Foreword

Ghost Runner, my first novel, will be released by Sophia Institute Press in November. But maybe you can’t wait, and maybe I can’t wait to give you a peek. So I’m going to be posting one chapter at a time, hoping to whet your interest for more.

Here with the Foreword, in which I explain why I wrote this book. Enjoy!

Foreword

This book is a work of fiction. The characters who appear in this story did not actually exist; the events did not take place. Any reader who tries to match the fictional characters to actual people is wasting his time.

The story is written against a historical background, so that inevitably some real-life people, places, and events are mentioned. Even there, however, the reader should proceed with caution, not presuming that this book offers an accurate view of the politics of the 1980s or the geography of El Salvador. I have taken liberties with the facts at times, to suit my own purposes.

What are those purposes, then, the reader might ask? A fair question.

For nearly forty years— since roughly the time in which this novel is set— I have worked as a journalist, reporting on developments in the Catholic Church. The Church is passing through a time of crisis: a crisis of faith. Over the years I have developed an understanding of the nature, the causes, and the consequences of that crisis, and done my best to pass along that understanding. Readers who are familiar with my non-fiction books, or have seen my hundreds of essays on the CatholicCulture site, should be familiar with my thesis: that most of the problems afflicting Catholicism today stem from an improper understanding of what the Church is: a tendency to treat the Church simply as a human institution.

Of course the Church is a human institution, insofar as it is composed of, and governed by, mortal and imperfect beings. But it is not only a human institution, and the failure to acknowledge the divine element— or to push it into the background, giving priority to the worldly— leads to a corruption of the faith, which in turn begets a corruption of the institution. The results of that corruption have been all too obvious in the early 21^st century.

This book is not another exploration of that corruption, although in the pages that follow the evidence of trouble lurks in the background. Instead, by introducing a character whose life is disrupted by something beyond ordinary human experience, I hope to offer some insights on how Catholic pastors and prelates might be tempted to respond. The events described in this novel did not take place. But I would argue that they could have taken place, and that is food for thought.

Why have so many Church leaders made decisions, and taken actions, clearly at odds with the faith they profess? How is it that men who seemed so virtuous, and so sincerely devoted to the Church, have done so much damage to the faithful and to the faith? A journalist can only point to possible motivations; responsible reporters stick to established facts. Yet over time, as I saw the same patterns of action repeated, I realized that they were consistent with a certain way of thinking. In a novel I could explore the inner workings of my characters’ minds, and thus illustrate the problem in a way that a journalistic approach would not allow.

What follows is, again, a story: only a story. It will not provide the key to restoration of the Catholic Church. But it will, I hope, give readers a better sense of the distractions that can warp the perception of Church leaders, and the tensions with which serious Catholics are living today.