Orwell and Catholicism (George Orwell‪)‬

GEORGE ORWELL ENJOYED RUMINATING in print over how a writer's social and political beliefs seem to move beneath what he writes like an underground stream. One of the twentieth century's greatest essayists in English, he was extremely sensitive to how subject matter and honesty weighed against style. Among other topics, this frequently led him to expand on several ideas about Roman Catholicism that pervade his essays and non-fiction. Throughout his career he seemed to adjust these ideas to fit into his own world view, the outline or model of politics that looms in the background--or right at the front--of so much of his writing. John Rodden and Leroy Spiller are the only critics who have paid attention to this aspect of Orwell's thinking. But Rodden's main interest is Orwell criticism--how Catholic, Jewish, conservative, radical, and other critics have reacted to his work and whatever attention he paid to those groups--not the development of Orwell's attitude toward Catholics and his conclusions about them at the end of his career. Since the Church is an important institution and Orwell is an important writer, the subject is of interest. When reading his essays and journalism, we are able to follow a first-rate intellect's patterns of thought on a critical issue.