Catholic literature and philosophy general

Jehovah's Witnesses. Much worse than protestant novels.

Deliverance is okay, but Riches is full-on fire and brimstone bullshit with not much bases.

I've read only one real American protestant novel, or started it anyway.
It was about how angels and demons fight around the life of some American family which is surrounded by evil atheists and evil atheist cops.
I was 16, but the writing seemed awful even then.

I've actually been doing some research on JW to corroborate a memoir from an ex-JW member, and man, it seems as bad as what he wrote. Russell and Rutherford were fucking crazy.

I still enjoy their shit though, lol. Makes me feel smart with the amount of idiocy they have.

How low do people fall to get in those cults anyway?

born that way I guess
It's worse than Flannery O'Connor's grotesques. The JW are much better nowadays because they promote love and tolerance. In Rutherford's time they promoted TOTAL AND COMPLETE SUBMISSION TO GOD. Marriage was looked down upon and children were raised to be missionaries. That's not a surprise that a lot of JW children then escaped from their cults.

It's much better nowadays, though. I have a JW friend who actually respects other people's religions and admitted that Rutherford and Russell were fucked up. Most of them are still pests, but at least they love their children and are decent outside their religion.

bible.ca/jw-1914-generation.htm

They also had Jerusalem as the world's central city in 1925. We knew that didn't happen. Also pro-Nazis.

-The genius Blaise Pascal was a Catholic (even though a Jansenist iirc), and everybody should read his Pensees.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal

The most obvious writer you didnt mention is Chesterton. You should read his work if you havent already.

Leon Bloy who had recently a thread is a great Catholic writer. And quite famous among well read conservatives of latin europe and latin america.

Another writer that I think may not be well known in the USA is Maritain

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Maritain

That is a great book. I bought it in a bus, in the 90s, when I was a kid, from a street peddler.
IIRC Graham Greene didnt get the nobel because he was commercially successful and christian. Vargas Llosa was the first right winger to get the nobel prize in ages, Borges couldnt. (Vargas Llosa and Borges arent christians btw)

Nicolás Gómez Dávila is a fantastic Colombian reactionary but I dont think he has been translated in English, apart from some amateur translations on the internet.

Paul Cladel is great, but I think translated poetry is pointless, read him only if you know French.

The American Flannery OConnor is considered great, but I never read her, you might give her a try.

Pascal was the first to introduce doubt and fideism into the Catholic faith. He later renounced his heretical views, but the damage which Kierkegaard and the general abandonment of the reason in faith did stayed.
Human Condition by Hannah Arendt is a great read on the subject, far from Catholicism, but still, quite a work.
I've read a lot of Chesterton, Heretics, Orthodoxy, Everlasting Man, Father Brown, Napoleon of Notting To and Man Who was Thursday.
He's an incredible stylist and often times insightful and shows a lot of wisdom, but is too erratic and starts his arguments often from the middle I never saw him as a philosopher.

Leon Boly was never mentioned here from what I know, what do you recommend?
And O'Connor is brilliant, you'll never read an author with such a hand at crafting characters, the only real contender in short stories is Chekov.

Jansenism wasn't condemned as heresy back then however, so Pascal was, for his time, an acceptable Catholic. If I'm right.

>mfw I read "Introduction to Christianity" and Benedict XVI starts off by telling the reader that you have to take a leap of faith

Well you do, faith isn't reason or philosophy.
The fact that there is reason to it is a different thing.
Ratzinger isn't a fideist and is an exceptional theologian, Salt of Earth is an interview with him about a lot of stuff and it's really interesting.
I didn't read Introduction to Christianity tho, how is it?

Also, Jansenism was declared a here's during Pascal's life, he renounced it when it was asked of him without much fighting.

Haha, don't worry, I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. It is just clear that Ratzinger was making a departure from scholasticism and was heavily influenced by contemporary German philosophy when he defines 'belief' in the first section of the book.

the thread is still in the archive

I agree with the last post "Try Le désespéré or La femme pauvre (don't know how they translated the titles) if you're interested in him. I don't think the rest of his oeuvre is available in English, but if somehow you manage to get your hand on it, try reading some of his more spiritual texts like his apology of Colombus, L'âme de Napoleon, or maybe Le Salut par les Juifs.
He's really diverse."

There's been some recent English translations of his work. Sweating Blood, Disagreeable Tales and The Woman Who Was Poor are published.

In Salt of Earth he's also clear on being more of an augistinian and says he finds scholasticism too dry.
He spent a lot of his youth researching Heidegger, but I think his later works are much more in line with the traditional Catholicism.

Can anyone rec me some easily digestable books or authors that lay down the fundamentals of different types of Liberalism and Conservatism?

Well they are one and the same in America, Locke by Edward Feser is a good start.
I'm not as well versed in this area, but maybe The Conservative Mind by Russel Kirk and some Tocqueville?

>contemporary Catholic philosophers
It'll be a bit difficult to get quality, and I'll talk as a French, and with XXth century thinkers more than with contemporary ones.

Rémi Brague, René Girard for the most recent ones.

Otherwise, early (until 1926) Maritain, Simone Weil, Gustave Thibon, Jean Madiran, Jean Ousset, Thomas Molnar, Henri Massis, archbishop Lefebvre, Pierre Debray, and finally Pierre Boutang.
They're probably mainly untranslated.

>Chesterton, Bloy and Claudel
Yes. Lacks Bernanos though.

Bump to say OP should definitely read Simone Weil.

Tell me about her.

Also, which books do you recommend?

>Leon Bloy
I am sorry user but he isn't on libgen or bookz in english.

>The American Flannery OConnor is considered great

Wise Blood is a really short novel. Starts out kinda slow, builds up some momentum, and then the two last chapters blow you away. Give it a shot.

spanish readers can find some of his stuff here

epublibre.org/autor/index/9682

and here

gen.lib.rus.ec/foreignfiction/index.php?s=leon bloy&f_columns=0&f_lang=All&f_group=&f_ext=All&page=2

I'd say anyone should go with her short stories, Everything That Rises Must Converge is a 10/10 collection.
Make sure to link if you find it in English.
I dled Simone Weil, she seems like an interesting, albeit conflicting author.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_authors

Gerald Manly Hopkins?

Evelyn Waugh as well. Currently re-reading Brideshead Revisited.

>Find Ayako Sono
>Got a medal from the pope
>contemporary of Shusaku Endo
>recently outraged some niggers
>no torrents

REEEEEEEEEDDDDERERRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Gravity and Grace, which was edited post mortem by Thibon who was mentioned earlier in this thread, from what Simone wrote in her notebook.

And The Need for Roots, which was fully written by her, as recomendations to what should be done with France after they expulse the nazis. (she was in the resistance)

she had a complicated life, used to be a communist, only became a christian (in the widest sense) in her last years, and she was never fully orthodox, in spite of that, many conservative catholics consider her a saint.

I will try Gravity and Grace, but sadly it's only a pdf and my converting skills are not the best, the formating ends up shitty.