Will Durant Foundation Posted Jan 7, 2006 10:55 PM
Durant was never anti-Catholic. Although he left the seminary when he lost his faith, Durant maintained a tremendous respect and fondness for Catholicism, so much so that his wife Ariel once referred to him as "Catholic from the neck down".
In his book "The Lessons of History", Durant spoke favorably of Catholicism, even predicting (poorly, as we can now see) that Catholicism would become the dominating force in US government by the year 2000. Said Durant: "Just as the defeat of the Moslems at Tours kept France and Spain from replacing the bible with the Koran, so the superior organization, discipline, morality, fidelity, and fertility of Catholics may cancel the Protestant Reformation and the French Enlightenment."
Unlike some other atheists, Durant not only respected other people's need for faith, he argued that religion was necessary for the development and maintenance of a civilized society. It was a key element of his personal philosophy.
