Brandon Vogt interviews Dr. Michael Ward, a man with unimpeachable ties to C. S. Lewis:
BRANDON: You recently converted to Catholicism after serving as an Anglican priest for many years. What drew you to the Catholic Church?
MICHAEL WARD: It was a long process—at least twenty years in the making. I view the change not as a turning of my back on my Anglican and Evangelical past, but rather as a continuation, a confirmation, even a completion of all that was best in that experience. Obviously, I can't go into any fine detail here about all the causes and reasons, but for me the change involved, among many other things, the following seven items, which I list in no particular order: First, a concern about Biblical interpretation. I came to realize that it's not enough just to say, "Scripture is my final authority" and quote a text to prove a point, because the devil can quote scripture! One must have an authoritative interpretative community and tradition within which one approaches the Bible. Sacred scripture and sacred tradition are actually co-ordinate sources of authority: you can't have one without the other, and can only find your balance with them both together. I've been helped a good deal on this by a little book by Mark Shea, By What Authority? An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition.
Second, sexual ethics. I had to write an essay on that subject when I was training to be an Anglican priest and, for the first time in my life, I read the relevant papal encyclicals (like Humanae Vitae). These caused me to sit up and take notice, because they actually made sense to me as did no other tradition of sexual ethical teaching that I was (or am) aware of. I began to see that the contemporary Protestant confusions on sexual ethics were in large part traceable to decisions made in the 1930s, on the seemingly unimportant matter of contraception. But from that apparently small change in doctrine, all the other developments have unfolded, with an iron inevitability. It’s all of a piece. Our current controversies about what constitutes marriage, for example, are part of the same moral earthquake that began rumbling so quietly in the ‘30s but is now rocking almost everyone and everything. Catholic sexual ethics contains many hard teachings, to be sure, but it makes sense, it holds together, and it also comes hand-in-hand with the graces of the sacraments that help us to live by those teachings—especially the sacrament of reconciliation, without which we’d all be permanently adrift!
Third, Peter. The more I looked at the Biblical teaching about Peter, the more I was convinced that he was commissioned into a very special office by Christ when he gave him “the keys” and said "on this rock I will build my Church". But Christ also says to him, "I have prayed for you that your faith fail not." Is it likely that Christ's prayer would not be answered? And if Christ is with the apostles "to the end of the age" (as per the close of Matthew's Gospel), does this not mean that the Petrine office would continue indefinitely, in the successors of Peter, the bishops of Rome, as, indeed, we see beginning to happen even before the death of the last apostle (according to Clement’s Letter to Corinth)? To be sure, many popes have been wicked, and the papacy has gone through tumultuous periods, but the tradition of Christian faith and morals has still been securely handed on, even to the present day. This is surely what one would expect, if the office has been properly constituted. The office-holder may be better or worse depending on the particular person, but the office never loses its constitutionality or authority.
Fourth, Mary. I began to be aware that Mary was a real blind-spot for me, and that my ignorance of her role in salvation history had a seriously detrimental impact upon my understanding of Christ. It was only when I edited a book on heresies (Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why it Matters What Christians Believe) that I was brought face to face with my own tendencies towards a Nestorian view of Mary. (Read chapter 3 of that book to discover what Nestorianism is, if you don’t already know!) Since becoming a Catholic, I have found that Marian devotions have been a tremendously rooting and enriching part of my spiritual life. She is the archetypal disciple, in whose very body God chose to dwell, in the unfathomable mystery of the Incarnation. And the place given to Mary in Catholicism helps explain also, at least in part, why Catholics have kept their head on sexual ethics, despite the modernist ethical earthquake. The femininity of the Church, and of all human beings vis-a-vis God, is constantly brought home to one by Mary’s example. The dignity of womanhood is affirmed, and all of us, men and women together, are reminded of the importance of contemplation and receptivity, of the need to say, with Mary, “Be it unto me according to Thy word”—and to let that affect our very bodies, as she did.
There are three more reasons, all of them worthy and then he answers additional questions.
Check out the whole thing. Walk away enlightened.
Then carry on.