Why I Became Catholic: A Timeless Conversion Story

By Joseph Pope

Originally written as a personal testimony to his own children on why he became a Catholic, this is a thoughtful and timeless conversion story of Sir Joseph Pope written during the early part of the 20th century. Born in 1854 to a family renowned for distinguished service to the Canadian government, Joseph carried on the family tradition as a highly regarded civil servant.

Like St. Thomas More, Pope was held in high esteem as a public servant, and he enjoyed the total confidence of prime ministers and governors, all whom sought his advice. He was a prolific author of some two dozen books and pamphlets, including the official biographies of major Canadian historical figures.

Amidst this busy public life, Sir Joseph Pope developed a profound spiritual life and a mind always hungry for eternal truth. Raised in a nominal Anglican family, his persistent and courageous search for the fullness of truth and grace finally led him home to the Catholic Church.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Jun 9, 2010
• ISBN: 9781681496290

Book preview

WHY I BECAME A CATHOLIC

Joseph Pope, 1903

SIR JOSEPH POPE, K.C.MG., C.V.O., I.S.O

WHY I BECAME

A CATHOLIC

A Timeless Conversion Story

THIRD EDITION

IGNATIUS PRESS    SAN FRANCISCO

Original editions privately published

Ottawa, 1921; Toronto, 1987

Cover design by Riz Boncan Marsella

Third edition

Published in 2001, Ignatius Press, San Francisco

© 2001, J. Joseph Pope

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-0-89870-807-3 (PB)

ISBN 978-1-68149-629-0 (E)

Library of Congress control number 00-102638

Contents

Prefatory Note

Preface to the Second Edition

Preface to the Third Edition

Why I Became a Catholic

Prefatory Note

I desire it to be clearly understood that, in the following pages, I am not undertaking to present the Roman side of the great controversy that is always going on between Catholicism and Protestantism. I do not write with any controversial intent at all, though controversy is good in its place. My purpose here is simply to tell my own story, to state the case from the aspect under which I viewed it, to trace the personal operation of my own mind in the process of thought that led me from Anglicanism to the Catholic Church, to record for my children their father’s experience.

Joseph Pope            

Ottawa                

13 June 1921    

Preface to the Second Edition

As Joseph Pope (1854-1926) makes clear in the preface to his short work Why I Became a Catholic, he had it printed in a very limited issue, given that it was written for members of his immediate family only. One gathers that the 1921 edition was reproduced by the mimeograph process on legal-size (small-folio) paper. Judging by the condition of the copies that have come down to us, it appears that originally they were distributed in the form of loose sheets held together by a simple paper clip. Some copies were bound by their owners after they received them.

The present 1987 edition has been prepared on letter-size (quarto) paper through the use of a copying machine, which reduced the size of the original.

This second edition is a very limited one also. While the first was intended to be read by Sir Joseph Pope’s children, the 1987 edition, done two generations later, is for his great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

Admittedly 1921 was a time when a writer could count on his readers’ being possessed of a greater knowledge of English history than is generally the case now. For this reason it is possible that not every nuance in the book will be grasped on a first reading. Be that as it may, the heartfelt message conveyed in the closing paragraph is as appropriate now as it was sixty-six years ago.

J. Joseph Pope (1921- )

Toronto                

13 March 1987    

Preface to the Third Edition

The author of this book, Sir Joseph Pope, was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, on the sixteenth of August, 1854. He was the elder son of William Henry Pope, lawyer, politician and county court judge, who in time became a Father of Confederation, having been a delegate to both the Charlotte-town and Quebec Conferences of 1864. These led to the passing of the British—North America Act that in effect gave Canada its independence from the United Kingdom in 1867.

