You don't serve God by saying: the Church is ineffective, I'll have none of it. Your pain at its lack of effectiveness is a sign of your nearness to God. We help overcome this lack of effectiveness simply by suffering on account of it.

There is no excuse for anyone to write fiction for public consumption unless he has been called to do so by the presence of a gift. It is the nature of fiction not to be good for much unless it is good in itself.

...free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply.

If there were no hell, we would be like the animals. No hell, no dignity.

When you can state the theme of a story, when you can separate it from the story itself, then you can be sure the story is not a very good one.

I don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then 'smile darkly and ignore the howls.' Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge.

If you're a Catholic you believe what the Church teaches and the climate makes no difference.