The impressive artist Makoto Fujimura toured a bit of China with professor Ralph McInerny, author of the Father Dowling mysteries. Fujimura writes about it for World:

“The activity of the practical intellect divides into human actions to be done … and the works to be made; in other words, it divides into moral activity and artistic activity … Art is a virtue – not a moral virtue … Art is a virtue in the larger and more philosophical sense the ancients gave to this word; a habitus or ’state of possession,’ an inner strength developed in man … Art is a virtue of the practical intellect.” (Jacues Maritain, Creative Intuition)

The “habitus” of an Aquinas scholar could include mystery novels, or to consider all creative activities to be a significant intellectual work. Whether art and poetry, a Sunday afternoon baseball game or gourmet cooking, we do not need to segregate art and creativity into a corner, an exiled “extra” of our lives.

Ralph confided to me, though, that he really began to write mystery novels as a side business; to put his kids through school. I told him that my wife is a mystery novel fanatic, and knew of his books. I, on the other hand, first “met” Father Dowling as Tom Bosley, in a TV mystery show in the Eighties. “They loosely based it on my novels,” he said in his jovial voice, “but paid me well.” Having a son at NYU, I nodded, knowing that a financial opportunity a purist may resist, a parent grabs onto for dear life. I began to even ponder what kind of a mystery novel I would write … Murder at NYU (a parent gets mysteriously murdered on his way to paying his son’s tuition)?