Why I Became a Catholic
By Arnold Lunn
Roman Converts” had no sooner been published than my friends began to prophesy my
conversion. I was much annoyed by the forecast, and replied petulantly to my father that I was
just as likely to become a Buddhist as a Catholic. I was pained that those who betray any interest
in Catholicism should be regarded with such deep distrust by their friends. When my book on
John Wesley was published nobody suspected that 1 was on the road to becoming a Wesleyan. When
I attacked scientists and secularists I was not anxiously asked if I was contemplating joining the
nauonansi ^ress Association.
But perhaps even those who are
most anti-Catholic/ are subcon
sciously aware of the fact that
Catholicism is attractive because
Catholicism is true. It is difficult,
on any other hypothesis, to ex
plain, the widespread conviction
that an interest in Rome is a dan
ger signal, and that safety can
only be assured by resolutely ig
noring Catholicism.
The fact is, as Mr. Chesterton
has pointed out, that it is impossi
ble to be fair to Catholicism.
You can either accept, attack or
ignore Catholicism. The one thing
you cannot do is to be fair to the
Faith without steadily diminish
The conversion story of Arnold
Lunn, the brilliant English author,
will appear in four parts and is
taken from the book “Now I See.”
Mr. Lunn’s book is one of the best
of the convert biographies and is
highly recommended as a “must”
for every Catholic library. Mr.
Lunn wrote “Roman Converts”
and “Difficulties," the latter with
Msgr. Ronald Knox as a spirited
antagonist to the Catholic Church.
Later he wrote “Is Christianity
True?” with C. E. M. Joad, an ag
nostic, as a spirited defender of
Christianity. “Now I See” is a
spirited defense of Catholicity.
“Now I See” may be ordered from
Sheed and Ward, 63 Fifth Ave.,
New York 3, N. Y. at $2.50. These
chapters reprinted with the per
mission of Sheed and Ward.
ing the distance which separates
you from the Faith.
I remember discussing the ques
tions of “suasions” with Father
Knox just after we had finished
correcting the proofs of our joint
book, “Difficulties.” “I wonder,”
I said, “how far I should allow
myself to be influenced by preju
dice in favour of Catholic culture.”
“At the worst,” said Father Knox,
“such a prejudice would only
counteract your prejudices against
Catholicism.” “But I’ve never been
prejudiced against Catholicism,” I
replied indignantly. “On the con
trary, Catholicism has always at
tracted me. Of course I used to
think that the intellectual case for
Catholicism was fantastic, but..”
“I think that might fairly be de
scribed as a prejudice,” said Fath
er Knox mildly. “I suppose it
might,” I conceded.
This little talk set me thinking.
Nobody will admit without a
struggle that he is prejudiced
against anything. Such an admis
sion is distressing to one’s vanity.
One likes to believe that one’s
views on all subjects from the
Pope to Bolshevists are the prod
uct of calm, dispassionate reason
ing on the available evidence. Was
it really true, I began to wonder,
that Protestant dissuasions were
as potent as Catholic suasions. Was
it really possible that the suasions
and dissuasions could cancel each
other out, leaving reason free to
record an objective verdict on the
available evidence?
Non-Catholics are perplexed to
explain the conversion of intelli
gent people to the fantastic super
stition of popery, and seek a solu
tion to this problem by emphasiz
ing some trivial “suasion.” I know
that I am playing into thn hands
of such critics by admitting that
my prejudices against Catholicism
were to some extent offset by
“suasions.”
The Catholic Church from the
moment that I began to realize
its existence, appealed to me be
cause it was universal. I was not
prejudiced against Catholicism
merely because the Pope is an
Italian.
Furthermore, I was influenced
by the fact that the happiest mo
ments in my youth were those
when I watched the cliffs of Dover
fading away into the distance, and
the most wretched those when I
returned from the Alps to England.
