I discovered the writings of Mary Claire Kendall after first reading a revealing article titled “Hemingway’s Catholic Heart”[1] in the prestigious magazine Saint Austin Review, edited by Joseph Pearce. Well-documented and filled with significant biographical details, the article confirmed for me the influence of the Catholic faith on Hemingway’s life and work. Although always accompanied by a dose of solemn pessimism—which Orson Welles captured so well in a 1974 interview with Michael Parkinson—his novels undeniably contain elements that reflect this influence.
In addition to offering a new perspective in literary history on important contemporary works, Kendall’s article introduced me to the world of Hollywood celebrities—led by Hemingway’s friend, Gary Cooper—who discovered the brilliance of Christian Revelation as conveyed by the Catholic Church. Since then, I have read many of Mary Claire Kendall’s articles; she is best known for her monograph Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends (First edition: 2015; Second edition: 2024). So her latest monograph, Hemingway’s Faith (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2024), comes as a natural continuation of her interest in the great converts from the world of film.
For those seeking to understand the author’s motivation, it is revealed in a memorable quote from a conversation with her father, Paul Albert Kendall:
“All the gifts from God can be boiled down to one: Faith. Persevere to the end. Believe that God will take care of us until the end.”
Indeed, all of Mary Claire Kendall’s writings are imbued with that same confidence in God’s power to convert even the most troubled hearts. And Hemingway was one of those authors whose soul was severely tested by the insidious temptations of the modern world.
Opened with a foreword by Gary Cooper’s distinguished daughter, Maria Cooper Janis, Hemingway’s Faith is indispensable to any serious biography dedicated to the author of A Farewell to Arms. What Kendall’s passionate research reveals is the deep impact of Christian faith not only on Hemingway’s final literary expression, but on the very vision that gave rise to it. Alongside the intrinsic qualities of a meticulous study of Hemingway’s life, Kendall’s book is written in a tone that reflects a profound symbiosis with the spirit of the man she investigates.
The ten chapters follow the chronology of the author’s life and works. It begins in a confessional tone, revealing the start of this true literary-biographical adventure born at the intersection of Gary Cooper’s and Ernest Hemingway’s lives. Kendall takes the opportunity to share how deeply she was influenced by the first novel she fully immersed herself in, The Sun Also Rises (1926):
Reading The Sun Also Rises was so calming and put me to sleep each night, not because it was boring but because it was just so beautifully written. It was music to my ears and solace for my soul.
Over the years of reading and reflection that accompanied the writing of her monograph, the influence of Hemingway’s novels grew deeper and more refined, leading to a natural tone in the text where, at times, the biographer’s voice seems to blend with that of the novelist. This achievement is all the more important because it does not devolve into a secular hagiography. Mary Claire Kendall not only knows the author’s weaknesses and failures in detail, but is also unafraid to discuss them—and not necessarily with a frown.
If anything disturbed me during the reading, it was the discovery of the fragility and precariousness of this restless spirit that was Ernest Miller Hemingway. The fact that in 1943 he described himself as “an unemployed writer” is thought-provoking. The only thing that seems to have been a constant anchor in Hemingway’s life is his faith. Colonel Charles Lanham, though initially saying his companion “veered back and forth between believing in nothing and being a half-assed Catholic,” eventually came to believe in his religiosity after seeing him go daily to pray in a nearby chapel. But the most distinctly Catholic aspect of Hemingway, regardless of the highs and lows of his life, was always his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The way he described his prayers to Our Lady during World War I—after being wounded near Fossalta di Piave—as an “almost tribal faith,” is an expression of the undying light flickering in the writer’s soul.
The name of the old man Santiago (i.e., James) in The Old Man and the Sea—the novel that won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954—is a reminder of the famous “Camino de Santiago” (i.e., “the Way of Saint James”). Along this pilgrimage route, in Burgos, stands one of the writer’s favorite churches, the French Gothic Cathedral of Saint Mary. But the most telling moment is the vow made by the old man out at sea to the Virgin Mary:
I will say ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Mary’s that I should catch this fish, and I promise to make a pilgrimage to the Virgin of Cobre if I catch him. That is a promise.
