In a remarkable cultural shift during the middle of the 20th century, more than half a million people in England and Wales embraced Roman Catholicism. This period, spanning from 1910 to 1960, witnessed an unlikely resurgence of faith, particularly among the nation's most celebrated literary minds.
The Intellectual Exodus to Rome
This fascinating trend is the subject of a new book, Converts, by Melanie McDonagh, a columnist for The Tablet. The work provides a thought-provoking examination of sixteen Britons who 'went over to Rome' during some of the most terrifying decades in modern history. Among the most prominent names were literary giants Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh, Muriel Spark, and Graham Greene. They were joined by a host of poets, artists, and public intellectuals whose conversions often provoked envy and dismay within their circles.
McDonagh argues that against a backdrop of political extremism and global warfare, where reason and decency seemed in retreat, many yearned for absolute certainty. Graham Greene captured this sentiment in a 1925 letter to his fiancée, expressing a desperate desire for "something firm and hard and certain, however uncomfortable, to catch hold of in the general flux."
Surprising Realities of Conversion
Contrary to popular Protestant fears of aggressive proselytisation, the reality for many seekers was strikingly different. McDonagh's research reveals that approaches to institutions like Brompton Oratory or Chelsea's Farm Street Church were often met with a cool, almost disinterested equanimity. Priests saw their role not as hunters of 'celebrity scalps' but as facilitators. Their job was to explain doctrine, provide the Penny Catechism, and leave the ultimate decision to the individual.
Maurice Baring, a man of letters who converted in 1909, likened the clergy to ticket office clerks at a train station: they gave information and direction, but whether the traveller boarded the train was their own affair. This 'take-it-or-leave-it' attitude proved uniquely appealing, especially to those disillusioned with the doctrinal ambiguities of Anglicanism.
Aesthetic Disappointments and Social Suspicion
The journey was not without its sacrifices and surprises. The presumed aesthetic pleasures of Catholicism were often illusory. Unless attending one of London's smartest churches, converts frequently worshipped in ugly modern buildings alongside predominantly working-class congregations. Charles Scott Moncrieff, the translator of Proust, described attending a "hideous drab little RC chapel" on Easter Sunday 1915, yet in that moment, he knew he belonged.
Social and intellectual censure was also inevitable. Muriel Spark later channeled a common prejudice through her character Miss Jean Brodie, who declared that "only people who did not want to think for themselves were Roman Catholics." Converts faced suspicions of madness, secret homosexuality, or even of spying for a foreign power.
Despite these penalties, few converts expressed regret. McDonagh notes, however, that while conversion is a recorded event, lapsing is a quiet, unrecorded affair. Her book also highlights a notable gender imbalance, with fewer prominent female converts aside from chapters on artist Gwen John, Muriel Spark, and philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe. This may reflect, she suggests, that women's conversions were perceived as less of a threat to the established social order.
While Converts focuses on individual case histories rather than sweeping analysis, it succeeds powerfully in vivid biographical storytelling, shedding light on a profound and counter-intuitive chapter in Britain's intellectual and religious history.
