Twentieth century Britain experienced a surging interest in Catholicism amongst its literary classes, many of whom would enter the Church as converts throughout the decades, peaking in the 1940s and 50s (those who would like to learn more about this should consult Joseph Pearce's excellent book Literary Converts which covers this movement in great detail).
One of the last of this cohort of literary converts was Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), a BBC journalist and satirist whose long spiritual journey took him from Communism to Anglicanism and finally to the Roman Catholic Church, which he entered in 1982 at age 79.
By his own account, Muggeridge's pull toward Catholicism intensified when he met Mother Teresa in Calcutta during the late 1960s. Muggeridge had a long history of service as an overseas correspondent for the BBC. When the BBC therefore decided to make a documentary about Mother Teresa, Muggeridge was a natural choice for the project. The documentary—entitled Something Beautiful for God—aired in 1969 to popular acclaim and was instrumental in transforming Mother Teresa into an international celebrity. Muggeridge found the experience of working with Mother Teresa to be transformative; he later wrote his reflections in a book of the same name (Something Beautiful for God, 1971), which is part hagiography of Mother Teresa and part memoir of Muggeridge's own spiritual journey.
When Muggeridge came to Calcutta in the late sixties he had embraced Christianity and was a practicing Anglican, but was already feeling conflicted and experienced a deep pull towards Catholicism. In his book, discussion of the work of the Missionaries of Charity among the poor opens up into a general reflection on the longing he felt to enter the Church. Muggeridge wrote:
What is more difficult to convey is the longing one feels to belong to the Church; the positive envy of those the bells call to Mass. How often I have watched them, particularly in France—those extraordinary old women in black with their lined faces, clutching their prayer-books; the children in their Sunday best, the muted fathers and the bustling mothers with wisps of black veil about their heads, all making their way to Church on a Sunday morning. What joy to be one of their number! To kneel with them, advance to the altar with them, there, side by side, swallowing the Body of Christ. Then the plainsong, the flickering of candles, the solemn familiar words, the acrid incense. Of all the purposes which draw people together—excitement, cupidity, curiosity, lechery, hatred—this alone, this worship, makes them seem like a loving family; abolishing the conflicts and divisions of class and race and wealth and talent, as they fall on their knees before a Father in heaven and his incarnate Son; confess their sins, renew their hopes, find the strength to snatch another mortal day from the splendid prospect opened before them of eternity, their immortal dwelling place. (Something Beautiful for God, [Harper Row: San Francisco, 1981], 33).
He clearly felt the summons to come home to Rome. Mother Teresa herself predicted that Muggeridge would enter the Church before long. Muggeridge shared his sentiments with her by letter, to which she responded, "I don't know why, but very often in my heart a desire has come to be in England when you make your first Holy Communion with Jesus. I don't know—but Jesus never gives desires which He does not mean to fulfill" (ibid., 31-32).
With such tender sentiments and the encouragement of Mother Teresa, what kept Muggeridge away from the Church for another fourteen years? He writes that he suffered from "hesitations and doubts" which made it impossible to seek reception into the Church, and that to do so in spite of them would be "fraudulent" (ibid. 31, 33). What were these hesitations?
Muggeridge goes on to say that he struggled with the example the Church often gives as an institution; he briefly mentions the Crusades and Inquisition, typical Protestant canards. He then goes on to explain a more substantial reservation, which has to do with the state of the Church in the current age (i.e., 1971). He says:
We will analyze this in a moment, but let us turn to another passage in which he fills out his argument by stating forcefully that the only thing the Church should be relying on is its own unchangeable tradition:
Muggeridge goes on to say that he struggled with the example the Church often gives as an institution; he briefly mentions the Crusades and Inquisition, typical Protestant canards. He then goes on to explain a more substantial reservation, which has to do with the state of the Church in the current age (i.e., 1971). He says:
Today, there is the additional circumstance that the Church, for inscrutable reasons of its own, has decided to have a reformation just when the previous one—Luther's—is finally running out of sand. I make no judgment about something which, as a non-member, is no concern of mine. But if I were a member, then I should be forced to say that, in my opinion, if men were to be stationed at the doors of churches with whips to drive worshipers away, or inside the religious orders specifically to discourage vocations, or among the clergy to spread alarm and despondency, they could not hope to be as effective in achieving these ends as are trends and policies seemingly now dominant within the Church. Feeling so, it would be preposterous to seek admission, more particularly as, if the ecumenical course is fully run, luminaries of the church to which I nominally belong, like the former Bishop of Woolwich, for whom—putting it mildly—I have little regard, will in due course take their place in the Roman Catholic hierarchy among the heirs of St. Peter (ibid., 34-35).
