traken episode two audio commentary.
  33. ^ "Two Identities, One Faith".
  34. ^ http://www.nightshadebooks.com/discus/messages/17/956.html?1085325005 .
  35. ^ Staff (25 November 2002). "Corrections". The New York Times. 18 June 2014.
  36. ^ "Nie wierzę w czary". 11 March 2017.

References

External links
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