Diversity

Amy’s up earlier than I am – dratted time zones – and she’s first mentioning that Godspy has an interview with David Scott, author of The Catholic Passion: Rediscovering the Power and Beauty of the Faith.

She excerpted one quote; I’ll excerpt another:

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In addition to John Paul II, which writers have influenced you the most over the years?

In high school and college I read tons of fiction and poetry. I don’t do much looking back, but if I did I think I’d find that Dostoevsky and Melville, who were my favorites, first stirred the religious impulse in me. The Confidence Man and The Idiot were huge for me at one time. When I was coming back to the church, of course, it was John Paul, especially the first two social encyclicals, and the trilogy on the Trinity. Ratzinger’s two letters on liberation theology were important. I read Neuhaus’ Naked Public Square when it first came out. That was powerful. It changed my orientation to the culture and opened my eyes to a whole dimension of the faith that I’d never thought about before.

Dorothy Day was probably my biggest influence. I spent an entire winter in a library every night reading and photocopying everything she ever wrote in The Catholic Worker. A lot of that went into a book I did a few years back. She showed me how Catholicism could be a total way of life. Because she was such an incredible reader and was always writing about what she was reading, she was my gateway into this whole world of Catholic culture-novels, social theorists, artists, poets, philosophers. I wanted to read everything she read. And I’m still trying. In recent years, Daniélou, De Lubac, and Ratzinger helped lead me deeper into the church fathers and the treasures of the liturgy. Mauriac’s novels and prose remain important. At the moment, I’m on an Evelyn Waugh kick.

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What the poor devil doesn’t know is that what he’s calling “an Evelyn Waugh kick” is really, most likely, the first throes of an Evelyn Waugh addiction. But leave that aside for the moment. I think it augers well for Scott that he can cite Dorothy Day and Richard Neuhaus as influences without even bothering to note the differences in their political bents.