The Catholic Book Club discussion

According to the intro, Pearce doesn't answer the question of why C. S. Lewis never entered the Catholic Church, but provides piles of evidence surrounding that question, allowing each reader to come to their own conclusion. So, what is your conclusion? Why did C.S. Lewis never join the Catholic Church?

On one hand, Tolkien was right when he said that Lewis himself was not aware of how much of the childhood prejudice against the Catholic church had remained in him. But it would be out of character for Lewis to remain in the Church of England without having a good argumentation to back his position. The letters between Lewis and Sister Penelope are probably the best way to understand this, since they are both members of the Church of England who agree about their beliefs. They touch on this topic, and discuss the role of the sacraments in more detail (as can be seen in Lewis' letter about confession being good as an available option, but not something that should be required of all).

I think the reason is that Lewis agreed with the statement that the Church of England is the real 'via media' between the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches, the one that remained the most faithful between their abuses. Sister Penelope has a chapter on this in her book "The wood from the trees", giving detailed arguments in favor of this idea. When Sister Penelope explains the Reformation in her book, she is convinced that, while the Protestant churches have lost the Apostolic succession, the Church of England has not (!!!). She writes that the Protestant churches left the Barque of Peter completely, and the Barque itself split into two, so that Christianity now continues its journey in 3 vessels, traveling in parallel (the Orthodox, who split earlier, is the third one). Most likely, Lewis agreed with her arguments.

John wrote: "According to the intro, Pearce doesn't answer the question of why C. S. Lewis never entered the Catholic Church, but provides piles of evidence surrounding that question, allowing each reader to co..."
I do not agree with the John`s assesment Pearce collecting testimonies of Christopher Derrick, and George Sayer says clearly the reasons because C.S. Lewis did not convert to the Catholic Church. Other things are the cause. In my opinion Mari Angel explained rather well. I am going to say one thing, i think that C.S. Lewis hated T.S. Eliot because he was very similar to the poet. He trusted in the via media, and in the final chapter we read that the Anglican Church bet for the modernism, and they did the ridiculous, Lewis did not want to debate with Robinson, perhaps for not creating more problems with the Anglican Church.

Mariangel wrote: "I think the reason is that Lewis agreed with the statement that the Church of England is the real 'via media' between the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches, the one that remained the most faithful between their abuses...."

John Henry Newman thought the same, and tried to develop that idea on writing, but when he went into the study of the Church Fathers, he found that they agreed in everything with the Catholic Church, rather than the Angican Church, and came to the conclussion that the Catholic Church is the real 'via media' and the Anglican Church just another Protestant branch, therefore he converted.

I assume C.S. Lewis should have been aware of the Church Fathers and know what they had written. He also had Newman's example before his eyes. In fact, he had read "The Dream of Gerontius" and probably also the "Apologia Pro Vita Sua." So why did he still believe the the Anglicans were the 'via media'? I think that is somethink one can ask oneself.

Mariangel, did Lewis say anything about Newman in his letters to Sister Penelope?

Manuel wrote: "Mariangel wrote: "I think the reason is that Lewis agreed with the statement that the Church of England is the real 'via media' between the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches, the one that..."

It is truth when Newman studied the question of the council of Nicea. He realised that the anglican church were closer to the half-arianism. Yes it is truth i have ever had the conviction that the Great Divorce (Pearce dixit), and we till have fave (unfortunately Pearce did not speak about this book in his book about Joseph Pearce and the catholic church) were influenced by the blessed cardinal Newman and his "Dream of Gerontius". Pearce spoke about the influence of the catholic writer Coventry Patmore in C.S. Lewis.

I have searched the letters for "Newman" and "Apologia" and I only get matches in the introduction or the notes, not on the letters themselves.

Fonch wrote: "John wrote: "According to the intro, Pearce doesn't answer the question of why C. S. Lewis never entered the Catholic Church, but provides piles of evidence surrounding that question, allowing each..."

It was Fr. Longenecker's assessment (IIRC), I am still reading the book and haven't made an assessment. I note though that there is a difference between quoting people's views of why Lewis never joined the Church (are they at all conflicting?) and providing your own author's assessment of the evidence. I will try to remember to return to this issue when I finish. Feel free to remind me if I forget.

John wrote: "Fonch wrote: "John wrote: "According to the intro, Pearce doesn't answer the question of why C. S. Lewis never entered the Catholic Church, but provides piles of evidence surrounding that question,..."

Ok John i keep your promise. The answer was in the second chapter starting for the end.

I think Pearce grossly overrates "Belfast", Lewis' "pride and prejudice." I suspect his problem with Catholicism is the papacy, the teaching authority of the Church being vested in one person. The issue with "mere Christianity" isn't just which doctrines are essential in order to be a Christian, but how you determine their truthfulness, by appeal to the individual conscience, or recognizing some authority beyond oneself.

