Letters to Roman Catholics and About Catholic Doctrines
On avoiding arguments between Christian denominations
To Dom Bede Griffiths April 4, 1934
I had better say once and for all that I do not intend to discuss with you in future, if I can help it, any of the questions at issue between our respective churches [Roman Catholic and Anglican] . . . I do not think there is anything distressing for either of us in agreeing to be silent on this matter: I have had a Catholic among my most intimate friends for many years [J. R. R. Tolkien] and a great deal of our conversation has been religious. When all is said (and truly said) about the divisions of Christendom, there remains, by God’s mercy, an enormous common ground. It is abstaining from one tree in the whole garden.
(CL 2, 135–136)
Why Lewis was not a Roman Catholic
To H. Lyman Stebbins May 8, 1945
My position about the Churches can best be made plain by an imaginary example. Suppose I want to find out the correct interpretation of Plato’s teaching. What I am most confident in accepting is that interpretation which is common to all the Platonists down all the centuries: what Aristotle and the Renaissance scholars and Paul Elmer More* agree on I take to be true Platonism. Any purely modern views which claim to have discovered for the first time what Plato meant, and say that everyone from Aristotle down has misunderstood him, I reject out of hand.
But there is something else I would also reject. If there were an ancient Platonic Society still existing at Athens and claiming to be the exclusive trustees of Plato’s meaning, I should approach them with great respect. But if I found that their teaching in many ways was curiously unlike the actual text and unlike what ancient interpreters said, and in some cases could not be traced back to within 1,000 years of his time, I should reject these exclusive claims: while still ready, of course, to take any particular thing they taught on its merits.
I do the same with Christianity. What is most certain is the vast mass of doctrine which I find agreed on by Scripture, the Fathers, the Middle Ages, modern Roman Catholics, modern Protestants. That is true “catholic” doctrine. Mere “modernism” I reject at once.**
The Roman Church where it differs from this universal tradition and specially from apostolic Christianity I reject. Thus their theology about the B.V.M.*** I reject because it seems utterly foreign to the New Testament where indeed the words “Blessed is the womb that bore thee” receive a rejoinder pointing in exactly the opposite direction. Their papalism seems equally foreign to the attitude of St. Paul towards St. Peter in the Epistles. The doctrine of Transubstantiation insists in defining in a way which the New Testament seems to me not to countenance. In a word, the whole setup of modern Romanism seems to me to be as much a provincial or local variation from the central, ancient tradition as any particular Protestant sect is. I must therefore reject their claim: though this does not mean rejecting particular things they say.
I’m afraid I haven’t read any modern books of Roman-Anglican controversy. Hooker (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity) is to me the great formulation of Anglicanism. But the great point is that in one sense there’s no such thing as Anglicanism. What we are committed to believing is whatever can be proved from Scripture. On that subject there is room for endless progress. However you decide, good wishes. Mention me in your prayers.
*American critic and essayist
**“Modernism” refers to contemporary approaches to Christian faith that eliminate miracles and supernatural elements.
***Blessed Virgin Mary
(CL 2, 645–647)
Letters in Latin to Don Giovanni Calabria
(The following are excerpts from the many letters Lewis composed in Latin to Don Giovanni Calabria, an Italian priest and founder of the Congregation of the Poor Servants of Divine Providence. Don Giovanni did not speak English, so the two corresponded in Latin.)
September 6, 1947
Reverend Father,
Thank you for your letter, full of love and goodwill. Be assured that for me too the schism in the Body of Christ is both a source of grief and a matter for prayers, being a most serious stumbling block to those coming in and one which makes even the faithful weaker in repelling the common foe. However, I am a layman, indeed the most lay of laymen, and least skilled in the deeper questions of sacred theology. I have tried to do the only thing that I think myself able to do: that is, to leave completely aside the subtler questions about which the Roman Church and Protestants disagree among themselves—things which are to be treated by bishops and learned men—and in my own books to expound, rather, those things which still, by God’s grace, after so many sins and errors, are shared by us. Nor is this a pointless task; for I find that people are unaware how many matters we even now agree on—so much so that I have come across someone who believed that you deny the Three in One God! Over and above that work, it has always seemed to me that I should maintain as much fraternal intercourse as possible with all those who call themselves Christians. If all were actively to do this, might we not hope that this unity of love and action over many years would precede—not to say foster—an eventual reunification of doctrines. Thirdly, there remain—what is most efficacious—prayers.
