The online Union of Catholic Asian News has a lovely little article by Sri Lankan journalist Hector Welgampola on the surprisingly powerful impact of Catholic fiction on Asian, especially Japanese culture.

Here’s a quote:

Years ago I read a UCAN report on the impact of Catholic writing on Japanese society. It cited a missioner saying Japanese people tend to respect more what their novelists write than what priests say. Jesuit Father Alfons Deeken had expressed this view at a meeting of Catholic writers.

A somewhat related comment was cited in this column about six months ago. It quoted another missioner saying that in addition to the country’s 1 million Catholics, Japan has 4 million people who “think Catholic.” No doubt, the phenomenon of people who “think Catholic” owes much to the impact of writers like those applauded earlier by Father Deeken.

Click here for the rest of the article.