Chris Matthews author interview: "Hemingway's Faith"
Matthews, "a born skeptic," came away more persuaded of author's thesis
On Monday, April 14, Chris Matthews challenged me to defend my thesis in Hemingway’s Faith, per below YouTube video.
A “born skeptic,” he came away more persuaded that I have made a good case for the idea that, in a nutshell, Hemingway’s writing—and all other noble human activity he vigorously pursued—was healing for the iconic writer, not only humanly but spiritually.
Underlying it all is this simple, yet largely unknown, truth: Hemingway was a Catholic convert, and as he grew in his faith, his subject was sanctity, largely hidden from his readers but not from himself. As I write in the opening paragraphs of Chapter 2 of Hemingway’s Faith, “Medieval Truths and World War I Heroism”:
“Just shy of his nineteenth birthday, while serving abroad, in what would be one of the most dramatic plot points of his life, Hemingway discovered the richness of Catholicism—with all five senses. He bathed in Mary’s love and soaked up the redemptive reality of her son Jesus hanging on that wooden cross, writhing in pain, to his very sinews, the great European cathedrals he visited punctuating this reality. He was just seventeen and the experience was transformative. And quite unexpected. He was in Europe to help fight a war, not to find God.”
The event was hosted by Fr. Gary Studniewski, Pastor of Blessed Sacrament at Chevy Chase Circle, for which we are deeply grateful. For more, please buy my book, Hemingway’s Faith.
Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.