John R. Powers Motivated Me to Write The Brown and White

I am one of those Catholics who loves his faith and the culture surrounding it.  Being a good Catholic is not so easy and most of us do struggle.  But I think struggle, suffering, prayer and to a certain degree, laughter is what our faith and our lives are all about. 

Back in the day, John R. Powers was for many of us, the voice of Catholicism.  Powers wrote a number of books about Catholics that were funny and captured the times.  His  books brought a lot of us together at a very tough time. It was post Vatican II, Vietnam raged on, civil rights struggles were everywhere, and life was just changing too fast for a lot of people.  Powers books looked back a few years to a time that might not have been better, but a time that was in a lot of ways more innocent.  I think in reaction to his books, many of us Catholics felt more connected and we came to appreciate our past more.  John wrote The Last Catholic in America about his grade school days and he wrote Do Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up about his high school days. He wrote other books as well, but these two are the ones most of us would rememeber. 

I was so taken by John and his stories that I took up writing my own Catholic book called The Brown and White (high school) and I have a grade school eBook called Callaghan Goes to St. Cajetan. 

Powers Last Catholic was a great read and when we got a copy at home, everyone read it within a few weeks.  When he published Patent Leather Shoes, it became a favorite again and a few years later a play was written based on the book. The Patent Leather Shoes went on and on for decades. It played in Chicago and other parts of the country as well.  I know several people who read Last Catholic and Patent Leather  every year.  I've read Last Catholic several times and listened to the recording of it in my car during the Christmas season.  

In Power's Last Catholic he writes about life in the Seven Holy Hills nieghborhood in Chicago and at St. Bastion's Grade  School.  One of the episodes from the book is an account of St. Bastion's Pastor, Fr. O'Reilly, and Garbage Lady Annie. Fr. O'Reilly is a larger than life take charge pompous pastor who is leading his parish to construct a new church on property that is adjacent to a bag lady and  garbage picker called Garbage Lady Annie.  Some parishioners believe the priest should back plans to destroy Annie's house--he doesn't and has his reasons. Powers shows Fr. O'Reilly in one light, yes funny, and then finishes the story off showing a heroic side of him and a heroic side of Gargage Annie at the same time. Powers characters act the way you might expect them sometimes and then display a different side.  And in many ways, that is Catholicism to me. The faithful has high asperations, often unmet in funny ways, but we understand our humanity as well. 

The Brown and White

In The Brown and White,  I go back to end of the 1960s and show another side of Catholic culture and our faith.