Tom Piatak

June 14, 2008

Regular Takimag contributor John Zmirak has written a graphic novel called The Grand Inquisitor, which I have just finished reading. I can report that John’s novel is well-written, inventive, and sometimes even profound, and deals with an issue of importance to non-Catholics as well as Catholics—the loss of vitality of much of the Catholic Church since Vatican II.  Despite the efforts of John Paul II and now Benedict XVI, many established Catholic institutions in the West now seem to believe in nothing more than liberalism, and the resulting loss of faith in Europe has had serious spiritual and secular consequences.  I doubt, for example, that men filled with the faith of Charles Martel, Jan Sobieski, or Don John of Austria would have allowed Europe to be overrun by a quiet Islamic invasion, such as the one we have witnessed in the past few decades.  Zmirak’s novel presents an ingenious explanation for how this weakening of the Faith has come to pass, and offers an equally ingenious hope for recovering the former vitality of the Church Militant.