Catholic Protagonists in Books

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Here’s a science fiction book with a non-practicing Catholic Protagonist. She doesn’t go to church anymore, but she has a strong sense of what’s right and wrong. It’s a lovely story, and the author Paul Bussard has other stories with Catholic Protagonists.
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So, what good fiction books do you know of with Catholic protagonists?
 
The 11th century Benedictine sleuth, Brother Cadfael, in the series of books by Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter)
 
Chesterton’s Father Brown comes to mind.

As does McInerny’s Father Dowling.

If you’re more “liberally” minded, there’s William Kienzle’s Father Koesler. His portrayal of the Catholic faith leaves much to be desired, but some of his plots are good.

And if you believe in the “Spirit of Vatican II” :p, there’s Andrew Greeley and his Father Blackie books. These are highly not recommended. 😃
 
The “Queen of Suspense”, Mary Higgins Clark, writes most of her romantic suspense with Catholic characters, including nuns and priests.

James Patterson’s Detective Michael Bennett series features a NYC detectives who is father to ten children and has a grandfather who is a monsignor.

Aimee (RIP) and David Thurlo’s Sister Agatha series features a sleuth who is an extern nun in a cloistered convent in New Mexico who rides a Harley (when the monastery’s “anti-Chrysler” isn’t running) with a retired police dog named “Pax” riding in the side car!

Denise Swanson’s Scumble River mystery series features protagonist Skye Denison who is Catholic (well, she goes to Mass, anyway! 🤷)

If you’re talking about non-mysteries, there’s always the classic “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith (my all-time favorite book) and my new favorite, “Finding Grace”, by Laura Pearl, along with fellow OTP author, John M. Wills’, “The Year Without Christmas”. All excellent books!👍

Oh, yeah… check my signature line.😉 My characters are Catholic, too! 😃
 
Gene Wolfe’s novel PIRATE FREEDOM has a protagonist who is a modern Catholic Priest, but who was also a pirate on the Spanish Main 400 years ago, when he walked out of the novitiate his mafioso father enrolled him in our near future, and who then found himself stuck in the past…it’s a good read. Also read his wonderful short story THE DETECTIVE OF DREAMS, which moves from a hilarious pastiche of “consulting detective” mysteries of the early 20th century, through deep mystery, and finally to joyful transcendence.

Walter M. Miller’s A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ centers around a monastery in Arizona after a post-nuclear holocaust. Like the Irish monks who preserved the texts of the Greeks and Romans, the monks of the Order of St. Leibowitz faithfully preserve the scientific and technical texts of the 20th century through a new era of barbarism.

James Blish’s Hugo Award-winning A CASE OF CONSCIENCE follows Fr. Ruiz Echeverria, a Jesuit geologist and team member on a planetary survey team on the planet Lithia, who must deal with the scientific and theological puzzle of first contact with an intelligent, gentle alien species who manifest all the virtues, but have no conception of God.

Mary Doria Russell’s THE SWALLOW and its sequel CHILDREN OF GOD follows a team of Jesuits to an ultimately tragic confrontation with the two intelligent species of an alien planet, and explores the mystery of the Problem of Suffering.

R.A. Lafferty’s PAST MASTER’s protagonist is St. Thomas More himself, who is brought forward into the far future to help solve the problems of a planet whose political system was based on St. Thomas More’s own SF novel, UTOPIA.

William Peter Blatty’s THE EXORCIST focuses on the spiritual travails of Fr. Damien Karras, a Jesuit psychiatrist who is struggling to maintain his faith and is approached about the possibility of an exorcism of a young girl…

F. Paul Wilson’s vampire novel MIDNIGHT MASS depicts a world where vampires have gained control, and a New Jersey priest fights back with a small band of others.

Evelyn Waugh’s BRIDESHEAD REVISITED follows a young man of no particular religious inclination who finds himself increasingly drawn to an English Catholic family through a set of tragic circumstances, and finds how Divine Grace and Love can manifest itself through all the varieties of love.

