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The First World War and perceptions of Catholicism in England La Primera Guerra Mundial y las percepciones acerca del catolicismo en Inglaterra Andrew SOANE [email protected] Abstract: After the First World War there was a changed, Resumen: Después de la Primera Guerra Mundial hubo more positive, attitude in England towards Catholicism en Inglaterra una actitud más positiva hacia el catolicis- in England. It was perceived to have risen to the test of mo inglés. Daba la impresión de que el catolicismo había the War where other forms of religion had failed. The estado a la altura de la prueba de la guerra, donde otras newly acquired optimism of Catholics found expression formas de religión habían fallado. El optimismo renovado in the apologetics of the era. New doubts about Protes- de los católicos se manifestó en la apologética de la época. tantism – tainted by imaginary association with Germa- Al mismo tiempo –por asociación imaginaria con Alema- ny – gave Catholic apologists the opportunity to mount a nia– surgieron nuevas dudas sobre el protestantismo que largely successful polemic against the hitherto accepted dieron a los apologistas católicos la oportunidad de poner biased national anti-Catholic historiography. An acknowl- en marcha una polémica bastante exitosa contra la his- edged classic of the genre is Hilaire Belloc’s Europe and the toriografía anticatólica nacional, que se aceptaba hasta Faith. ese momento. Un clásico reconocido de este género es Europa y la Fe de Hilaire Belloc. Keywords: Apologetics, Belloc, Catholic Evidence Guild, Palabras clave: apologética, Belloc, Catholic Evidence Catholic Literary Revival, First World War. Guild, renacimiento literario católico, Primera Guerra Mundial. It has often been said that the First World War was ‘good’ for Catholicism in Brit- ain 1. The claim was already being made shortly after the 1918 Armistice; contempo- rary accounts describe the renewed confidence that Catholics felt at that time, and their renewed zeal for the conversion of England to the Faith 2. That Catholicism 1 M. SNAPE, ‘British Catholicism and the British Army in the First World War’, Recusant History 26 (October 2002) pp. 314-358, at p. 314. 2 In this article I have used the term ‘Britain’ unless ‘England’ is specifically meant, as it is in this place. Although in common parlance the term ‘England’ is sometimes (mistakenly) used to refer to the whole of (Great) Britain, it is only one – albeit the largest – of three major parts of the same. Until Irish independence in the early 1920s the political entity represented in the Westminster Parliament was the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’, and thereafter the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’. In this article the UK has not been referred to, except where the term ‘Britain’ would be clearly incorrect, as when Ireland is specifically referred to. ANUARIO DE HISTORIA DE LA IGLESIA / VOL 23 / 2014 / 137-150 137 ISSN 1133-0104 Libro Ahig 23_2014.indb 137 02/05/14 12:46 ANDREW SOANE made good use of the opportunities presented during wartime has been corrobo- rated in recent years by academic works focusing on the experiences of Catholic soldiers and the often stirring example given by their army chaplains, as well as on Catholic attitudes back at home to the conflict 3. Less attention has been paid to the ways in which this energizing effect of the War was captured and assimilated into post-war English Catholic identity and efforts at conversion. Even though the effect is mentioned in the contemporary lit- erature, and can be detected in some of the apologetical writings of the period, the subject appears to have been relatively neglected by modern scholarship. Perhaps the most immediate result of the War in the sphere of Catholic apol- ogetics was the foundation, first in London and then in other major cities, of the Catholic Evidence Guild, whose teams of speakers, trained to expound the claims of the Church, organized lectures in the open air most evenings, and all day Sun- day, from dozens of street corner platforms to audiences of hundreds of listeners. The Jesuit classicist and educator, Henry Browne, wrote a monograph about the Guild in 1921 4. In it, he stated that at the time of the Guild’s foundation in April 1918, as the Great War was perceptibly drawing to its close, there was great op- timism among Catholics in England. Furthermore, according to him, there was a new attitude towards Catholics in ‘the nation as a whole’ 5. Catholicism had stood the test of the Great War. On the other hand, ‘other forms of religion and ir- religion’ had failed 6. In particular, in the battle-zone, the ‘unique power’ of the Faith had been displayed ‘in camps, in trenches and in hospitals’. Marshal Foch, a well-known Catholic, was widely admired. At home, too, the work done by Catho- lics was acknowledged as outstanding. ‘Catholicity was in the air’ 7. The English people had even adopted some ‘Catholic’ practices, such as (at least ambiguous- ly) prayers for the dead, war-shrines and the use of crucifixes 8. Among Catholics there could be detected ‘a deep patriotic stirring’ to convert the whole nation 9. It 3 See for instance the article cited above. Cfr. also R. SCHWEITZER, The Cross and the Trenches: Religious Faith and Doubt Among British and American Great War Soldiers, Westport (Connecticut), 2003. 