A Catholic Renaissance, by Randall Smith

I read an article recently by a professor who described how, years ago, she was expressing enthusiasm at an English Department meeting at her Jesuit university about a course on Catholic poetry that she had developed. She experienced some resistance. Finally, a senior member of the department “who seemed to be speaking for both himself and his skeptical colleagues” announced: “Someone is going to have to prove to me that this is a legitimate way to approach the study of literature.” I heard a similar sentiment recently from a student at a Catholic university; she has an English professor who insisted that “Catholic literature” is not a useful category.

There are courses in Spanish poetry, French literature, Renaissance poetry, nineteenth-century literature, and ancient lesbian poetry. But a course on Catholic poetry or literature is beyond the pale? This wouldn’t be evidence of anti-Catholic bigotry, would it? …