Orwell vs God

No one will be amazed that George Orwell disliked Roman Catholicism; it is odd, though, that he seemed unable to leave the subject alone. Even his left-wing cronies found this obsession tedious. The Marxist journalist Jon Kimche, who shared a flat with him in the mid-1930s, complained that his conversation amounted to little more than a series of diatribes against Rome. In print, Orwell might show some forbearance towards socially concerned Catholics such as Jacques Maritain and Georges Bernanos, or towards an apologist such as Frank Sheed, whom he considered exceptionally fair-minded. Even this tolerance, however, was in notably short supply.

Clearly, by all the canons of amateur psychology, the fellow did protest too much. Curiously, though, Orwell never showed any interest in arguing about doctrinal detail, almost as though he understood the necessity of an act of faith. What did outrage his flinty integrity was that so many intellectual Catholics hardly seemed to believe in their own creed.