The practice of writing in Latin is one which for many years I have not kept up! If I have committed any solecism, I ask pardon.
Let us pray for each other. With all my heart I commend myself to your fatherly love in Our Lord.
(CL 2, 801)
September 20, 1947
Reverend Father,
I was glad to receive your further letter written on the 15th Sept. The hour, as you say, is indeed Satan’s hour. But I see some sparks of hope in the darkness.
Common perils, common burdens, an almost universal hatred and contempt for the Flock of Christ can, by God’s Grace, contribute much to the healing of our divisions. For those who suffer the same things from the same people for the same Person can scarcely not love each other.
Indeed I could well believe that it is God’s intention, since we have refused milder remedies, to compel us into unity, by persecution even and hardship. Satan is without doubt nothing else than a hammer in the hand of a benevolent and severe God. For all, either willingly or unwillingly, do the will of God: Judas and Satan as tools or instruments, John and Peter as sons.
Even now we see more charity, or certainly less hatred, between separated Christians than there was a century ago. The chief cause of this (under God) seems to me to be the swelling pride and barbarity of the unbelievers. Hitler, unknowingly and unwillingly, greatly benefited the Church!
(CL 2, 804)
December 26, 1951
Dearest Father,
Thank you for the letter which I have received from you today and I invoke upon you all spiritual and temporal blessings in the Lord.
As for myself, during the past year a great joy has befallen me. Difficult though it is, I shall try to explain this in words. It is astonishing that sometimes we believe that we believe what, really, in our heart, we do not believe.
For a long time I believed that I believed in the forgiveness of sins. But suddenly (on St. Mark’s day) this truth appeared in my mind in so clear a light that I perceived that never before (and that after many confessions and absolutions) had I believed it with my whole heart.
So great is the difference between mere affirmation by the intellect and that faith, fixed in the very marrow and as it were palpable, which the Apostle wrote was substance.
Perhaps I was granted this deliverance in response to your intercessions on my behalf!
This emboldens me to say to you something that a layman ought scarcely to say to a priest nor a junior to a senior. (On the other hand, out of the mouths of babes: indeed, as once to Balaam, out of the mouth of an ass!) It is this: you write much about your own sins. Beware (permit me, my dearest Father, to say beware) lest humility should pass over into anxiety or sadness. It is bidden us to “rejoice and always rejoice”. Jesus has cancelled the handwriting which was against us. Lift up our hearts!
Permit me, I pray you, these stammerings. You are ever in my prayers and ever will be.
Farewell.
(CL 3, 151–152)
July 14, 1952
Thank you, dearest Father, both for the tracts of your Congregation and for your letter dated July 7th.
The times we live in are, as you say, grave: whether “graver than all others in history” I do not know. But the evil that is closest always seems to be the most serious: for as with the eye so with the heart, it is a matter of one’s own perspective. However, if our times are indeed the worst, if That Day is indeed now approaching, what remains but that we should rejoice because our redemption is now nearer and say with St. John: “Amen; come quickly, Lord Jesus.”
Meanwhile our only security is that The Day may find us working each one in his own station and especially (giving up dissensions) fulfilling that supreme command that we love one another.
Let us ever pray for each other.
Farewell: and may there abide with you and me that peace which no one can take from us.
(CL 3, 214)
March 17, 1953
My dearest Father,
I was delighted, as always, by your letter.
It is a wonderful thing and a strengthening of faith that two souls differing from each other in place, nationality, language, obedience and age should have been thus led into a delightful friendship; so far does the order of spiritual beings transcend the material order.
It makes easier that necessary doctrine that we are most closely joined together alike with the sinner Adam and with the Just One, Jesus, even though as to body, time and place we have lived so differently from both. This unity of the whole human race exists: would that there existed that nobler union of which you write. No day do I let pass without my praying for that longed-for consummation.
What you say about the present state of mankind is true: indeed, it is even worse than you say.
For they neglect not only the law of Christ but even the Law of Nature as known by the Pagans. For now they do not blush at adultery, treachery, perjury, theft and the other crimes which I will not say Christian Doctors, but the Pagans and the Barbarians have themselves denounced.
