The Bulletin was privileged recently to meet with former semi-pro ball player, successful New York advertising executive and, most lately, Catholic author, Brian J. Gail.
Mr. Gail’s first novel, Fatherless, published by Human Life International, has been selected as readers’ #1 choice for the Catholic Summer Reading Program sponsored by Aquinas and More booksellers, and subsequently has become a best seller.
As a compelling voice in the New Evangelization called for by Pope John Paul II, Mr. Gail has been invited by the Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster to deliver a keynote address welcoming His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to England for its annual Theology of the Body lecture on September 14. Mr. Gail will speak on the topic “In the Service of Woman – Men are Called to Greatness”, a theme chosen to highlight the modern secular crisis in Britain and the world.Mr. Gail explains the broad background of society’s current dilemma: “Modern man has experienced three revolutions. In the Industrial Revolution, as we shifted from an agrarian society, the father was called out of the home, away from his wife and children.” Repeating the promise of greater material prosperity, the Cultural or Sexual Revolution separated women from their traditional role as mothers and subsequently separated wives and mothers from their husbands and children as they, too, left the home to work. “The current Technological Revolution accelerates the pace of life, and the outside world pervades the home. This paves the way for a coming fourth revolution in the so-called ‘life sciences’ in which man attempts to recreate himself in his own image and likeness.”
“Nobody is suggesting that women are not fully capable [of leading in the public or corporate world].” But the damage this movement has inflicted is real and personal. “When a woman shuts herself off to the gift of life, she denies her self and allows herself to be objectified. Objectification is where love goes to die. This objectification of woman is no less ruinous to man than the objectification and exploitation of workers by unscrupulous employers.”
Theology of the Body spokesman Christopher West has recommended Fatherless “for anyone who wonders why our culture has spiraled out of control in the past 40 years.” Conceived as the first installment of what Mr. Gail has named “The American Tragedy in Trilogy”, the book tackles head-on the sacred cow of modern life, artificial birth control. The Pill and the contraceptive mentality that has accompanied its acceptance marginalize the role of the father, first in the creation of new life, and then in his children’s upbringing.
Mr. Gail maintains it is the job of the father to teach his child “to say ‘yes’ to God, and ‘no’ to self.” The failure of recent generations to convey this moral lesson is evident in the chaos of modern culture, a level of chaos which has prompted theologian and Catholic apologist Peter Kreeft to describe the Pill as more destructive than a nuclear bomb.
Set in the fictionalized town of Narbrook on Philadelphia’s Main Line, Fatherless follows three families struggling to live their Catholic faith in a hostile world. At its center is Father John Sweeney, a young priest torn between his human desire to be loved by his flock and his spiritual duty to deliver some of life’s hard lessons.
Mr. Gail’s extensive research and his personal experience as a Madison Avenue executive impart the unmistakable ring of truth to this novel. Readers gain extraordinary insight into how the cable television industry snaked its way into American homes, damaging children and their parents by unprecedented exposure to explicit sexual content.
Even more profound effects come from the power of the imagination as a tool for catechesis. “Christ used stories to teach, and we are called to imitate Christ,” explains the author. Fatherless is constructed of “stories of individual lives of people like us, living in this present moment of great confusion.” Most broadly it explores “how our modern vision of the American Dream conflicts with our universal call to holiness.”
The discipline of fiction allows the author to catechize by bringing his readers just to the point of a moral lesson, but allowing them to reach the final conclusion on their own, a powerfully effective method of instruction.
“Using imagination as a tool,” Mr. Gail continues, “we don’t need to tie together all of the loose ends. I am often asked why there aren’t more happy endings [for the characters in Fatherless]. The answer is twofold. Some of these stories find happy resolution in the second book (Motherless, expected to issue this October), but also these books illustrate the importance of hope in what is unseen if we are to live as people of faith. Otherwise we place our hope in what is transitory, and man will always disappoint.”
The entire trilogy, Fatherless, Motherless, and Childless, is planned to span 40 years, from the mid-1980’s to 2025. Drawing on extensive research into the current state of the art of In-Vitro Fertilization and Embryonic Stem Cell research, Motherless will again pit its central characters against technologies that promise miracles but deliver suffering and death. The appeal of these promises to our most noble impulses makes this betrayal even more poignant.
Brian Gail is scheduled to moderate discussions on “The Challenge of Same Sex ‘Marriage’” and “Theology of the Body and the call to Holiness” at the National Theology of the Body Conference to be held in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania July 28-31.
