Evelyn Waugh was born in England in A.D. 1903, son of a devout Anglican churchman who led an exemplary life and attended church regularly. Although his father never promoted any special interest in theology, Waugh aspired to become a clergyman for the Church of England very early in his childhood.

While his schoolmates devoted their time and energy to such hobbies as model trains and sports, Waugh was most interested in church affairs. He was fond of speaking of such things as chasubles and Erastianism.

The church appealed to him mainly for aesthetic reasons. The medieval cathedrals and churches, the rich ceremonies that surrounded the monarchy, the historic cities like Canterbury and York, the social organization of the parishes, and the traditional culture of Oxford and Cambridge Universities were some of the main reasons that the Church of England appealed to Waugh as a boy. He also liked the Anglican liturgy, which was still recited in the original old English.

He was very aware of the Catholic Church as a boy, but it was not nearly as appealing to him. Catholics in England met in cheap modern buildings, ugly by Anglican standards, and were served mainly by Irish missionaries who were fond of simple living. And besides, Waugh was born Anglican, not Catholic. So as a boy, being a Catholic was far from his mind.

Because of his enthusiasm for serving the Church of England, his parents sent him to the grammar school which taught young boys who were interested in entering the seminary. Once there, he lost all faith he had in any religion. He became what is known as an atheist, one who believes there is no God. He had lost his boyhood faith because his religion teacher claimed that none of the books of the Bible were written by their supposed authors.

Waugh admitted in an autobio-graphy years later that he thought if he had been a Catholic boy at a Catholic school he would have found that his teachers straightened him out immediately. He also wrote that if he had been receiving the sacraments of the Catholic Church, he would not have abandoned his faith in God. But the teachers at the Anglican school simply dismissed his unbelief, saying the boy was just "going through a phase."

Finding the truth
Ten years later, when Waugh was an adult (having already published several novels), he recovered his faith in God, but he did not return to the Church of England. He traveled throughout Europe, marveling at the Catholic culture he found and when he returned to England he was able to realize the difference between the Catholic Church and the Church of England.

England had been a Catholic country for 900 years, and then after King Henry VIII made himself the head of the church in England, it was Protestant for 300 years. Then, claims Waugh, during the 19^th century the country became agnostic, with no one caring about either religion or God. When Waugh returned to his native country from abroad he became aware of the Catholic structure that still lay buried beneath every aspect of English life. He easily discovered the Catholic origins of his country’s history, topography, law, and archeology.

It became soon apparent to Waugh that no religion which broke from the Catholic Church could be right, and the true, original Church wrong. He knew that if Christian revelation were true, then the Catholic Church was the society founded by Christ and all other Christian sects were only as good inasmuch as they had salvaged something from the true Church after the Great Schism and the Reformation.

Rejecting both the agnosticism of his literary and social friends and the Anglicanism of his parents and family, Waugh entered the Roman Catholic Church on September 29, A.D. 1930, under the spiritual direction of the legendary English Jesuit, Martin D'Arcy. Waugh was twenty-seven years-old when he became Catholic.

He knew that, because of his conversion, he would suffer the prejudices of the Englishmen of his day. Waugh knew, however, that he had found not a piece of the truth, but the truth itself. He made the Catholic faith the dominant influence in his life and writings.

"Catholic author"
Thus, Evelyn Waugh has become known to history as a "Catholic author." His novels after his conversion began to reflect a more serious worldview, as seen in the religious theme of his most famous work, Brideshead Revisited (A.D. 1945). He continued to travel widely throughout Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. In addition to writing many novels, he also wrote several biographies. One of these was Edmund Campion: Priest & Martyr, which became the first significant story about this Elizabethan Jesuit martyr. Some believe the Waugh biography aided in the canonization of Campion.

He died in A.D.1966, known as a brilliant satirist—one of the funniest writers of the 20^th century. Beyond that, Waugh was known as a faithful Christian pilgrim.

Other biography articles from Volume VI (1997-98) of St. Joseph Messenger:

Saint Edmund Campion: Come Rack, Come Rope!
Vernerable Padre Pio & the Holy Father
Alceo Dossena: Unmasking the Forger
Hilaire Belloc: England's Greatest Catholic Author
Mary Was Once a Child Too!
Pope Pius XII: True Son of the Church
Sebastian: the Saintly Hedgehog