Glenn Arbery's novel, "Gates of Heaven," concludes a trilogy that explores the American soul and cultural landscape through a Catholic lens. The trilogy, starting with "Bearings and Distances" (2015) and "Boundaries of Eden" (2020), uses classical myth and history to observe human struggles with guilt, innocence, and hope. "Gates of Heaven" is structurally the most daring, set during the divisive COVID and election years of 2020-2021. The plot centers on high school student Jacob Guizac, who researches Union General William Tecumseh Sherman for a project, leading to a temporal connection with the historical figure. The novel offers an intricate exploration of the consequences of Original Sin across individuals and families within the challenging contemporary setting.
15 days ago
"Gates of Heaven" (Wiseblood Books, 2025) concludes Glenn Arbery's Catholic trilogy, following "Bearings and Distances" (2015) and "Boundaries of Eden" (2020).1
The novels explore the human soul amid America's social and cultural landscape, blending classical myth, history, and Catholic revelation.1
Set during the divisive COVID and 2020-2021 election years, the story reunites characters from prior books facing tribalism and uncertainty.1
High schooler Jacob Guizac undertakes a homeschool project on Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, mystically connecting with him across time.1
Jacob's father, Walter Peach, enters a COVID-induced coma, encountering Sherman in visions where past, present, and eternity intersect.1
Braxton Forrest, an acerbic academic, supervises Jacob's project.1
Hermia, shaped by her family's sinful history including incest themes, runs a home for pregnant women in a house tied to that past.1
Sherman emerges as a rationalist antagonist, rejecting Catholic vocation and embodying modern destruction.1
Arbery views the trilogy as roughly Dantean: first book infernal, second purgatorial, third offering paradisal glimpses amid grotesquerie.1
Sherman symbolizes division, from his Civil War scorched-earth tactics to post-war policies against Native Americans.1
Stonewall Hill represents enduring Southern survival, site of rooting out deep-seated brokenness.1
The novel probes Original Sin's consequences for individuals, families, and the nation.1
Healing demands radical empathy infused with love, family sacrifice, and exorcism-like labor against division.1
Characters like Walter face judgment for Sherman, underscoring mutual accountability for redemption.1
Arbery, a Wyoming Catholic College professor and former president, says the trilogy evolved organically from images and unresolved stories.1
Sherman, long a fascination, parallels COVID-era strife as a "rationalist" rejecting sacramental faith.1
Writing challenged Arbery technically and psychically, confronting evil to reveal grace, echoing Dante's examinations on faith, hope, and love.1
Arbery confronts shocking sins to make good stand out, narrated through innocents like Jacob.1
Hermia's path from grotesque origins to potential sainthood echoes Oedipus and Faulkner, emphasizing acknowledgment and purgation.1
The work affirms hope through love amid America's "fractured mess."1
Examine how Catholic narratives interpret Original Sin in contemporary America
Catholic teachings on Original Sin portray it not merely as a historical event but as a pervasive reality that explains humanity's fractured existence, transmitted through human nature yet conquerable through grace. Rooted in Scripture and Tradition, this doctrine—affirmed by St. Thomas Aquinas and subsequent magisterial documents—interprets Original Sin as the loss of a supernatural gift of grace superadded to human nature, leading to a propensity toward disorder in the soul and relationships. In contemporary America, Catholic narratives apply this lens to modern social ills like abortion, environmental degradation, and systemic violence, viewing them as echoes of the primordial rupture with God, neighbor, and creation. Pope Francis, drawing on Genesis, frames these as manifestations of humanity's "delirium of omnipotence," urging a return to innocence through mercy and reconciliation. This analysis reveals a consistent narrative: Original Sin wounds universally, but Christ's redemption, prefigured in Mary's Immaculate Conception, offers healing amid America's cultural battles.
At its core, Catholic doctrine defines Original Sin as the privation of original justice—a state of harmony with God—incurred by Adam and Eve's disobedience, passed to all humanity via generation. St. Thomas Aquinas clarifies that this sin does not eradicate the natural goods of the human species but removes the gratuitous supernatural endowment that elevated humanity. He explains: "By sin there is not taken away from man the good of nature which belongs to his natural species, but a good of nature which was superadded by grace." This transmission occurs precisely in the procreative act, where the parent's nature, deprived of original grace, conveys the "infection" to offspring, even if the act itself is free of personal fault.