Kendall, well-informed, tells us that Hemingway himself had made such a vow while fishing for giant fish in 1933.
Clear and concise, one particular sentence in Mary Claire Kendall’s book defines her entire biographical work:
Sanctity is not about being perfect but about struggling.
The meticulousness with which she investigates Hemingway’s life is driven by the determination of an explorer venturing into a jungle full of dangers. The appeal of her monograph lies in how it highlights the ongoing struggle of a soul caught in the temptations of the modern world. From the vain desire for recognition to amorous escapades and refuge in alcohol, all the shadows are present in the life of this failed apprentice of Saint Anthony. Despite the scandalous nature of some biographical episodes, we read a book like Hemingway’s Faith because we recognize in it that unconverted part of ourselves which resists grace—the “old man,” as the Apostle Paul pointedly calls it (Ephesians 4:22). But if that were all, we might count ourselves among the disciples of the nihilist Emil Cioran, cast “on the heights of despair” by the eclipse of faith. Hemingway, however, was not just a troubled soul. Kendall makes sure to counterbalance all shadows and dark spots with serene episodes where faith once again becomes the axis of the Oak Park writer’s life. And nearly always, when it comes to such moments in which the protagonist of her monograph submits, with docility, to the moral imperative, we glimpse in the background the figure of his great friend, Gary Cooper.
Though Cooper sometimes tried to pull Hemingway out of the claws of depression and uncertainty, at least once it was Hemingway who, in return, helped Cooper avoid a dangerous path. Probably the most significant episode was when Cooper visited him at the Finca Vigía during Christmas of 1950, accompanied by Patricia Neal, with whom he had starred in The Fountainhead the year before. Hemingway disliked this “love affair,” suggesting Cooper leave the dishonorable relationship. Mary Claire sees in this episode more than just a friendly gesture:
Yet, he also knew both of them were living out their final years. Leaving Rocky would not be good for Coop’s soul.
Moreover, his spiritual concern extended beyond Cooper to other acquaintances. For example, to the art historian and Catholic convert Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), Hemingway confessed in a letter that he prayed for him in every place of worship he visited (including Chartres) while seeking peace for his heart. One of the most moving moments recorded in Mary Claire Kendall’s monograph, as cited from the writer A.E. Hotchner’s testimony, takes place in the Cathedral of Burgos, Spain:
‘With my help,’ wrote Hotchner, ‘Ernest pulled himself tortuously from the car and went slowly up the cathedral steps, bringing forth both feet together on each step.’ After entering the cathedral and dipping his finger into the Holy Water and blessing himself, he walked to a side chapel, ‘his moccasins barely audible on the stone floor,’ and just stood and gazed at the magnificent scene—perhaps the Chapel of the Presentation with its marvelous star ceiling, oil painting, and reredos. ‘Then, holding tightly, he lowered his knees onto a prayer bench and bent his forehead onto his overlapped hands. He stayed that way for several minutes.’
Such an ecstatic moment reveals Hemingway’s confessed desire, as he openly admitted that he wished he had been a better Catholic. His disgust with his own moral failings erupts at times in words that are hard to classify—are they sarcastic, self-ironic, or simply the furious expression of his inability to be a saint? To Robert Morgan Brown, who was writing a dissertation on Hemingway, he said in his harsh and unsparing style:
I think the simplest way to get a Ph.D., under the circumstances, would be to write that I am a no good, worthless son of a bitch. I would be glad to sign a statement to this effect.
Although it may also be seen as a bravado-laced act of self-denigration, the statement seems more likely to have sprung from a deep awareness of his failure to remain within the radiant horizon of supernatural grace:
I have certainly lived more of my life in a state of sin than in a state of grace. I am living, in the present time, in a state of sin, according to the church, but I have no feeling of sin.
Such disarming statements represent the secret of the force behind Hemingway’s narratives. His honesty verges on cruelty. He’s like a surgeon who operates without anesthesia. Personally, I believe this is what has drawn—and still draws, as Paul Krause confessed in “Hemingway and Me”[2]—readers both past and present. As for us, the faithful believers of the Catholic Church, we perceive in such utterances the understanding that the sinner attains when contemplating his wounds in agony.
