Support a Catholic Speaker Month: Thomas Howard

A couple of weeks ago, I was browsing the shelves of our local Catholic book store, and I came across this book:
I'm a big fan of the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, and I thought about buying it; in the end, I put it back on the shelf knowing that I had a gazillion other books on my to-read list and I'd better save it for another time.

Then the other day as I was reading some blogs, I saw this post by Anne over at "Imprisoned in My Bones: Releasing My Inner Jeremiah." Anne explained that Matt at Fallible Blogma is hosting "Support a Catholic Speaker Month," inviting bloggers to promote Catholic voices proclaiming the truths of the Catholic faith. She posted some information about Father Larry Richards, who has an interesting and unique ministry (check out the above link to find out more!) I followed the link on Anne's page that took me to Fallibal Blogma's Catholic Speaker Month post. I found a list of over one hundred names, some of whom I'm familiar with and some I'd never heard of. They invite bloggers to choose a Catholic speaker and post a little something about him or her on their blogs. Since it's near the end of the month, most of the people were taken, but there were a few who weren't. Some of the unclaimed speakers were names I knew: Barbara McGuigan and Marcellino D'Ambrosio to name a couple. (I almost picked Marcellino, mostly because his name is fun to pronounce. Both of these people are now taken, but if you hurry on over there are still a few left.) One of the as yet unclaimed speakers was a name that did not ring a bell, Thomas Howard. When I Googled him, I found to my surprise that he is the author of a number of books, including Narnia and Beyond: A Guide to the Fiction of C.S. Lewis, which I almost bought. After a little more reading, I discovered that he is also a convert to the Catholic faith. I was also intrigued by the fact that he was a professor of English and literature for many years before retiring--just like my own father (except my Dad is and always will be a faithful Baptist). I decided to see what else I could find out about him, and post it here.

At first I could find just a little bit about him--that some of his other books include Evangelical is Not Enough, On Being Catholic, and Lead, Kindly Light: My Journey to Rome. As a professor of literature, he is a big fan of C.S. Lewis (he is said to have been a friend of his), and has written several books and articles about his work. I did a little more digging and found out that he also loves Tolkien (as do I), and has taught at least one course on his works and its connection to Christianity. Click here for an in-depth interview with Dr. Howard about The Lord of the Rings.

The more I've looked these last couple of days, the more fascinating stuff I've learned about Dr. Thomas Howard. I found a series of videos on YouTube with Howard discussing his conversion to Catholicism. Here he is giving a simple yet beautiful explanation of the doctrine of Purgatory:

I encourage you to take the time to view the other videos in the series (titled "Evangelical to Catholic," Parts 1 to 5). They range from about 6 to 8 minutes each.

Yesterday I stopped back by the Catholic bookstore and bought Narnia & Beyond. I will plan to read it soon (although I might read True Devotion to Mary first) and when I do I will post a review here. Hopefully I will have a chanve to read some of his other books as well. He's a fascinating and inspirational man and an eloquent Catholic speaker!