Ralph McInerny puts before the reader a number of writers who in their different ways were influenced by their Catholic faith - or in the case of Willa Cather by a faith that was a near cousin to Catholicism. Many of these writers would have been surprised by, even unhappy with, the designation Catholic. The adjective may suggest that their fiction is apologetic, catechetical, pastoral. But the point of noticing the influence of faith on the outlook of these writers is not to separate them off from writers tout court, but to emphasize that they occupy in a way noteworthy in these last times the mainstream of Western literature. It would seem gratuitous to refer to Dante and Shakespeare and Dryden as Catholic authors. There is no need to point out that the faith was the very air they breathed. Nowadays it seems useful to make the point explicit.
