Crux Ansata, subtitled 'An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church', (1943) is one of the last books published by H. G. Wells (1866–1946). It is a scathing, 96-page critique of the Roman Catholic Church.
 First edition cover | |
| Author | H. G. Wells |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Penguin Books |
Publication date | 1943 |
Publication
editCrux Ansata was published in 1943, during the Second World War, by Penguin Books, Harmondsworth (Great Britain): Penguin Special No. 129.[1] The U.S. edition was copyrighted and published in 1944 by Agora Publishing Company, New York, with a portrait frontispiece and an appendix of an interview with Wells recorded by John Rowland.[2] The U.S. edition of 144 pages went into a third printing in August 1946.[3]
Contents
editWells, then living in London under the regular German Luftwaffe bombings from across the English Channel, extensively attacks Pope Pius XII and calls for the bombing of the city of Rome. He also condemned mixed marriages, the involvement of the church in education, and funding for Catholic schools. He urged Britons to "avoid true and social intercourse with Roman Catholics" stating "We have tolerated the Roman Catholic Church in England for more than a century, believing that it would play a game of candor. We know better now."[4]
The book also forms a hostile history of the Roman Catholic Church, deeply imbued with anti-clericalism. Wells, by then an atheist, had a long history of anti-Catholic writings spanning decades.[5][6]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ H. G. Wells a comprehensive bibliography. Great Britain: H. G. Wells Society. 1972. p. 44. ISBN 0-902291-65-3.
- ^ Wells, H. G. Crux Ansata, an indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. New York: Agora Publishing. p. 140.
- ^ Wells, H. G. (1946). Crux Ansata, an indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. New York: Agora Publishing. pp. ii–iv.
- ^ Keating, Karl (10 January 1999). "H.G. Wells's War on The Church". National Catholic Register. Archived from the original on 13 May 2023. Retrieved 13 May 2023.
- ^ Keating, Karl (2013). "The Anti-Catholicism of H. G. Wells". Catholic Answers Magazine. Archived from the original on 7 May 2021.
- ^ Schweitzer, Darrell (25 February 2018). "Darrell Schweitzer: The H.G. Wells Problem". New York Review of Science Fiction. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
Incidentally, Wells was also intensely anti-Catholic.... This climaxed in a 1943 screed called Crux Ansata: An Indictment of the Catholic Church that Penguin rather inexplicably published as a mass-market paperback....
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