Learning to see Girard as an “unlikely apologist” for the Christian story does not undermine orthodox faith—it is an extremely viable path forward.

With a sense of itself as the future of humanity, Facebook proves to be no ordinary company. When you’ve got a billion users, Martínez points out, it doesn’t matter if your advertising model is enormously flawed.

So what defines a Catholic novel? I am still struggling with that question. But I know that that which asks most of us is most worthy of us.

As one reviewer observed, “She began by writing about sidewalks and finished with an account of Western civilization itself.”

In a midtown subway station four silent women, bent over their smartphones, texted or read while an unconscious ragged man sprawled helpless at their feet. I checked to see if he was dead.