4 Henry Browne (1853-1941) was Professor of Greek at University College Dublin 1908-1922, and founder of the Classical Museum in Dublin. For more on his life, cfr. C. SOUYOUDZOGLOU-HAY- WOOD, ’Browne, Henry Martyn’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, online [http://dib.cambridge.org/ viewReadPage.do?articleId=a1031#] [accessed 21 February 2014]. 5 H. BROWNE, The Catholic Evidence Movement: Its Achievements and its Hopes, London, 1921, p. 45. 6 Ibid. In the context, the phrase ‘other forms of religion and irreligion’ probably refers in the first place to the scene in England, but, as we shall see, in the climate of the day German Lutheranism may also have been in the author’s sights. 7 Ibid., p. 46. 8 Ibid., p. 47. Browne was quoting examples cited by the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Francis Alphonsus Bourne, in his Pastoral Letter for Quinquagesima Sunday, 10 February 1918. The publica- tion is F.A. BOURNE, The Nation’s Crisis, London, 1918. 9 Ibid., p. 46. 138 AHIg 23 / 2014 Libro Ahig 23_2014.indb 138 02/05/14 12:46 THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND PERCEPTIONS OF CATHOLICISM IN ENGLAND was indeed this very atmosphere which had brought about the foundation of the Catholic Evidence Guild. Browne cites two changes in the atmosphere. About the increased optimism among English Catholics in the post-war period there can be little doubt. Frank Sheed, in his memoirs, written many years later in 1975, 10 insists that there was in the 1920s an atmosphere of tremendous optimism – even of euphoria 11 – among Catholics; this optimism was the context for the foundation of his publishing house, Sheed & Ward, in 1926. With the benefit of hindsight, it is hard to accept tout court the often-cited renewed interest in religion among the population at large. Questions have been raised about its depth, as we shall see. But there is evidence to support Browne’s claim that there was a renewed interest among non-Catholics in Catholicism: annual conversions to Catholicism definitely increased at that time. The statistics for the period as reported in the National Catholic Directory corroborate the change in the post-War period. The Directory covers England and Wales. Statistics for conversions to Catholicism were first published in the 1913 edition; the figures cited were the most recent up to that time, i.e., for 1911. The figures were published – with two brief gaps – from then until 1989 (See graph, p. 17). An initial rise from under 4,000 reported conversions in 1911 to 9,000 per annum during the First World War is probably in part only a reflection of the time taken to implement in full the report- ing system across all dioceses. However, the increase from 9,000 or so conversions annually in the period from 1914 to 1917, to over 12,000 conversions in 1920 – an annual rate which was broadly maintained from then until 1934 – may well be attrib- utable, at least in part, to the religious atmosphere in the years following the Great War. Of course, it may also be attributable to the work of the Catholic Evidence Guild. But since the Guild was, as Browne wrote, itself at least partly an expression of the post-war atmosphere, that would also be evidence of the same effect, albeit at one remove. Maisie Ward, who lived through the War, and was both a Catholic writer and an Evidence Guild lecturer, addressed the subject nearly five decades later in her 10 Frank Sheed (1897-1981), writer and publisher, six times Master of the Catholic Evidence Guild, and its founder in Australia and the USA, was born in Sydney, Australia, and attended the Sydney Univer- sity Law School, graduating with distinction. He moved to England in 1920. In 1926 he married the writer Maisie Ward, and founded the publishing house of Sheed and Ward. In 1933 he founded Sheed and Ward Inc. of New York. His books include A Map of Life (1933), Theology and Sanity (1947), Theol- ogy for Beginners (1957) and To Know Christ Jesus (1962). Together with Maisie Ward he compiled the Catholic Evidence Training Outlines (1934). Cfr. P. HASTINGS, ‘Sheed, Francis Joseph [Frank] (1897- 1981), publisher and author’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online [http://www.oxforddnb. com/index/101066037/Francis-Sheed] [accessed 21 February 2014].

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