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C. S. Lewis On Why He Never Became a Catholic

C. S. Lewis On Why He Never Became a Catholic

Last updated on: June 13, 2026 at 1:05 pm by Dave Armstrong

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C. S. Lewis On Why He Never Became a Catholic 2026-06-13T13:05:32-04:00 Dave Armstrong

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: copyright Lux Veritatis, 2025.

This is the transcript for my video, The REAL REASON C.S. Lewis never became Catholic [in his own words] [Lux Veritatis, 5-12-25]. It has over 76,000 views, as of 4-8-26, making it by far the most popular of my own videos. Lewis’ words will be in blue.

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C.S. Lewis, the beloved author of The Chronicles of Narnia and great apologetics books like Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Problem of Pain, is widely considered to be the best defender of Christianity in the 20th century. He’s been my own favorite writer for 47 years. Lewis was an observant Anglican with several affinities to the Catholic Church, including belief in the invocation of saints, purgatory, formal confession of sins, and the development of doctrine. He had many close Catholic friends, most notably J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, who played a direct role in Lewis becoming a Christian after an early fling with atheism. He greatly admired Chesterton and wrote in a letter dated December 31st, 1947 that “The very best popular defense of the full Christian position I know is G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man.”

It’s thought by some who knew him that Lewis came closest to becoming a Catholic in 1950. Protestants take heart in the fact that he didn’t do so, and Catholics wonder why he didn’t. How much do we know about Lewis’s views of Catholicism? He was, to put it mildly, quite reluctant to discuss Catholic-Protestant differences in his desire to be both ecumenical and to emphasize common ground. He was respectful and diplomatic while at the same time holding firm to his own beliefs. So, we have to dig a bit. In perhaps his most explicit statement about what he rejects in Catholicism, in a letter to H. Lyman Stebbins on May 8th,

1945, Lewis stated that he thought that the Catholic view of Mary seems “utterly foreign to the New Testament”, as does also “papalism” and “transubstantiation.” Summing up, he wrote, “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.”

Equally frank and specific was his 1944 essay entitled “Christian Reunion: An Anglican Speaks to Roman Catholics”, where he proclaimed, “To accept your church means not to accept a given body of doctrine, but to accept in advance any doctrine your church hereafter produces.” It is like being asked to agree not only to what a man has said, but what he’s going to say . . . You see in Protestantism the faith dying out in a desert. We see in Rome the faith smothered in a jungle.”

In 1947 [September 6th], he explained how he sought to emphasize common Christian ground, noting that, “people are unaware how many matters we even now agree on,” and expressing his desire to “leave completely aside the subtler questions about which the Roman church and Protestants disagree among themselves.”

I respect this and as an apologist myself, I’m the first to admit that relatively few are able to discuss or defend controversial issues that divide Christians and that only a small number can do it in a civil and polite manner. Lewis preferred the positive agreements over what is called polemics. It may possibly be that because of this emphasis he never looked very deeply into Catholicism or its arguments, or he did and simply disagreed in good faith.

Various biographers and friends of C.S. Lewis, especially Catholic ones, believe that the biases of his upbringing in Belfast, with its sordid anti-Catholic history, may have played some role in his refusal to become a Catholic, and some even report that he himself frankly admitted this. The extent of this influence, however, is debatable. The Catholic biographer Joseph Pierce in his 2003 book, C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church, on pages 3 and 5 stated that “Lewis’s religious upbringing seems to have been characterized by an inherited anti-Catholicism” but qualified this by adding that “it is important but it is not that important.”

This is what I’ve been able to find out as a great admirer of Lewis who has read most of his books and also many about him. Many Protestants will resonate with the reasons he gave and Catholics will of course respectfully disagree. But we can all rejoice in the many things we have in common. On a positive note, most Christians would likely agree with the wise thoughts that Lewis expressed in his preface to a French edition of his book, The Problem of Pain, in 1950: “If the unity of charity and intention between us were strong enough, perhaps our doctrinal differences would be resolved sooner. Without that spiritual unity, a doctrinal agreement between our religious leaders would be sterile.”
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[I delve more deeply into many more aspects of this question in my nine articles linked below]

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My Related Articles

C. S. Lewis’ Childhood in Belfast & Contra-Catholicism (Biographers and/or Friends Kreeft, Pearce, Derrick, and Possibly Tolkien Think This is Why Lewis Never Became a Catholic) [6-26-12]

C. S. Lewis’ Views on Christian Unity & Ecumenism [6-16-03]

C. S. Lewis on Catholicism (Correspondence: 1934-1947) [9-13-19]

C. S. Lewis vs. St. Paul on Future Binding Church Authority [National Catholic Register, 1-22-17]

Why Didn’t C. S. Lewis Become a Catholic? [8-29-14]

Dialogue on Why C. S. Lewis Didn’t “Pope” (Become a Catholic) [9-1-15]

Why C. S. Lewis Never Became a Catholic [National Catholic Register, 3-5-17]

C. S. Lewis’ Belfast Childhood and Contra-Catholicism [9-12-19]

C. S. Lewis: More Evidences of Anti-Catholic Prejudice [12-3-25]

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Photo Credit: copyright Lux Veritatis, 2025.

Summary: I make my best guess as to why Anglican apologist C. S. Lewis never became a Catholic. He was ecumenical and didn’t discuss it much, but was also a true-blue Protestant.

Conversion and Converts

C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis & Catholicism

C. S. Lewis & conversion to Catholicism

C. S. Lewis' Catholic beliefs

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