A Case of Conscience (After Such Knowledge, volume 3) by James Blish

[james_davis_nicoll]

A Jesuit little inhibited by actual Catholic doctrine wrestles with his fear newly-contacted aliens are a Satanic creation.

A Case of Conscience (After Such Knowledge, volume 3) by James Blish

Comments

[oh6]

I wonder if Ruiz-Sanchez is just some biologist who copes with the inhumane society on Earth by the delusion that he's a Jesuit. Possibly the Pope deals with a steady stream of such people, well-connected enough that he can't just refuse them without attracting unwanted attention. I guess this would require the Catholic Church to have declined considerably in prestige, but I'm willing to imagine that

The other portrayal of Catholicism in SF that I can think of is Thomas M. Disch's Camp Concentration. Disch actually was raised Catholic, but I don't know if it's any more accurate as a consequence.

[(Anonymous)]

Most of John Whitbourn's works are set in the Catholic Europe of "A Dangerous Energy".

Tim Powers is a serious Catholic, and Catholic themes show up in his writing quite a bit.

William Hyde

[(Anonymous)]

Philip Henry Gosse was of a Protestant religious sect called the Plymouth Brethren. In addition to authoring Omphalos, he also hated Christmas and the Catholic Church.

On the subject of all feasts of the Church he held views of an almost grotesque peculiarity. He looked upon each of them as nugatory and worthless, but the keeping of Christmas appeared to him by far the most hateful, and nothing less than an act of idolatry. ”The very word is Popish,” he used to exclaim, “Christ’s Mass!” pursing up his lips with the gesture of one who tastes assafoetida by accident.

-- Edmund Gosse, writing about his father in Fathers and Sons