One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempers uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather an oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees jut that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours. Make his mind flit to and fron between an expression like “the body of Dhrist” and the actual faces in the next pew
Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous.
Where have you been? Lewis has always been a favorite with Catholics (especially Catholic J.R.R. Tolkien, who was instrumental in Lewis’ conversion to Christianity from atheism). In Pope Benedict’s latest book “Jesus of Nazereth” and other writings, he has often quoted Lewis (his first papal encyclical – “God Is Love” – was, it seemed to me, a more in depth treatment of Lewis’ “The Four Loves”) . My bookshelf is full of Lewis’ books, and very well worn they are. 