The Latin Letters of C.S. Lewis to Don Giovanni Calabria of Verona and to Members of His Congregation, 1947 to 1961

It is a pity that more of Lewis' correspondents did not address him in Latin, for his is really delightful, and he proves certainly as able to convey his thoughts easily and eloquently in the older language as in English. The letters of this collection really do not add up to a full book, and there is a certain amount of dead wood on both sides - but there is enough of the real Lewis in numerous comments (such as one about Ireland sectarianism for which his correspondent, Don Giovanni Calabria, felt compelled to tell him that "the Holy Spirit has dictated that sentence to you!") that we would not want to be without them. Remarkable also, and interesting, is the way in which Lewis, the holder of an Oxford triple First and one of the best-read men of his generation, addresses the only moderately well educated Father Calabria as a superior, purely because he is a priest - and not an Anglican priest either, mind you, but a Catholic. It is symptomatic of the seriousness with which he accepted the claims, not only of his religion, but of the Church.

I'm glad I bought this book. The layout and binding are attractive, and it is interesting how well the Lewis style comes across in Moynihan's translation. Nevertheless, I would rank _Latin Letters_ relatively low in importance among Lewis's books, somewhere below _Letters to an American Lady_. The letters are not terribly "meaty", and most of the substantial comments in the letters were also made by Lewis elsewhere. The book is only a little over a hundred pages, and taking into account the fact that roughly half those pages are taken up by the original Latin and that the remaining half has a generous amount of white space, there's really not a whole lot there.

In this book you can find a real cuantity of ecumenism, an a exceptional exaple to our world about it. This letters between an Anglican (Lewis) and a Catholic (Fr. Calabria), are full of the real God and love.I, extremly recomend this Book!

"Te beatum dico et dicam" = "I call you blessed and I always shall." Thus Father Don Giovanni Calabria addresses C.S. Lewis at one point in their correspondence out of gratitude for his work as a scholar and author. Between 1947 and 1954, C.S. Lewis and Don Giovanni Calabria exchanged a series of letters, written in Latin, sharing their concerns with each other and encouraging each other to carry on in the work of God. There is real warmth of feeling on both parties parts, and even if you don't read Latin, you will enjoy the English translations of this exchange. After Father Calabria died in 1954, Lewis continued to correspond with his fellow priest Don Luigui Pedrollo through 1961. Moynihan did a fine job of rendering these letters into English vernacular, so that Lewis's distinctive style can still be detected even through the lense of translation.