They err who say “the world is turning pagan again.” Would that it were! The truth is that we are falling into a much worse state.
“Post-Christian man” is not the same as “pre-Christian man.” He is as far removed as virgin is from widow: there is nothing in common except want of a spouse: but there is a great difference between a spouse-to-come and a spouse lost.
(CL 3, 306–307)
August 10, 1953
Dearest Father,
I have received your letter dated the 5th August. I await with gratitude the pamphlets—a specimen of your people’s printing skill: which however I shall not see for 5 weeks because tomorrow I am crossing over (if God so have pleased) to Ireland: my birthplace and dearest refuge so far as charm of landscape goes, and temperate climate, although most dreadful because of the strife, hatred and often civil war between dissenting faiths.
There indeed both yours and ours “know not by what Spirit they are led.” They take lack of charity for zeal and mutual ignorance for orthodoxy.
I think almost all the crimes which Christians have perpetrated against each other arise from this, that religion is confused with politics. For, above all other spheres of human life, the Devil claims politics for his own, as almost the citadel of his power. Let us, however, with mutual prayers pray with all our power for that charity which “covers a multitude of sins.” Farewell, comrade and father.
(CL 3, 358)
On Avoiding Arguments by Letter
To Sister Mary Rose January 1950
I am sorry if I misunderstood your letter: and I think that you misunderstood mine. What I meant was that if I replied to your original question (why I am not a member of the Roman Church) I should have to write a very long letter. It would of course be answerable: and your answer would be answerable by me . . . and so on. The resulting correspondence would certainly not, of course, be in excess of the importance of the subject: but haven’t you and I both probably more pressing duties? For a real correspondence on such a subject would be nearly a whole-time job. I thought we could both discuss the matter more usefully with people nearer at hand. Even the two letters which we have exchanged have already revealed the pitfalls of argument by letter. With all good wishes.
(CL 3, 8–9)
Avoiding discussions which endanger charity
To Mrs. Halmbacher March 1951
The question for me (naturally) is not “Why should I not be a Roman Catholic?” but “Why should I?” But I don’t like discussing such matters, because it emphasizes differences and endangers charity. By the time I had really explained my objection to certain doctrines which differentiate you from us (and also in my opinion from the Apostolic and even the Medieval Church), you would like me less.
(CL 3, 106)
On saluting the Blessed Virgin Mary
To Mary Van Deusen June 26, 1952
Incense and Hail Marys are in quite different categories. The one is merely a question of ritual: some find it helpful and others don’t, and each must put up with its absence or presence in the church they are attending with cheerful and charitable humility.
But Hail Marys raise a doctrinal question: whether it is lawful to address devotions to any creature, however holy. My own view would be that a salute to any saint (or angel) cannot in itself be wrong any more than taking off one’s hat to a friend: but that there is always some danger lest such practices start one on the road to a state (sometimes found in R.C.’s [Roman Catholics]) where the B.V.M. [Blessed Virgin Mary] is treated really as a deity and even becomes the center of the religion. I therefore think that such salutes are better avoided. And if the Blessed Virgin is as good as the best mothers I have known, she does not want any of the attention which might have gone to her Son diverted to herself.
(CL 3, 209)
The existence of purgatory as private speculation, not required doctrine
To Mr. Allcock March 24, 1955
The doctrine of purgation after death is one of the many held by the Roman Church which I consider to be intrinsically probable but which, since it is not clearly stated in Scripture, nor included in the early creeds, I do not think they have any warrant for enforcing. I repudiate their practice of defining and systematizing and continually enumerating the list of things that must be accepted. But that is quite consistent with my believing, as private speculations, some of the things they accept as revealed certainties. For of course one may “assert” (in the sense “hold as private opinion”) lots that one does not “believe” in the sense of holding as faith. E.g. I personally on general historical grounds may “believe” that our Lord could speak a certain amount of Greek . . . ?
I’d be a wicked idiot if I went about putting this forward as an article of faith: nor would it make the slightest difference to my religious life if I found my opinion to be wrong. A similar distinction is quite familiar to us in another field. You accept certain statements (e.g. that water is H2O) as scientific certainties: but you probably “believe” a good many other things about the physical world you would admit to be only probable and, if you were a teacher, would not at all object to your pupil’s denying.
(CL 3, 587–588)