Piers Paul Read on EWTN's "The World Over" tonight...

UPDATE: Mr. Read's appearance on EWTN tonight was postponed due to flight delays.

A quick reminder that Piers Paul Read will be on EWTN's "The World Over" with Raymond Arroyo, which airs tonight at 8:00 p.m. EST (other guests include Mary Ann Glendon and Fr. Robert Sirico, so it should be an excellent show).

Also, Frank Wilson, long-time (and now retired) book review editor for The Philadelphia Inquirer, has already written a review of Read's novel, The Death of a Pope, but has also posted some e-mail correspondence he's had recently with the author. Among other things, they discuss the complexity of the novel's characters:

FW: Among the many things I found interesting about the book is how attractive and persuasive Juan Uriarte is. This reminded me of how good Aquinas is at presenting the arguments of those he does not in fact agree with. To do this you have to enter deeply - and sympathetically - into the other's position.

On the other hand, those in the novel who prove to be the instruments of God's providence and thwart Uriarte's scheme - Luke Scott and Monsignor Perez - display nothing of Uriarte's charisma or subtlety.

I found this rather heartening, since many people seem to be always on the lookout for some hero to do God's work, whereas God is fully capable of doing His own work using the people who come to hand, as it were.

So one question, obviously, is this: You must have gone into the idea of of the social gospel rather deeply - and sympathetically. And yet remain or have come to be suspicious of it. Would you care to explain?

PPR: When I was a student at Cambridge I was a zealous Liberationist - partly influenced by some very radical Dominicans at the Cambridge Blackfriars. There was a Catholic Liberationist review called Slant. The view was that you could only help the poor in the Third world with social revolution. I changed my views in later years because 1) I lived for a while in Berlin and saw socialism in practice on the eastern side of the wall 2) studied more history and came to understand that revolutionaries usually turn out to be self-serving and 3) deepened my understanding of the Catholic faith, realising that it was more about saving souls than social welfare. I also went out to Salvador on a journalistic project and heard the criticism of the FMLN and the Jesuits from the 'traditional' clergy there - views which never got through to the Catholic journals in Britain.

But certainly, Uriarte represents to some extent my youthful self and the novel is a debate between the older and one hopes wiser author and his that youthful self.

Here is part one and here is part two of the correspondence.

For much more about the novel, visit DeathOfAPope.com.

Comments

[Mark Brumley]

it's been rescheduled due to a delay at the airport.