His mother was Helen DesBrisay, a descendant of Thomas DesBrisay, the first lieutenant-governor of Prince Edward Island appointed by the British after their conquest of Canada from France in 1759. His career began with an appointment in the Prince Edward Island treasury. Later, after Prince Edward Island entered the Canadian Confederation, he went to Ottawa in 1878 to serve as private secretary to his uncle, James Pope, who had joined the cabinet of Sir John A. Macdonald as minister of marine and fisheries. The uncle did not stay long in Ottawa, as ill health required his return to P.E.I. in 1881. Thus it was that Joseph Pope was free to accept a proposal to become private secretary to Sir John A. Macdonald, a post he held until the latter’s death in 1891. From that time he served in the Department of the Secretary of State. During the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, there was formed the new Department of External Affairs, and in 1910 Joseph Pope became its first undersecretary of state, a post he held until his retirement in 1925.

Throughout his service to the government, my grandfather enjoyed the total confidence of the prime ministers and governors general under whom he served, all of whom sought his advice. It became accepted that he would be about the first man to be called for advice by any governor general newly arrived from England. Rarely if ever since then has one man in the Canadian public service been in a position calling for so much tact, judgement, discretion and personal disinterestedness.

In 1884, Joseph Pope married Henriette Taschereau, a member of an old Quebec family from the days of the French regime. She was a descendant of both Louis Jolliet, co-discoverer of the Mississippi River, and Louis Hebert, known to history as the first settler of New France. They had six children, five sons and a daughter.

My grandfather was a fairly prolific author. Some two dozen books, pamphlets and articles of his have come down to us. Among these was the official biography, in two volumes, of John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister after Confederation. Also we have a biography of Jacques Cartier, discoverer of the Saint Lawrence River and the sites of present-day Montreal and Quebec City.

Because of his interest in astronomy, Joseph Pope wrote a pamphlet to mark the occasion of the 1910 visit of Halley’s Comet. The booklet contains a history of the comet’s appearances and a description of the calculations made by Edmund Halley in 1705 to forecast, quite accurately, the comet’s return in 1759.

Sir Joseph died in Ottawa on the second of December, 1926, sadly too shortly after his retirement the year before. His health had not been good for some time.

Of his five sons, four were in action on the Western Front during the Great War. Having four boys over a three-year period in danger for their lives from enemy action proved a great strain on Sir Joseph’s health, from which he only barely recovered with the coming of peace on the eleventh of November, 1918. The fact undoubtedly hastened the day of his death.

As indicated elsewhere in these pages, my grandfather wrote this work in 1921. It was issued in a very limited edition for the benefit of his children just a month before I was born. Over the years these children generally ensured that it was read by their children. In 1987, another limited edition was prepared, this time for the great- and great-great-grandchildren. The editors believe the time is now appropriate for an edition to be made available to the general public at long last. Sir Joseph Pope’s cogently presented arguments for conversion to the Catholic faith merit a wide audience. This is particularly true in a time of renewed appreciation of the merits of Cardinal John Henry Newman.

J. Joseph Pope (1921-)

Toronto                

30 March 2000    

WHY I BECAME A CATHOLIC

Why I Became a Catholic

It was during the Quebec tercentenary celebration in the summer of 1908 that I first met the late Duke of Norfolk. In the course of an agreeable conversation, His Grace asked if I were not a convert. I replied, ‘Yes.’ He then went on to say that he understood my marriage had had to do with my conversion—that the two facts were in some way related. Upon my asking him why he thought so, he replied that Lord Grey (then governor general) had given him to understand as much.

‘Well,’ said I, ‘a reference to dates will, I think, conclusively dispose of that question.’ I explained that I had been received into the Catholic Church on the fourteenth of March, 1875, and had first met my wife-to-be in July of 1883. Obviously, therefore, the only relation between these two events was that of sequence and succession in point of time. The Duke laughed and said he thought that that effectually settled the matter. It did not quite settle it for me, however.

In 1908,

Reviews for Why I Became Catholic

[karenelissa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I LOVED this book. It is a short little book written to the authors children, and later grandchildren, about why he converted to the Catholic Church. It includes a bit of history behind his conversion, the logic that lead to it, and a bit about what happened afterwards with relationships with his family and friends.

It amazed me how similar his story was to my own and to other converts I know, even with over a hundred years separating us. I would recommend it to all converts or anyone who wants a bit of an intro to what goes on in our heads.