I will indeed give him another try, and thanks for the suggestion!
As far as future priests (and monks) go, though, it's hard to imagine anything beating A Canticle for Leibowitz, which I avoided for years largely because a snottily-worded blurb on the cover made it sound as if it was going to be a completely different sort of story than it turned out to be.
Even Miller himself couldn't even equal it--the long-awaited (and practically despaired-for) sequel, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, disappointed me so badly that as soon as I had finished it, I took it to a second-hand bookstore and sold it, suggesting that they put a warning sticker on the dust jacket: Not to be read by anyone who has enjoyed A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ!
They didn't do that, of course, not wishing to discourage its sale, but I think it would have been a simple act of courtesy, not to mention of charity.
Canticle, however, is an annual treat, usually saved for the end of summer, when it's fittingly hot (helps in sympathizing with the desert ambience of most of the story).
The problem with putting priests is science fiction is that, unless the writer either already knows what a priest does or at least has some sympathy for his work, this is going to involve more research than he might want to do on this subject--and might, in fact, reveal a figure which is directly contrary to his intentions for his use in the book. So he cobbles together a "priest-figure" based on popular representation in popular fiction or news media (if, in fact, there is a difference), puts a cassock and Roman collar on it, calls it a priest, and turns it loose to do whatever the clockwork of the novel requires him to do, which is usually to serve as the voice of unreflective reaction, providing warnings against "blasphemy" or "venturing into areas reserved to God," or bull-headedly (and intolerantly) trying to catechise the Belknarpfians of Llatitard-4 despite the Prime Directive's most hallowed dictum: that any species you encounter is to be regarded as a museum or zoo exhibit, isolate and untouchable, and not as actual people with whom you are to have normal interculture exchange, or whose lives you are even expected to save--for if you had not come along, the disaster which is going to wipe them out would certainly have happened anyway--and one must not go against the blind forces of Fate and Nature. Or something like that.
But I digress.
Book of the Long Sun’s “church” is different, it’s the story of an artificial faith discovering something closer to the Truth than what they have. It’s obviously based on Catholic clergy and organization, but there are vast differences, including theology. There is a pantheon of “gods”, for one thing.
I am ashamed to say that I have never read Canticle despite hearing good things about it all my life and being a sci-fi/speculative fiction fan. I will go to the library and check it out.
My favourite authors are Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe, for my money there’s nothing I have come across yet that can touch those two.
Freegards