Anthony Burgess’s cold war era spy novel TREMOR OF INTENT follows two former friends in an unnamed British intelligence agency, whose bond was forged by their Catholicism within an often hostile British public school system. See also Tim Powers’ cold war fantasy novel DECLARE, which combines a Catholic protagonist, real life cold war figures, and a demonic incursion into our world.

In BROTHER PETROC’S RETURN by “S.M.C.” (who was actually Sister Mary Catherine, a Dominican nun), a monk who died in 1549 returns by a miracle to 1949, where he confronts the age of modernity.

Fr. Robert Hugh Benson wrote a number of novels with Catholic protagonists, including LORD OF THE WORLD (recently mentioned by Pope Francis), THE NECROMANCERS, BY RACK AND BY ROPE, and the collection of supernatural stories A MIRROR OF SHALOTT, where a group of priests relate the most unusual experience they have ever had around the fireplace after dinner.

Michael Flynn’s EIFELHEIM depicts a Catholic priest who encounters (and converts!) an alien expedition to earth in the middle ages. Poul Anderson’s THE HIGH CRUSADE has its medieval English Catholic characters, including a sympathetically depicted priest, gain control of an alien starship after they unexpectedly defeat its crew, which was bent on subjugating earth.

Dean Koontz’s post-conversion novels, especially his ODD JOHN series, often have Catholic protagonists.

Brian Moore’s novel CATHOLICS (later filmed with Trevor Howard and Martin Sheen) is set in the near future when the Latin Mass has been proscribed, and a liberal American priest is sent to a remote Irish monastery which has defied the proscription.
 
So. You want a Catholic protaganist, hunh? 😃

I just completed the process of getting a Catholic protaganist novel in print. 👍

It only took me twenty years. :bigyikes:

But I think you’ll find it was worth the work. :extrahappy:

Theresa is 18 and 19 thoughout the story. This final print version will be on Amazon in five to seven days, Amazon tells me, along with the KINDLE version. There is a KINDLE version there now but it’s the March 2013 version which has many typos. Wait a week before getting the KINDLE version, if that’s what you’re going to do. I corrected the typos in the proof copy Amazon sent me last week.

Here’s the introduction:
Code:
                      INTRODUCTION
… What would you do with limitless power?
… We know what many people in the world would do. History is full of examples. But the world lucks out. It’s Theresa who gets limitless power.
… Eighteen year old Theresa only wants a quiet life when she’s suddenly burdened with global responsibilities. She is challenged by a series of “impossible” problems. Especially tricky is the one that prompts her to complain, “What am I supposed to do, change the laws of physics? This it the most impossible problem yet.” Can you guess the solutions before reading what Theresa does?
… Write a book about a decent girl and some critics will say every character must have serious flaws. I might have made Theresa another kind of personality, a less desirable and troubled kind of girl which would satisfy certain critics, but then people would come at me with a noose complaining, “This was our only chance to see a super-powerful girl in action and you messed up. Why didn’t you give us a loveable, inspiring Theresa?”
… I did, but I didn’t overdo it. A girl as fine as Theresa can be found in any high school. You know one. Empress Theresa is a tribute to the common, decent human being who quietly builds the world but hasn’t gotten enough attention lately.

N.B.
See my thread on this forum:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=810059

Also,
see my own website for the latest cover photo which I think you’ll find interesting. It’s certainly different! 😉
empresstheresa.com/

BY THE WAY,

THIS THREAD IS RUNNING OFF THE PAGE BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL POSTER POSTED AN OVERSIZED PICTURE. :banghead: IT CAN BE FIXED BY REPLACING THE PICTURE WITH A SMALLER ONE.
 
Hmmm. I just checked Amazon’s listing for Stinger Stars.

204 pages, hunh? Empress Theresa has 414 pages of text, and it was hard to get it down to that size.
The original 2010 draft version was 142,000 words. I’ve gotten it down to 105,000.

😃
 
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