Most of it touches on religious themes indirectly while addressing other subjects—not sacred topics but profane ones, such as love, war, family, violence, sex, mortality, money, and power.
A separate group are "...anti-Catholic Catholics, writers who have broken with the Church but remain obsessed with its failings and injustices, both genuine and imaginary.
According to editor Joshua Hren, "Catholic writers tend to see humanity struggling in a fallen world.
In the years after the American Civil War, a young priest by the name of Isaac Hecker traveled around giving lectures with the aim of evangelizing both Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
[8] The mid-twentieth century saw a number of Catholic writers prominent in American literature, such as Paul Horgan, Edwin O'Connor, Henry Morton Robinson, Caroline Gordon, and poet Phyllis McGinley.
Between 1945 and 1965, Catholic novelists and poets received eleven Pulitzer Prizes and five National Book Awards.
His first novel was Morte d'Urban (1962), which won the 1963 National Book Award for Fiction[9] Evelyn Waugh, Walker Percy, and Frank O'Connor admired his work.