Pearce Will Share His Conversion Story: From The Hell of Hatred to the Well of Mercy
Mount Royal Academy’s visiting scholar Joseph Pearce will be giving a lecture at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, in New London, NH, on Saturday, October 6. The lecture, led by the renowned biographer of Catholic literary figures such as G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Hilaire Belloc, is open to the public and begins at 6:30 p.m.
Pearce will share his conversion story “From the Hell of Hatred to the Well of Mercy” in which he relates his own personal conversion story. Hear Pearce tell the story of his journey from the hatred of racism in a white supremacist organization, the hatred of anti-Catholicism with the Loyalist terrorist groups in Northern Ireland, and his two prison sentences for inciting racial hatred. Learn how he came to a belief in Christ and His Church.
Pearce has worked extensively on numerous projects throughout his career. He has authored books exploring the affiliations of Shakespeare and C.S. Lewis with the Catholic Church. He has hosted a series on EWTN about Shakespeare’s Faith and is currently filming special documentaries for the network about Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings.
Pearce is also the co-founder and co-editor of the St. Austin Review, an international magazine dedicated to reclaiming Catholic culture, and is the series editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions. In addition to all these accomplishments, he has been a privileged speaker at universities and colleges throughout the world.
As a youth, Pearce was involved with the National Front, a white nationalist party in his native England. He wrote violent and scathing articles for Bulldog, the Front’s associated magazine, which he developed and edited. In fact, his comments were so provocative that he was imprisoned twice by the British authorities.
Despite his explosive behavior and agnosticism, Pearce encountered and yielded to saving grace. After reading the works of G.K Chesterton—who would become a literary hero for him—he began to look differently on his radically violent lifestyle. The illuminating ideas discussed by Chesterton, ideas wholly new to young rebel, became the basis for Pearce’s conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1989.
On Sunday evening October 7, at 7:00 p.m. at Mount Royal Academy (St. Joseph Center), Pearce will lead a small-group discussion of C.S. Lewis's classic, The Great Divorce. This event is also open to the public.