A wise and scholarly friend recently drafted a superb list of books for use in responding to individuals who have expressed an interest in Catholicism. Included are Catholic classics of old ….Apologia Pro Vita Sua…..and excellent works of more recent vintage…..’Literary Converts’ by Joseph Pearce.

We encourage readers to add their own favorites to this excellent but not exhaustive list.

 

SELECTIVE READING LIST FOR CATHOLIC INQUIRERS

 

  • St. Augustine of Hippo (former Manichean), Confessions; City of God (c. 5th century A.D., ‘in print’ for centuries).  
  • Bl. John Henry Newman (former Anglican), Apologia pro Vita Sua (1865); Development of Christian Doctrine (1845, 1878). 
  • G.K. Chesterton (former Anglican, Unitarian background), Orthodoxy (1908); St. Francis of Assisi (1923); The Everlasting Man (1925); St. Thomas Aquinas (1933). 
  • Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome (1902); The Great Heresies (1938).
  • Joseph H. Cavanaugh, Evidence for Our Faith (1949 and later). 
  • Ronald Knox (former Anglican), A Spiritual Aeneid (1948); Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion with Special Reference to the XVII and XVIII Centuries (1950).
  • F.C. Copleston (former Anglican), Aquinas (1955). 
  • Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ (1958 and later). 
  • Warren H. Carroll (former deist), A History of Christendom (Six Volumes, 1985 to 2013). 
  • Thomas Howard (former Evangelical and Anglican), On Being Catholic (1997).   
  • St. John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope (1994); Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body (Pauline Books 2007).
  • Steve Ray (former Baptist):  Crossing the Tiber: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church (1997); Upon This Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in Scripture and the Early Church (Modern Apologetics Library, 1999).
  • Scott Hahn and Kimberly Hahn (former Evangelicals) Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism (1993); Scott Hahn, The Lamb’s Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth (1999).  
  • H.W. Crocker III, Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church: A 2,000-Year History (2001). 
  • Joseph Pearce (former agnostic), Literary Converts: Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief (2000); C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church (2003).
  • Thomas E. Woods Jr. (former Lutheran), How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (2005).    
  • Devin Rose (former Baptist), The Protestant’s Dilemma: How the Reformation’s Shocking Consequences Point to the Truth of Catholicism (2014).