The recent announcement of a special provision that would allow Anglicans/Episcopalians to reunite with Rome en mass while retaining some elements of their denomination and its rites got me to thinking about C.S. Lewis.
There has been endless speculation already about whether he considered becoming Catholic - and if so, why he held back - or that even if he didn't give it serious thought in his time were he alive in recent years and given the direction of the Anglican Church would have have been more open to doing so. And he certainly espoused some ides - such as Purgatory - that were more Catholic than Anglican.
We can only speculate, of course. And the provision might not have made a difference to him one way or another.
I do wonder how many Anglican/Episcopalians will indeed decide to take advantage of the provision? I wonder how many readers of Lewis who were drawn back to a more active Christianity and Anglicanism will take the next step.
I also wonder what Chesterton would have made of it. He need no such provisions to conclude that the Catholic Church was where he belonged.
"I think I have known intimately by now all the best kinds of Anglicanism, and I find them only a pale imitation," he declared.
And now, at least one kind of Anglicanism can now be truly Catholic.
Thrilling Romance of Orthodoxy
5 months ago
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From Joseph Pearce's Literary Converts:
"[Russell] Kirk, who had known [T. S.] Eliot and had written the authoritative work Eliot and His Age, was asked by Iain T. Benson at a conference in Seattle in 1990 whether he believed 'T. S. Eliot and C. S. Lewis would have stayed C. of E. had they been alive today'. Kirk replied that he thought it 'extremely unlikely for both of them but particularly so for Eliot'."
Please expound on your comment, “were drawn back to a more active Christianity”.
What do you mean by more active - is Catholicism less active and in what sense?
More active in the sense that they may have been Christian in name - whatever denomination - but were not active in their faith. He inspired people to become more active in their Christian faith. Nothing was being implied about Catholicism in the comment. I am a Catholic.
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