I also don't see how going to confession regularly makes Lewis a "crypto-Catholic." This may not be widely practiced but it is allowed and even encouraged among Anglicans and Lutherans. My Lutheran pastor heard my confession several times, though for me it was a "way station" en route to embracing the Catholic Church.

I really wonder if several writers are correct that the Anglican Church ordaining women (I object to the term "priestess" as unfair to the intention of most) would have been a deal-breaker for Lewis.

I wondered what has been come of J.A.T. Robinson. I think Lewis could have answered him very simply by declaring that Robinson had totally abandoned Christianity so couldn't be debated as if it were an "in-house" debate between different varieties of Christians.

Does Pearce think God (in contrast to Jesus) is "masculine"? Surely he is beyond gender, which Lewis expressed clearly in Till We Have Faces. God the Mother, while offensive as a liturgical substitute for God the Father, does reveal aspects of God's "personality" expressed in the OT prophets.

Despite the "apostasy" of the Church of England, there are robust, faith-filled Anglicans today in breakaway churches.

Jill wrote: "Does Pearce think God (in contrast to Jesus) is "masculine"? Surely he is beyond gender, which Lewis expressed clearly in Till We Have Faces. God the Mother, while offensive as a liturgical substitute for God the Father, does reveal aspects of God's "personality" expressed in the OT prophets."

If we are talking about the first person in the Trinity, absolutely, in some sense that I can't claim to completely understand, but also which I think we have to accept as part of revealed truth, not least by Jesus. While there is no doubt a divine feminine in certain OT writings, I am not familiar with that ever being expressed as "God the Mother." Can you point me to that?

John wrote: "Jill wrote: "Does Pearce think God (in contrast to Jesus) is "masculine"? Surely he is beyond gender, which Lewis expressed clearly in Till We Have Faces. God the Mother, while offensive as a litur..."

In the last chapter Pearce spoke about the femenine nature of God, when he struggled to the Oxford`s modernist bishop Herries, who defended the femenine nature of God. One of the reasons of the bad state of the Anglican Church, although i must confess that they have two interesting figures N.T. Wright, and Aleister McGrath. I read the secong, and i did not like really much his biography of C.S. Lewis. He try to persuade me, that Lewis was a bad guy, meanwhile he was atheist, and afterwards when he converted he was a saint. This thing does not agree with the testimony of Walter Hooper, that he said that C.S. Lewis was a good man ever, and the christianity did much bigger, and better, and he received the positive influence of J.R.R. Tolkien, besides the book of Aleister McGarth was very yellow, gossip. It does nt matter that he was in the bed with Mrs. Moore. In my opinion did not reduce the value of his writings. This is something private in the life of C.S. Lewis. However the Alesiter McGarth`s book has something interesting, that in the sixties and seventies C.S. Lewis was forgotten, and he was rescued in the eighties in part thanks to Tolkien, and the fascination for his figure of the evangelist, and the Catholic.

Fonch wrote: "in the sixties and seventies C.S. Lewis was forgotten..."

I can't say about the sixties, but in the seventies, at least in the US, Lewis was not forgotten. I remember there were rows of his books in the NY bookstores. I bought several there, both the space trilogy and apologist essays. And I discovered the Narnia books in 1980.

Manuel wrote: "Fonch wrote: "in the sixties and seventies C.S. Lewis was forgotten..."

I can't say about the sixties, but in the seventies, at least in the US, Lewis was not forgotten. I remember there were rows..."

Also in the seventies, I attended some retreats at a Jesuit retreat house at which the lunch time readings were from C.S. Lewis, which led me to read Mere Christianity, the Screwtape Letters and the space trilogy, all of which were quite easy to find.

Manuel wrote: "Fonch wrote: "in the sixties and seventies C.S. Lewis was forgotten..."

I can't say about the sixties, but in the seventies, at least in the US, Lewis was not forgotten. I remember there were rows..."

I suppose that McGarth spoke about England, he compared Lewis with other authors that they were forgotten, and they have not been recovered Russell Janney, Thomas B. Constain, Laura Z. Hobson, Kenneth Roberts and Frank Yerby. He said McGarth that Lewis has few followers in United States quoted Chad Walsh, and Walter Hooper. He said that Time considered one of the minor prophets of the Church an ortodoxy old fashionable against the heresies of his period. McGarth said that the persons of the sixties are more interested in practical questions than theorical. He was too abstract to the generation of this period, and he had to say very little to the problems of this moment Vietnam, sexual revolution, and the death of God. He said that his followers were episcopslian, the evangelist looked with mistrust, but the catholic looked with interest Martyn Lloyd Jones said in toics related with the salvation Lewis disorientated more than it helped . Mc Garth said that he was not finished, but he was left aside. Tom Wolfe in Great Alarming said that it was abandoned to started a part of zero. He overshadowed by the success of Tolkien, that Tolkien was considered a hero by the student, that previously quit his classes. Afterwards Lewis had the support of Billy Graham (res in peace in the Heaven), and Carl F.H. Henry.
This a sumary of the last pages of McGarth i do not agree with the things written in this message by McGarth.

