The very term ‘Catholic novel’ is, of course, suspect, and people who are conscious of its complications don’t use it except in quotation marks. If I had to say what a ‘Catholic novel’ is, I could only say that it is one that represents reality adequately as we see it manifested in this world of things and human relationships. Only in and by these sense experiences does the fiction writer approach a contemplative knowledge of the mystery they embody. — Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners