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Shameless Popery

#232 C.S. Lewis’s Argument for the Papacy (sort of)

Shameless Popery

Catholic Answers

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.9658 Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

Joe examines C.S. Lewis’s argument for male-headship, and how that applies to Christianity and the Papacy. Transcript: Joe: Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer and I want to share a fascinating argument that CS Lewis made one that I agree with and one that I think points to the truth about the Catholic church and particularly about the papacy in ways that even he didn’t recognize at the time. Now many of Lewis as the author of works like the Chronicles of Narnia and his space trilogy, in which he presents Christian themes through the lens of fiction. But he&#...

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome back to Seamus Popery. I'm Joe Heschmire, and I want to share a fascinating argument that C.S. Lewis made, one that I agree with and one that I think points to the truth about the Catholic Church, and particularly about the papacy, in ways that even he didn't recognize at the time. Now, many of you know Lewis as the author of works like The Chronicles of Narnia and his Space Trilogy in which he presents Christian themes through the lens of fiction. But he's also one of the finest modern Christian apologists. And I want to

0:25.4

explore some apologetical arguments today. Now, he was an Anglican, but his focus was to

0:30.7

affirm what he called mere Christianity, presenting a case for why someone should believe the

0:35.4

Christian gospel to be true without getting into all of

0:38.0

the particular disputed points between Catholics and Orthodox and the various denominations of

0:42.4

Protestantism. And in fact, the argument that I'm focused on today is from his book,

0:46.6

near Christianity, which was itself adapted from a series of radio talks that he gave during World War II.

0:52.5

Before we get into that, I would be lying if I said I wasn't grateful for all of my

0:56.8

wonderful supporters over at shamelessjo.com.

0:59.4

Just know that your support is what keeps this show going and helps us to keep improving.

1:03.6

For as little as $5 a month, you can get access to the show notes with all the sources

1:07.4

used in each episode and a PDF digest of the major points. You can also get early access to ad-free videos, exclusive Q&As, and much, much more. So thank you very much to all of our patrons. And if you're not already a member, please come join us over at shamestjo.com. All right, so first, to give some context to the argument that he's making, Lewis is defending the Christian belief in male headship.

1:30.0

This is a theme I've explored a lot lately, but I want to point out what he says,

1:33.2

because he recognizes that when we're talking about the idea of male headship,

1:37.0

there are two questions which come up.

1:38.6

Something else, even more unpopular, remains to be dealt with.

1:43.9

Christian wives promised to obey their husbands.

1:49.0

In Christian marriage the man is said to be the head. Two questions obviously arise here.

1:56.0

One, why should there be a head at all? Why not equality?

2:01.6

Two, why should it be the man?

2:04.6

It's the way that Lewis answers the first of these two questions that I want to focus on.

2:08.6

Why should a family have a single head at all instead of being governed by two co-equal parents?

...

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