“One reason why I can write about Protestant believers better than Catholic believers [is] because they express their belief in diverse kinds of dramatic action which is obvious enough for me to catch. I can’t write about anything subtle” (O’Connor).O’Connor was highly regarded in the Catholic community as a devout believer, yet she was very aware of the inadequacies of the church and was a “harsh critic of the superficial faith of many Catholics” (Magee). Most of her writings either dealt with religion explicitly, or had undeniably Catholic undertones. O’Connor says of her own work, “‘To the hard of hearing…[Christian writers] shout, and for the . . . almost-blind [they] draw large and startling figures’—a statement that has become a succinct and popular explanation of O'Connor's conscious intent as a writer” (Gordon). Despite the increasing secularism of her time, she continued to place emphasis on original sin and guilt in her writing, and infused much of her work with a Christian outlook.
“Like the comedy of Dante, O'Connor's dark humor consciously intends to underscore boldly our common human sinfulness and need for divine grace. Even her characters' names (Tom T. Shiflet, Mary Grace, Joy/Hulga Hopewell, Mrs. Cope) are often ironic clues to their spiritual deficiencies. O'Connor's recurrent characters, from Hazel Motes in Wise Blood to O. E. Parker of "Parker's Back," are spiritually lean and hungry figures who reject mere lip service to Christianity and the bland certainty of rationalism in their pursuit of salvation.” (Gordon)
Outside of her own stories, O’Connor also wrote book reviews The Bulletin and The Southern Cross, two Catholic newspapers in Georgia. “Professor of English Carter Martin, an authority on O'Connor's writings, notes simply that her ‘book reviews are at one with her religious life’” (wiki).
Cep, Casey N. “The Artist as Invalid: The Life of Flannery O’Connor”. The Oxonian Review. 2009. The Oxonian Review. Web. 29 Jan. 2012.
Gordon, Sarah. "Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 2009. University of Georgia Press. Web. 19 Jan. 2012.
Magee, Rosemary M., and Flannery O'Connor. Conversations with Flannery O'Connor. Jackson [u.a.: Univ. of Mississippi, 1987.
I really liked reading Flannery O'Connor. I thought she was a brilliant writer, who is easy to read. Her background sort of fascinates me--I wonder what it would be like to be a Catholic in Savannah, Georgia in 1925. She likely grew up a religious outcast, which is probably why so much of her fiction was largely concerned with fundamentalist Protestants. On the flip side, she was still incredibly respectful and tolerant of such beliefs different than hers, since as you said, she admired many of them for their integrity in their search for truth.
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