Even today I feel a sense of home
coming when I cross the Swiss
frontier. I soon discovered that
Catholicism was the religion of
Europe and that Swiss. Protestant
ism was an exotic growth with no
roots in the soil. The bleak
Zwinglianism of the Grindelwald
Parish Church, to which I was
taken as a boy, was even more de
pressing than the Low Church ser
vices at Roxeth. Protestantism, I
discovered, increases in dullness
as it departs from Catholic tradi
tion. I have often enjoyed Angli
can services, but I have always
been depressed in the temples of
Continental Protestantism. Even as
a boy I felt instinctively that the
rudest Catholic chapel in the re
motest of Alpine glens enshrined
the poetry of religion, a poetry
North Carolina Catholic Mother
of 1947
Most Rev. Vincent S. Waters,
Bishop of Raleigh >
15 N, McDowell St.
Raleigh 1
I nominate for the N. C. Catholic Mother of 1947:
Name ___
Address __
because _1_
which has been effectively banish
ed from the temples of Luther and
Zwingli. Even as a boy I revolted
against what Tyrrell described as
“the pendantry of a purely rea
sonable religion that would abol
ish the luxuriant wealth of sym
bolism in favor of ‘the ministry of
the word.’ ”
As the years passed by, this par
ticular suasibn became more po
tent. Every time I passed on foot
or on ski or in a car from a Prot
estant into a Catholic valley I felt
an odd sense of home-coming. The
Catholic Church was home, the
natural home of the human race.
Catholicism has assimilated all
that is worth preserving from the
older religions, and Apollo has
made his submission to the
Church. It is, indeed, very proper
that dawn and sunrise and spring
should not pass unnoticed by the
Church, that the faithful should
be reminded with due ceremonial
that it is their duty to give praise
to the Lord and Giver of Life.
A casual encounter with Cath
olicism in a remote Alpine glen
strengthened this particular suas
ion. I had crossed a glacier pass
just before the dawn, starting ear
ly, for the damp clouds pregnant
with solvent energy threatened
avalanches on the lower slopes. It
was April, and the remnants of
old avalanches still thrust their
discolored deltas, black with earth
and trees torn from the mountain
side, far into fields carpeted with
gentians and soldanella. Not easily
is spring delivered from the womb
of the Alpine winter.
We passed a hill chapel, and some
obscure instinct moved me to en
ter. I remember thinking that Eas
ter must mean far less to the low
lander than to those for whom
this festival synchronizes with the
resurrection of colour from the
tomb Of the winter snows, the win
ter in which in these lofty Alpine
valleys begyis in November and
ends in April.
Mass was being sung as I enter
ed. The worshippers were peasants
on whom the hard life of the Alps
had left its mark. There was no
colour in their clothes, and little
colour in their faces, but there
was a feast of colour in the church.
The decoration was crude and bar
baric, but even the waxen doll,
adorned with tinsel, which repre
sented the Blessed Virgin, did not
jar. A religion which is catholic
in its appeal cannot cater for high
brows alone. I felt much as Tyrrell
felt on a similar occasion, “Here
was the ol$ business being carried
on by the old firm in the old way;
here was continuity that took one
back to the catacombs. Here was
no need of, and therefore no sus
picion* of, pose of theatrical pa
rade. Its aesthetic blemishes were
its very beauties to me in that
mood.”
Ritualism, as such, irritated Tyr
rell, but he was prepared to tol
erate it where, as in the Mass, it
had ceased to be self-conscious.
The sturdiest of Protestants in
stinctively removes his hat on en
tering a church, a movement
which is no more natural and no
less self-conscious than the move
ments of the priest at the Mass.
Like Tyrrell, I come of Anglo
Irish stock, and like most Anglo
Irishmen, I have some difficulty in
understanding the Englishman’s
passion for ritual.
The Englishman not only enjoys
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ritual; he is extremely good at it.