Perhaps the reason why Lewis never became Catholic is in this quotation by Walter Hooper in chapter 11:

We know of course that there are a great many Protestants who read Lewis but I think there is a shift since he died insofar as he is read a great deal by the evangelical Protestants and less and less by the liberals... But there are still many Protestants out there, in this country and in the United States and many other countries, who admire Lewis for the same reason the Catholics do. They are supernaturalists and they need him as their ally in this battle.

In other words, perhaps the reason why Lewis never became Catholic was because God needed him as a mere Christian to attract Protestants and drag them to the Catholic Church, as witnessed by the many converts who followed this path, mentioned in the Appendix.

Manuel wrote: "Perhaps the reason why Lewis never became Catholic is in this quotation by Walter Hooper in chapter 11:

We know of course that there are a great many Protestants who read Lewis but I think there i..."
Well upon the testimony of George Sayer, and Christopher Derrick said that he did not convert, because he did not want to convert to the catholic religión, although i have to confess that Sayer, and Derrick are very gossips, in some case they are to the slander. With all the last pages dedicated to C.S. Lewis are not very pleasent. Tolkien broght with him to his son John, he was a a catholic priest, but as Lewis it did not seem very interested they start speaking about the Death of King Arthur, by Thomas Malory.
However i agree with Alfonseca, the C.S. Lewis`s corp gave a lot of fruit, and his influence was very positive as in the protestant as in the catholics. Thanks to him we got a lot of converts, and i am sure that he will still give more converts in the future :-).

Manuel wrote: "In other words, perhaps the reason why Lewis never became Catholic was because God needed him as a mere Christian to attract Protestants and drag them to the Catholic Church, as witnessed by the many converts who followed this path, mentioned in the Appendix. "

We really need a like button on Goodreads.

John wrote: "Manuel wrote: "In other words, perhaps the reason why Lewis never became Catholic was because God needed him as a mere Christian to attract Protestants and drag them to the Catholic Church, as witn..."

We could to purpose them :-).

Fonch wrote: "John wrote: "Fonch wrote: "John wrote: "According to the intro, Pearce doesn't answer the question of why C. S. Lewis never entered the Catholic Church, but provides piles of evidence surrounding t..."

Keeping my promise and having almost finished the book, I think I can say that while Pearce avoids giving a firm view of the matter, and seems to want to believe that Lewis was some kind of a proto-Catholic by the time of his death, I agree with Mariangel (and Tolkien) that Lewis prejudices and biases from his Belfast upbringing made crossing the Tiber nearly impossible.

I thought Stebbins' comment in the convert chapter quite interesting, that Stebbins' final decision to convert was driven by what he found to be the stupidest thing Lewis had ever written, a letter that Lewis had written to convince Stebbins not to convert to the Roman Catholic Church on the basis of the Catholic Doctrine of Mary, the Papacy and Transubstantiation.

While reading the last chapter, I was thinking of Lewis as a kind of Moses, so it was gratifying to find Sheldon Vanauken's similar observation. But Moses was forbidden to enter the promised land on the basis of his earlier sin, is that the basis on which Lewis didn't enter into the Church? You read some of his arguments and they just seem weak in light of the rest of his views. Was this obstinacy a hardening of his heart? Or, given the limitless complexity of human psychology, was it, as Tolkien suggested, rooted in his Belfast childhood, a deep-seated antipathy against the Church that he was unable to recognize and thus was helpless to overcome?

John wrote: "Fonch wrote: "John wrote: "Fonch wrote: "John wrote: "According to the intro, Pearce doesn't answer the question of why C. S. Lewis never entered the Catholic Church, but provides piles of evidence..."
I totally agree with the conclussion, however a biased North Ireland prejudices should not be an excuse. Pearce gave the case of other writers Scott-Moncrieff, and McKay Brown, we also can add it, although Pearce did not mention A.J. Cronin (clear that it is Scotland, not North Ireland). I remind meanwhile i was reading lettersto children, when C.S. Lewis discusses with a boy called Hugh. He adopteda defensive position i almost could say that it is the little Hugh, who won the debate. Lewis threw ball outside, and he tried to change the topic in all moment.
The Lewis detiny, it could be the Chesterton´s destin, although he had not the Belfast`s prejudices of C.S. Lewis. Also the Chesterton`s friends, especially Belloc did not believe because Frances opposite to the conversion, and Chesterton was not aware to did something without her. The Chesterton´s deccission was very courageous. At finally Frances converted to the catholicism with her husband, a Roma-ntic story.
There is a similar case in France Barres, although at finally i heard that he converted to the catholic religion.