I could write many more pages on Mary Claire Kendall’s book. Since space is limited, I will conclude by speaking of the one thing that, from my perspective as an aspiring writer, justifies such a reading. It concerns what Hemingway called “the terrible responsibility of writing.” Nothing impressed me more than his unusual remarks on the craft and art of writing. Only Tudor Arghezi ever “electrocuted” me with his authorial advice the way Hemingway did. And the moral responsibility of the writer, I believe, is treated here with an intensity rivaled only by two other classical authors: Miguel de Cervantes and Joseph Conrad. Still, Hemingway returned seriously to this subject again and again. And his main theme was and remains—as evident both in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech and in the novella that earned him that prize, The Old Man and the Sea—solitude:
Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.
Nothing can ease this state of perpetual solitude.[3] The true act of creation belongs solely to the one who aspires to a place in the Athenæum of letters. No one else can enter that sanctuary. A confirmation of the magnitude of the Nobel Prize, though it in no way solves the problem of the writer’s loneliness, does legitimize the efforts that, as Mircea Eliade said, are often “without glory, without progress.” For Hemingway, the prize gave him a chance to do even more: to fulfill the vow made by the old man Santiago. Thus, he offered the solid gold Nobel medal to Our Lady of Charity of Cobre. Mary Claire Kendall carefully highlights the congruence between her subject and the fate of the author, as revealed in this act.
Beyond reflections on the condition of the writer, a few insights into the creative act offer an incomparable school of thought. Such is his remark on the “symbolism” of literary work:
You do not put symbolism in your work. But if you are good enough the symbolism is there truer than if you had put it in by some preconceived plan.
Without merely reiterating the famous discussion on the necessity of “inspiration,” the above statement points to the demand for a spontaneity that excludes meticulous planning. After all, the only form of self-discipline we know he practiced was writing early in the morning before sunrise.
The end of Hemingway’s life occurs in a striking synchronicity with the final days of Gary Cooper. The latter, on his deathbed, wrote—according to Hotchner—one of the most Christian utterances imaginable. A true profession of faith, meant to strengthen the virtue of hope in the deeply tried soul of his archetypal friend:
As Hotchner, who had visited Coop, wrote, ‘When the pain had passed, Cooper reached his hand over to the bed table and picked up a crucifix, which he put on the pillow beside his head… ‘Please give Papa [Hemingway] a message. It’s important and you mustn’t forget because I’ll not be talking to him again. Tell him… that time I wondered if I made the right decision’—he moved the crucifix a little closer so that it touched his cheek—‘tell him,’ he said, referring to his conversion to Catholicism, ‘it was the best thing I ever did.’
Shining like the morning star, the decision to convert manages to scatter the shadows from the lives of two defeated men from the darkest period in history. I say “defeated” because neither of them managed to attain sanctity. And yet, this simple and encouraging testimony from Gary Cooper may be read as a great sign of that hope which allowed both of them to cross the ocean of a chaotic world.
Mary Claire Kendall reads the end of Hemingway’s life in the light of this hope passed on through Frank James Cooper’s message. The words of Father Robert J. Waldman, who led the funeral ceremony for the writer, still invite us today to a solemn and grave silence:
We pass no judgment on [his suicide].
Nothing convinces us more than such acts that only God is the Judge of souls. And we can be glad it is so. After all, only Heaven—Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary—truly know the fate of each soul in eternity. And as we refrain from any judgment, we remain silent, keeping in our hearts that faint but unquenchable light which, at the end of all earthly things, may offer us the greatest imaginable surprise.
Photo by Dmytro Lysenko on Unsplash
[1] Published in the first issue (January/February) of 2019, the article can be read online here: [Accessed: 22 May 2025].
[2] Paul Krause, “Hemingway and Me: Or How I Learned to Love Hemingway and Stop Worrying About His Hopelessness:” [Accessed: 22 May 2025].
[3] This theme in The Old Man and the Sea is so important that I have dedicated an entire article to it, article titled “The Old Writer and the Sea of Words: Hemingway’s Ultimate Metaphor:” [Accessed: 22 May 2025].