We will analyze this in a moment, but let us turn to another passage in which he fills out his argument by stating forcefully that the only thing the Church should be relying on is its own unchangeable tradition:
[T]he light of the first Pentecost...will still be shining on the last day. This is the Church's only true continuity and unity. As the old hymn puts it, its one foundation, not requiring to be re-stated or re-interpreted, nor to be re-enforced by negotiated exercises in unity. Changeless in a changing world; everlastingly true amidst the swirling fantasy of passing time (ibid., 36).
The first part of Muggeridge's argument is pretty straightforward: Why would one join an institution that seems intent on destroying itself? It is the traditional piety, the "old women in black ...clutching their prayer-books" which draws Muggeridge; the self-destructive modern orientation, "the trends and policies now dominant within the Church" positively repel him. This repulsion was strong enough to counteract whatever good impulses he experienced to the contrary.
The second part of his argument is interesting as well. He says "if the ecumenical course is fully run" (i.e., if what he perceives to be the post-Conciliar Church's ecumenical vision is accomplished), the churches will essentially become merged. Muggeridge uses an example of the disliked Bishop of Woolwich joining the Roman hierarchy (this is a reference to John Robinson, a heterodox universalist and Anglican liturgical experimentalist whose 1963 book Honest to God denied the transcendence of God). Whether the hierarchies would ever formally merge is moot; the point Muggeridge is making is that he believes the ecumenical movement will end with the erasure of distinctions between Catholics and Protestants: if all churches are "one," then credal differences must take a backseat to unity. This would effectively blur the boundaries between one confession and another to the point where a heterodox universalist like John Robinson is regarded on equal footing with the successors of St. Peter. And if that is to be the case, then what is the point of going through the conversion process at all?
In the end, Muggeridge concludes that the Church's greatest strength is in remaining faithful to its own roots, to drink deeply from its own convictions, "not requiring to be re-stated or re-interpreted, nor to be re-enforced by negotiated exercises in unity." Whatever the pull towards the Catholicism Muggeridge experienced, the new "reformation" the Church was inflicting upon itself was enough to keep him away; not even Mother Teresa's influence was enough to counteract it—for a time, at least, for as mentioned, Muggeridge did eventually resolve his scruples and enter the Church in 1982, fourteen years after meeting Mother Teresa. Even so, I think his experience highlights how much of a stumbling block the post-Conciliar zeitgeist was (and is) to serious-minded people looking for spiritual sustenance amidst the tumults of the world. How many others like Muggeridge has the Church driven away for good by its miserable experimentation?
The second part of his argument is interesting as well. He says "if the ecumenical course is fully run" (i.e., if what he perceives to be the post-Conciliar Church's ecumenical vision is accomplished), the churches will essentially become merged. Muggeridge uses an example of the disliked Bishop of Woolwich joining the Roman hierarchy (this is a reference to John Robinson, a heterodox universalist and Anglican liturgical experimentalist whose 1963 book Honest to God denied the transcendence of God). Whether the hierarchies would ever formally merge is moot; the point Muggeridge is making is that he believes the ecumenical movement will end with the erasure of distinctions between Catholics and Protestants: if all churches are "one," then credal differences must take a backseat to unity. This would effectively blur the boundaries between one confession and another to the point where a heterodox universalist like John Robinson is regarded on equal footing with the successors of St. Peter. And if that is to be the case, then what is the point of going through the conversion process at all?
In the end, Muggeridge concludes that the Church's greatest strength is in remaining faithful to its own roots, to drink deeply from its own convictions, "not requiring to be re-stated or re-interpreted, nor to be re-enforced by negotiated exercises in unity." Whatever the pull towards the Catholicism Muggeridge experienced, the new "reformation" the Church was inflicting upon itself was enough to keep him away; not even Mother Teresa's influence was enough to counteract it—for a time, at least, for as mentioned, Muggeridge did eventually resolve his scruples and enter the Church in 1982, fourteen years after meeting Mother Teresa. Even so, I think his experience highlights how much of a stumbling block the post-Conciliar zeitgeist was (and is) to serious-minded people looking for spiritual sustenance amidst the tumults of the world. How many others like Muggeridge has the Church driven away for good by its miserable experimentation?
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