Hey, I’m just asking a question. Kidding! Actually, it’s Marist priest Fr. James L. Heft, head of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California, who is asking — and presumably answering — that question as part of the Institute’s Condon Lecture series. Friends of Korrektiv will no doubt recall the mini-Summit – JOB, Angelico, yours truly — held at the Institute’s conference on the Future of the Catholic Literary Imagination a couple of years back, when Wiseblood’s Joshua “Feather Pen” Hren stood up in the middle of Tobias Wolff’s talk and said, “Me. I’m the future of the Catholic literary imagination.” Notice was, as they say, served.*
Anyway, I’m guessing Fr. Heft’s answer is going to be firmly in the negative, but I did thrill to see the word “heretic” in such a rarefied setting.
I remember that! (How can I forget?)
Highlights:
1. Meeting Ron Hansen in person.
2. Drinking Japanese whiskey with Hollywood Lawyer Ann Clark.
3. Seeing Broderick weave like a Great Northern pike among the academic pilot fish during breaks…
If only on 3. I was terrified of all the august personalities, and failed to pass out a single one of the Bat Out of Hell cards I had made up…
But amen amen to the first two.