Acclaimed and prolific Canadian Catholic author Michael O’Brien once said, “If creators of Christian culture hope to produce work that will bear good fruit, we must draw our life from the true source — our living Saviour. He is real. He is present.”

I once interviewed the Irish Times columnist and author John Waters, a very devout and public Catholic, about changes roiling through Irish society that were creating pressures to amend the Constitution in areas such as abortion and gay marriage. I noted that despite the Church������Ƶapp long dominance over Irish politics, an equally long-standing antipathy toward it could be found in figures such as James Joyce.

A young Desmond Devoy was on holiday in British Columbia in 2000 when a Catholic news story fell into his lap. Unable to resist the temptation, the budding writer phoned back to Toronto to report his story to The Catholic Register.