Literary Giants Literary Catholics by Joseph Pearce

Author:Joseph Pearce [Pearce, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9781586170776
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2010-04-16T04:00:00+00:00

25

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EVELYN WAUGH

Ultramodern to Ultramontane

Conversion is like stepping across the chimney piece out of a Looking-Glass world, where everything is an absurd caricature, into the real world God made; and then begins the delicious process of exploring it limitlessly.

THESE WORDS OF EVELYN WAUGH, written in “intense delight” to Edward Sackville-West after the latter had informed him of his intention to be received into the Catholic Church, represent perhaps the most succinct and sufficient description of the process of conversion ever written. Waugh’s own conversion from the “absurd caricature” of ultramodernity to the “real world” of Catholic orthodoxy was greeted with astonishment by the literary world and caused a sensation in the media.

Waugh’s reception into the Church on 29 September 1930 prompted bemused bewilderment in the following morning’s edition of the Daily Express. It seemed incomprehensible that an author notorious for his “almost passionate adherence to the ultra-modern” could have joined the Catholic Church. In the gossip columns, his latest novel, Vile Bodies, had been dubbed “the ultra-modern novel”. How could the purveyor of all things modern have turned to the pillar of all things ancient?

The paradox was both perplexing and provocative, prompting the Express to publish two lead articles on the significance of Waugh’s decision. Finally, three weeks after Waugh’s controversial conversion, Waugh’s own contribution to the debate, entitled “Converted to Rome: Why It Has Happened to Me”, was published. It was given a full-page spread, boldly headlined.

Waugh’s article was so lucid in its exposition that it belied any suggestion that he had taken his momentous step lightly, or out of ignorance. He dismissed the very suggestion that he had been “captivated by the ritual” of the Church or that he wanted to have his mind made up for him. Instead, he insisted that the “essential issue” that had led to his conversion was a belief that the modern world was facing a choice between “Christianity and Chaos”:

Today we can see it on all sides as the active negation of all that western culture has stood for. Civilization—and by this I do not mean talking cinemas and tinned food, nor even surgery and hygienic houses, but the whole moral and artistic organization of Europe—has not in itself the power of survival. It came into being through Christianity, and without it has no significance or power to command allegiance. The loss of faith in Christianity and the consequential lack of confidence in moral and social standards have become embodied in the ideal of a materialistic, mechanized state. . . . It is no longer possible . . . to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same time deny the supernatural basis upon which it rests.

Waugh concluded by stating his belief that Catholicism was the “most complete and vital form” of Christianity.

The debate continued in the next day’s edition of the Express with the publication of an article by a Protestant member of Parliament, which was followed, a day later, with an article by Father Woodlock, a Jesuit, entitled “Is Britain Turning to Rome?” Three days later, an entire page was given over to the ensuing letters.

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