Dear Powerball

Dear Powerball,

I heard some say on the show that C.S. Lewis became a Catholic before he died. Is this true?
Was Lewis a Roman Catholic? Didn't he believe in Purgatory?

I've looked into this and the caller may have been thinking about G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton did become a Roman Catholic, but I have never heard or read that Lewis did.

As far I can tell, Lewis was and remained an Anglican (Church of England). He was critical of some specific aspects of the Catholic faith; on the other hand, in letters he defends the idea of Purgatory as a necessary "cleaning up time" for the soul before entering heaven. He did acknowledge that the doctrine was open to abuse.

"I hope," he writes "that when the tooth of life is drawn and I am coming round, a voice will say "Rinse your mouth out with this." This will be purgatory."

In the essay Christian Reunion he states that the real disagreement between Catholics and Protestants is not about any particular belief, but about the source and nature of doctrine and authority:

"The real reason I cannot be in communion with you is ... that to accept your Church means not to accept a given body of doctrine but to accept in advance any doctrine that your Church hereafter produces."

When Lewis was working on Mere Christianity, he had Book II vetted by Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, and Presbyterian clergymen, to avoid any hint of denominational bias creeping in. In a telling passage in Allegory of Love he recognises the potential flaws in both the Catholic and the Protestant paths:

"When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religion of amulets and holy places and priest craft; Protestantism, in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes."