Gary Potter has been a Catholic journalist and writer of the first rank for over fifty years. As a convert to the Faith during the 1960s, (that time of revolutionary turmoil in the Church and the world), he developed a unique perspective on the Church in the 20th century that has matured over the years into a deep and penetrating vision of our times and the place of the Church and the Faith in the politics of our age.
As it is in Heaven is all about Christian politics. It contains Mr. Potter’s summation of that common worldview that was held by the men who built that civilization known as Christendom during the ages of Faith in the Christian West. He observes its disappearance and describes the effects of its absence on the life of men in our day. He proposes that it will one day be revived in a fashion suitable to modern times.
This extended essay encourages Catholics to face reality in the murky spiritual darkness of our present century. That means that it is also a message of light and hope. Do not be mistaken, Mr. Potter is no silly optimist or clueless observer. He knows the darkness and the dangers as clearly as any living writer, but he is a Catholic through and through, and his judgments are sound and realistic. Catholic realism! A realistic outlook can only come to a Catholic who believes and who tries to live according to that belief. The strength to face reality and to deal with it courageously is what is most necessary to men who wish to truly live—not just pass through this world—and to fight manfully for truth and goodness and beauty during this short pilgrimage that is life on earth.
An excerpt from, "In Memoriam: Gary Potter" By Charles A. Coulombe, Catholicism.org, October 3, 2025:
GARY POTTER has died; these lines are among the hardest I have ever written. Amongst Traditional Catholics — certainly of that small number who are also interested in the Church’s social teachings — he was a Patriarch. He was a mentor to me in many ways, and I hardly know where to begin in describing him. The bare facts of his obituary are impressive in themselves. Coming to consciousness during World War II as the son of Missourian parents relocated to California’s Bay Area, his whole life might be characterised as a search for Truth.
As a teenager in San Francisco, he fell in with the Beats — Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginzberg, and the rest. In fact, Kerouac immortalised him as a nameless teenager in The Dharma Bums. Now, Wikipedia, the endless source of truth, tells us that the Beat Generation was motivated thusly: “The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.” While the last two had little attraction for young Potter, the others did — and in a sense were with him the rest of his life. Certainly, he would always retain a sympathy for the unconventional, the non-conformist, and the underdog. As the son of two 1940s Greenwich Village actor-Bohemians, this was a side of him I found most congenial.
Video Title: Where Do We Go From Here? Source: Saint Benedict Center / Catholicism.org. Date Published: November 5, 2013.