The Church has consistently rejected views denying this universality, as seen in the condemnation of Michael du Bay's errors, which claimed even the Blessed Virgin shared in Original Sin from Adam—a position incompatible with her preservation by grace. This underscores Original Sin's metaphysical reach: primarily a disorder of the soul, described historically as the "death of the soul," with bodily consequences as punishment. Councils like Orange and Trent affirm this, linking soul's stain to physical frailty. Yet, sacraments remit its guilt, though concupiscence lingers, demanding ongoing purification.
Catholic narratives pivot on the Virgin Mary as the antidote to Original Sin's universality, her preservation illuminating God's proactive mercy. Pope Pius IX's Ineffabilis Deus, echoed in later reflections, declares Mary "preserved free from all stain of original sin" from her conception's first instant, due to Christ's merits. This grace enveloped her soul upon infusion into the body, rendering her a "fit habitation for Christ" through "original grace," not bodily perfection.
Pope Francis, in his 2015 homily for the Immaculate Conception, weaves this into salvation history: "Not only does [God] forgive sin, but in Mary he even averts the original sin present in every man and woman who comes into this world." Amid Genesis's "enmity" (Gen 3:15), Mary's fiat heralds triumph over sin's history, transforming disobedience into joyful abandonment to God. This narrative counters despair: sin's story yields to "saving love," with Mary as witness.
Applying this doctrine to America, Catholic voices diagnose modern crises as Original Sin's fruits—broken relationships with God, neighbor, and earth. Pope Francis's Laudato Si' interprets Genesis symbolically: human life rests on three bonds, shattered by sin as "presuming to take the place of God." This distorts dominion into exploitation, yielding "conflictual" human-nature ties (Gen 3:17-19). Today, sin erupts in "wars, the various forms of violence and abuse, the abandonment of the most vulnerable, and attacks on nature"—realities stark in America's culture wars, pollution debates, and social divides. St. Francis of Assisi exemplifies healing, restoring "original innocence" through creaturely harmony.
Abortion exemplifies this most pointedly in U.S. Catholic narratives. An open letter from theologians protesting Notre Dame's 2009 Obama honor frames legalized abortion as "violence against the weak," inscribing "might makes right" into law. Echoing Jeremiah's weeping Rachel (Jer 31:15), they lament passing by the unborn "on the other side" (Lk 10:31), failing Christ in the stranger (Mt 25:43). Citing Evangelium Vitae, they insist: the right to life founds all rights; its rejection rends "human communion." This is Original Sin redux: primordial disobedience prioritizing self over God's plan, now institutionalized.
Pope Francis extends this to familial and national inheritance: Americans, like all, bear Original Sin's "disease from birth," marked by rejecting God's blessing for "delirium of omnipotence." Yet, woman carries a "secret blessing" against evil (Gen 3:15), shielding creation—like Revelation's Woman hiding her child from the Dragon (Rev 12:6). In America's polarized landscape, this invites women (and all) to defend against deceiver's wiles.
Punishment follows sin's nature—eternal (loss of God) and temporal (attachments purified in life or Purgatory)—not vengeance, but justice. Charity's satisfaction, even vicarious, mitigates it, as Aquinas notes. Sins against the Holy Spirit find mercy if repented, per Gelasius: the Church looses all who desist. Fatima's call reinforces: conquer "individual sin and the 'sin of the world'" via the Spirit.
In America, this narrative exhorts conversion amid controversy, prioritizing life's defense without alienating.
In summary, Catholic narratives interpret Original Sin as humanity's inherited wound—soul-deep, relationally disruptive—yet narrate redemption through Mary and Christ. In contemporary America, it critiques abortion's violence, ecological abuse, and hubris as sin's echoes, calling for merciful restoration. This fidelity to Tradition offers not condemnation but hope: grace precedes and heals.