---
title: "Author says Catholicism's strange traditions warrant celebration"
url: "https://usubjects.com/article/author-says-catholicisms-strange-traditions-warrant-celebration-4606"
updated: "2026-11-06T16:01:40.397Z"
description: "W. Tyler Allen’s book, *A Catechism of the Strange*, examines Catholic traditions including stigmata, relics, and miracles, arguing that Catholics should engage openly with these esoteric aspects of their faith. The item also references Dr. Russell Moul’s discussion of whether artificial intelligence shares characteristics with humanity’s historical attempts to understand or create supernatural entities."
sources: ["https://www.ncronline.org/culture/book-reviews/catholicisms-haunting-strangeness-warrants-celebration-says-author?"]
licence: "All rights reserved"
---

# Author says Catholicism's strange traditions warrant celebration

Published: 2026-11-05  
Source: [Anomalist](https://www.ncronline.org/culture/book-reviews/catholicisms-haunting-strangeness-warrants-celebration-says-author?)

### Overview

Catholicism’s more unusual traditions should not be hidden or treated as embarrassing remnants of a premodern past, argues author W. Tyler Allen. In his new book, *A Catechism of the Strange: Stigmata, Relics, and the Miracles That Shape the Soul*, Allen presents phenomena such as stigmata, incorrupt saints, relics and bleeding hosts as expressions of Catholicism’s mystical imagination—and as invitations to deeper theological reflection.

Published by Loyola Press, the 272-page book costs $19.99. Allen’s central argument is that the word **“strange”** is broad enough to encompass the faith’s encounters with mystery and the unknowable. Rather than using the term as an insult, he treats Catholicism’s strangeness as a source of wonder and spiritual meaning.

### A return through mystery

Allen’s interest in Catholic mysticism began in childhood, when he served at the altar. He recalled experiencing goosebumps while ringing the bells during the consecration, even though he did not yet understand the Mass or the significance of what he was witnessing.

“I ended up kind of leaving the faith, losing interest, because no one told me that the goosebumps mattered,” Allen told the *National Catholic Reporter*. Years later, he said, a series of dreams involving deceased relatives feeding him the Eucharist prompted his return to prayer and the church.

“I came back to the faith through what you could call a mystical experience,” he said, describing how he would awaken from the dreams in tears. He subsequently began praying the rosary and exploring Catholic traditions that renewed his fascination with the faith. In 2020, he launched the podcast *Saint Anthony’s Tongue* to discuss what he sees as Catholicism’s wondrous and overlooked dimensions.

### Beyond spectacle

The book’s 12 chapters pair theological lessons with examples drawn from the lives of saints and blesseds. Allen places these accounts within the framework of **theosis**, the Catholic concept of growing into communion with God through the transformation of the human person.

“These things are not just sideshow attractions,” Allen said. “They’re not just cool little things that make Catholicism creepy and fun. They all point back to the soul.” In his interpretation, the stigmata points toward redemptive suffering, relics toward theosis and all such phenomena ultimately toward Christ.

The approach reflects a broader concern about how Catholicism is presented in public life. Allen argues that Catholics may be reluctant to discuss visions, bilocation, glowing skin and other extraordinary accounts because they fear being misunderstood or criticized, particularly amid efforts by some religious conservatives to portray explicitly Catholic practices such as Marian processions as suspect.

### Mystery, modernity and artificial intelligence

The discussion also connects with a wider question raised by Dr. Russell Moul: whether artificial intelligence shares characteristics with humanity’s historical attempts to understand—or create—supernatural entities. The comparison does not establish that AI is supernatural, but it highlights a recurring human impulse to attribute agency, intelligence and transcendence to forces beyond ordinary experience.

For Allen, engaging such questions does not require abandoning reason. Instead, he believes Catholicism should resist reducing faith to philosophy alone. “We are very good with the true transcendental, which is the mind, the intellect,” he said, while observing that many people are hesitant to go beyond intellectual categories.

His book therefore makes a case for **wonder as a legitimate theological starting point**. The strange, Allen suggests, is not a distraction from Catholic belief but one of the ways believers are drawn beyond themselves and toward the mystery at the center of the faith.

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