Those who understand such mat
ters tell me that Masonic ritual
is nowhere more effectively per
formed than in English lodges. Ri
tual has seldom found more noble
expression than in the tribute
which England pays to that Un
known Soldier who redeemed the
blunders of the great. This burial
of that Unknown Soldier, and the
two minutes’ silence of the Ceno
taph, were the invention not of
Catholic countries but of Protest
ant John Bull. John Bull likes to
pose as a sturdy Protestant with
a common-sense contempt for ef
feminate ritual, but, as Miss Shei
la Kaye-Smith once remarked to
me, the English are Catholic by
temperament, and have discovered
in the ceremonial of the Cenotaph
a Protestant substitute for prayers
for the dead.
The Englishman does not dislike
ritual, he dislikes irregular ritual.
He will protest against Anglo-Ca
tholic ritualism, but will spend a
happy evening indulging in Ma
sonic ritual, and will be deeply
moved, as he well may be, by the
magnificent ritual of a military
funeral.
It was certainly no hankering
for Catholic ceremonial which
brought me into the Church. In
deed, the obligation to hear Mass
every Sunday was one of the mi
nor dissuasions. In the quarter of
a century which elapsed between
leaving school and becoming a
Catholic, I averaged two or three
church attendances a year. When
I was at Oxford, a convert to Ca
tholicism, Lady Muriel Watkins,
made me a sporting offer. She
promised to take me to a matinee
for every Mass which I attended
in her company. The result of this
bargain was that I went to Mass
about six times, and I am grate
ful to Lady Muriel for the memory
of a striking sermon by Father
Hugh Benson, whom I should oth
erwise never seen or heard. Nat
urally, after I had asked Father
Knox to receive me, I regarded
myself as bound by the obligations
of the Catholic life, but prior to
that I had not been to Mass, on
my own initiative, more than two
or three times in my life.
It was not Catholic ceremonial,
but Catholic continuity which ap
pealed to me. Catholicism, was
everywhere the same, branches ol
one great tree, the seed of which
was sown in the catacombs. Bu1
Protestantism' changed its shape
from one valley to the next. Luth
erans here, Zwinglians there, and
Calvinists beyond the next hill
barrier. Protestantism is a collec
tion of sects, Catholicism the home
of our race.
It was not until I had left Ox
ford that I began to read Ruskin.
The Stones of Venice, as I shall
show in a later chapter, is a re
luctant apologetic for Catholicism.
Ruskin’s own religious develop
ment illustrates the potency of Ca
tholic suasions and Protestant dis
suasions. His whole way of think
ing led him inevitably to the thres
hold of the Church, and there he
stopped. He discovered that “all
beautiful prayers were Catholic—
all wise interpretations of the Bi
ble Catholic;— and every manner
of Protestant written services
whatsoever either insolently alter
ed corruptions, or washed-out and
ground-down rags and debris of
the great Catholic collects, litanies
and songs of praise.”
But in reply to the question,
“Why did not you become a Cath
olic at once, then?” Ruskin could
only answer, “It might as well be
asked, Why did not I become a fire
worshipper? I could become noth
ing but what I was, or was grow
ing into. I no more believed in
the living Pope than I did in the
living Khan of Tartary.”
Thi? is no answer, but a peevish,
emotional reaction, the petulant
protest of the Protestantism in
which he has ceased to believe, but
which is still powerful enough to
thwart and stunt his religious
growth. Catholic suasions either
break down all resistance and re
sult in conversion, or tend to rend
er all other avenues of religious
approach impossible. One turns
back from the threshold of the
Church, but one does not return to
the faith of one’s youth. Not so
easily is the mind which has seen
the best satisfied with the second
best. It was so with Mallock and it
was so with Ruskin. In a mem
orable passage, which I quote be
cause it is too little known, he
describes his final emancipation
from the dour evangelical beliefs
in which he had been reared. The
scene of this deliverance was in.
Turin.
“There, one Sunday morning, I.
made my way in the south suburb
to a little chapel which, by a dusty
roadside, gathered to its unobserv
ed door the few sheep of the old
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