Reading Has Made Many Saints, by Michael Pakaluk

A new problem – new to me, anyway – came to my attention last week.  I was corresponding with a college student from another institution who had just converted from Protestantism to Catholicism.  It became clear in our exchanges, however, that his conversion had resulted solely from watching videos on YouTube.  Not from friendships, not through “reading himself” into Catholicism, but by watching videos.

I thought to myself, This is interesting.  He hasn’t read any books.  His Catholicism is a product of our new visual age. . . .But why do we care about books anyway?

It’s a concern to me – though not a very big concern – that there used to be a good credentialing system, which went along with books.  If you picked up a Doubleday Image book in the 1950s you could be sure that you had a pretty good Catholic book in your hands.  Then, too, it used to matter if a book had a bishop’s imprimatur and nihil obstat.  Today, anyone with a smartphone can post videos on the internet. …

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