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 STRANGE BUT TRUr little Known Facts for Catholics E BY M. J. MURRAY *N. C. W. C. News Service iiuMiumi twain ah Pftnsr, BARTHOLOMEW etc • ,-r^ 9MM0N Kl{p Hit SHIT 6ALANCCO. N9 «S THC Rudm«, // Ce*tufy aao one'i '