Conversion of intellectual peers to Catholicism striking – Douglas Murray

Conversion of intellectual peers to Catholicism striking – Douglas Murray Photo: Quillette Podcast

Author and political commentator Douglas Murray said he’s been “struck” by the conversion to Catholicism of some of his friends recently.

“I’ve been very interested in recent years watching contemporaries of mine who have seen through, looked at, stared at some of the same problems that I have and have come to conclusions of their own in a religious sense,” Mr Murray said on the Unbelievable? podcast.

Speaking with host Justin Brierley and New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, Mr Murray said he’s been “very struck” by the “very intelligent, thinking people” who’ve converted to Catholicism.

He said they come from a “wide range of different directions” and said he can think of the conversion of an Anglican, a Muslim and an atheist that he knows personally.

“What has struck me most is that they have gone to the most traditional form of that faith.

“I’m talking about people who have gone into Tridentine Mass-attending Catholicism. They don’t go to the weaker forms of it because they want to drink as directly from the well as they can.”

He said that it saddens him that a “religion with this inheritance” would offer “the most watered-down version of itself” to the extent that it is “indistinguishable” from everything else on offer in society.