Walter Miller's Canticle for Leibowitz

Walter M. Miller Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz is atimeless story about apocalyptic cycles conflictsand similarities between religion and sciencereligious ethics and secular ethics sin andredemption myth and preternatural innocence. Canticle is a very religious story about a monasterydedicated to preserving scientific knowledge from thetime before nuclear war which devastated the worldand reduced humanity to a pre-technologicalcivilization. The Catholic Church and this monasteryare portrayed as a bastion of civilization amidstbarbarians and a light of faith amidst atheism. Unfortunately humanity destroys the Earth onceagain but Miller ends with two beacons of hope: astarship headed for the unknown to help humanitybegin again and the preternaturally innocent Rachelwho portends a future for similarly innocent humanbeings repopulating the Earth. Thus faithultimately triumphs over atheism even in the midst ofalmost total catastrophe.